Adding Control Number to Form

[#1]

I am new to LiveCycle Designer. Is there anyway to add a control number to forms? I would like to have it so that when the form is submitted, the form number will increase by one. Any suggestions?

[#2]

There are many ways to do it. One would be a webservice call in the pre-submit or initialize, depending on when you want it. I add a number on the back end after being submitted.

[#3]

I am not sure what a webservice call is. By reading online documentation I tried using a variable as a place holder to increase the number by one each time the form is submitted, but that does not seem to work.

[#4]

A variable in the form can only keep track of data within that instance. If 5 people open it, all 5 will start at the same number. If the form is opened from disk by a single person, submitted, closed and reopened, it starts at the same number again. You have to have some common point of keeping track of the number. So you have to make a server call, webservice, database, etc. It cannot be done within the scope of a stand alone PDF form.

[#5]

If you do not have access to an external source you could generate a random number based on time but that would not be a sequential number but you can guarantee a unique number.

[#6]

Thanks for the help on this. I will review some FormCalc documentation to see how best to do this.

[#7]

Paul, can you post the script how to generate a random number based on time?



Thanks

[#8]

Simply use the FormCalc command Time(). It will return the # of milliseconds since the epoch. I put this command on the initialize evet of the field that I want the number in.



$ = Time()

[#9]

Paul, do you mean something like this:



$.rawValue = (Math.floor((new Date()) / 1000) ) %1000000000;

My question it is the number will generate will be guarantee a unique number?

What about if two users open the form at the same time?



Thanks again

[#10]

It woudl have to be at exactly the same time (if you include milliseconds in your time then you can be quite certain the the numbers will be unique).