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Submit PDF form data IMS database.

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Former Community Member
Hello



I have developed a pdf form using livecycle designer and it has a submit button in it. The form is published to our organization website. What we would like to do is, when the user opens and fills up the pdf form either on web browser / or after downloading to their desktop, users should be able to post the data in the form directly into our IMS database. Our users are not connected to our organization network but just to the internet.



I understand that we need to use a Submit button with 'Submit As' property set to XML. IMS connect is an IBM interface that would read this xml and pass the data to the database. But, what I would like to know is the architecture and how the components communicate here. i.e. for our design document.



I am assuming that we would need to lay out these components on the diagram but not very sure of the order in which the data is flowing from client to the database.



1. Web browser

2. Internet Connection

3. Webserver (this is where the org. website is and the form is located on the website)

4. LiveCycle ES sitting on an application server?

5. Database tier.



Appreciate if anyone could tell me exactly the steps and the data flow.
19 Replies

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Former Community Member
Hello



Currently I am working on similar project, so I can share some information.



First you need youre PDF form. It could be static(as in youre example) or it could be generetag by LiveCycle API.

Submit button has few different types of submit(POST, XML, etc). We are using Xml.

After user press button submit XML data will be posted to youre Web Server(it could be Tomcat , JBOSS actually it's up to you).

On this server you have to parse this XML (for examle JAXB),took necessary data from it and store it to DB.

LiveCycle ES is running under JBOSS server.

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Former Community Member
Hello Paul

Thanks so much for your response on this. What I still do not understand is the role of LiveCycle ES? Do we really need it in the architecture.



Appreciate your quick response.

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Former Community Member
Hello

If you want dynamically generate PDF using LiveCycle API, you will need LiveCycle ES. But if you have standalone PDF you don't need LiveCycle ES.

For PDF creation you need Livecycle Designer, WebServer - for hosting your application, parsing result XML and storing it to DB.

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Former Community Member
Hello Paul



I have started implementing this solution and kind of struck.



I have the PDF form developed using livecycle designer and it has submit button which when clicked should submit the form data in either xml or (preferably,delimited text) to a ftp location.



Here are some details about the requirement:



The pdf form will be available on our organization website, and will allows users to access the form, fill it and submit. there is also a security mechanism where in users have to enter the "user id" and "password" which are located on the form itself before clicking submit. If the "user id" and "password" is not entered, submit button will be disabled and users will only be able to print the form.



Once "submit" button is clicked, "user id" and "password" should be authenticated against LDAP and if successful, ftp the form data and save it as a file on ftp server.

If authentication is not successful, then do not ftp the form data and show a message to the user that authentication failed.



We are planning to use Servlets, Websphere application server to achieve this.



Appreciate if you could point me in the right direction.

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Former Community Member
HI



I am also working on the same project as you guys'. I am using web service in my project. One thing i want to know is how to specify the url in the submit button in sending data as an xml format to web service. And how to retrieve the data from the xml data from the web service site. Any help and suggestion are appreciated because I am stuck at this point.



Thanks.

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Former Community Member
You cannot use a submit button to invoke a web service. You woudl create your web service to recieve a single parameter (the XML that represents the data on your form). Then create a hidden field (to hold the data) and bind the input parameter to that field. Now using a regular button, add code that will take the data that is in the data dom and dump it into your hidden field:



HiddenFieldName.rawValue = xfa.datasets.data.saveXML("pretty")



Make sure the your hidden field is set for multiline. Now in the next line of code we need to invoke the web service. You can use the invokeBtn supplied by the DataConenction wizard (dropped on your form of course). You can use the command:



invokeBtn.execEvent("click");



This will send the data in the hidden field to the web service. You can code your web service to return a string that indicates that the data was recieved. You can bind that output parameter to another hidden field. Once the web service executes then that field will hold the message string. Now you can put up a message box to the user:



app.alert(hiddenfieldname.rawValue);



When I talk about hidden fields I mean to make the presence invisible not hidden.



Make sense?

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Former Community Member
Hi Paul,



Thanks for your help. It works until the invokeBtn.execEvent("click");. But the problem is when the web service is invoked, the web service can't catch the data in the hidden field.



I appreciate your further suggestion.

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Former Community Member
Have you bound the input from the web service to the field?

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Former Community Member
Hi paul,



The way you suggested me works fine. I really appreciate for that. But there is one more thing. It can only work with Adobe Professional. When I open the form with Adobe Reader and click the submit button, it doesn't invoke the web service and send the data. How can I make the data send to the web service in Adobe reader?



Thanks.

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Former Community Member
You have to Reader Extend the form using Livecyle server to allow the Reader to do Web Service calls

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Former Community Member
Could you tell me how to make the form reader extend using Livecyle server because i don't find the way as i google about it?



Thanks.

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Former Community Member
You can download an eval copy of Livecycle on the adobe devnet site.

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Former Community Member
Is there any way to include the name of saved pdf in the xml sent to web service?

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Former Community Member
The web service does not deal with files so to answer your question ....No. There is a call that will give you the name of the PDF that is currently open if that will do any good. You could get that and set it into a hidden field.

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Former Community Member
To fill the pdf form,is there anyway to get xsl from designer?