LiveCycle Designer in Acrobat Pro - Database and webservices

[Former Community Member]

Hello all,

Appreciate any information you can provide.

If I purchase acrobat pro - which includes livecycle designer - what can I do with regards to:

• dynamic forms that retrieve data from a websevice to populate a drop down list
• submitting entered data to a webservice or database
• distributing the form to users - embedding it in a portal etc

So if I don't purchase the whole LiveCycle ES - and associated hardware and app servers (i.e. Websphere) what limitations will I run into trying to use dynamic and interactive forms with Designer?

Thanks

[Former Community Member]

After a bit more reading - I've discovered the Acrobat Reader Extensions - and associated cost.

What is the advantage of using the Acrobat solutions over Microsoft Infopath?

[djaknow]

You don't have to buy Reader Extensions to enable rights usage for Reader. You can do that through Acrobat as well.

[Former Community Member]

Thanks,

but isn't there a limit of 500 users or forms or something?

I can't implement this at at site and then find out that we hit an aribtary limit of 500 at which point we'd need to spend 100's of thousands of dollars to continue?

[djaknow]

Here's a link to an Acrobat forum that explains the 500 thing:

http://www.acrobatusers.com/forums/aucbb/viewtopic.php?id=14443

A form can be distributed an unlimited number of times but you can only extract information from filled in forms returned to you 500 times. Check out the link, it's only a paragraph and it explains it pretty well.

[Former Community Member]

thanks djaknow - very much appreciated.

Lets assume i have an audience of about 100 users for this document. I only have Acrobat Pro with Designer included. Can I freely connect to webservices and databases, and submit captured data to update an ERP without having to purchase the whole livecycle product or the Reader Extensions.

Would this involve much custom coding?

i.e. imagine a "New Supplier" form that our Supply department fills out each time a new vendor needs to be added to the ERP system....

[djaknow]

I don't know for sure what it would take for webservices, but as far as database linking I think that's available with just a copy of Designer. You'd need to set up the database connection of course, but I don't think you need anything extra from Adobe to get it done.

[Niall_O_Donovan]

Hi,

With LC Designer you can develop a form which has data connections to databases and/or web services.

The issues to consider are: what version of Acrobat will the user have; and if the user only has the Reader then how are you Reader Extending the form.

User has the fulll version of Acrobat:

• user can open form;
  
• fill it in;
  
• print it;
  
• data connections to databases and web services will work;
  
• user can save the form.

User has the Reader (form not Reader Enabled)

• user can open form;
  
• fill it in;
  
• print it;
  
• data connections to databases and web services will NOT work;
  
• user CANNOT save the form.

User has the Reader (form Reader Enabled using the full version of Acrobat before deployment. See licence restrictions)

• user can open form;
  
• fill it in;
  
• print it;
  
• data connections to databases and web services will NOT work;
  
• user can save the form.
  

User has the Reader (form Reader Enabled using the full LC Enterprise Suite)

• user can open form;
  
• fill it in;
  
• print it;
  
• data connections to databases and web services will work;
  
• user can save the form.
  

Hope that helps,

Niall

[Former Community Member]

Thanks Niall - very detailed repsone.

Its a real shame that I have to buy the full LiveCycle ES server and everything else just to have Webservices and Database access from my forms. This really limits the adobe solution and as such can't be considered in the types of organisations I'm working with.

I guess I will just have to revert to Microsoft InfoPath

[Former Community Member]

One final question - is this documented anywhere on the adobe websites? Seems to be a hidden gotcha that must confuse many people...

this licencing model is really convuluted....