Question about Attachments

[LC_Apprentice]

Let's say I have a form that captures data about a document.  For example the form asks for the document name, old and current revisions, and the document title (oversimplified example).  Then I have a Word document with redlines in it to show the changes I have made from the old revision to the new one.  Is there a way to add a button to my form that attaches the Word document to my form?  Can you even attach a document to a form (user A), e-mail it to someone (user B) and then pull that document out for review, edit and save changes and re-attach the document (User B) to the form and e-mail it back to the original user (User A)?

[_Nith_ · Accepted solution]

The answer is 'Yes' for all your questions.

You can:

1. Attach a file by clicking a button               - I have attached a reference manual to do this. See page 130

2. Submit the pdf along with attachments      - As usual sending your email through email client / ES Email Service

3. Review /Update/Delete attachments          - For this, the pdf must be reader extended if you are just using a Adobe Reader

Hope this info will be useful to you.

Nith

[LC_Apprentice]

Thanks for the info.  I haven't had time to test the information in the Guide but it looks promising.

On a tangent, another question that comes up from this: can I make specific portions/sections of the form read only after it has been filled out by a department and e-mailed back to me?  So that when I send it to the next department, they can only make changes in their section of the form?  I couldn't find anything in the guide...

[Former Community Member]

You could use script to set the various fields to "ReadOnly", or to be more secure, you could used Digital Signatures with field collections that will lock the associated fields when a signature field is signed.  The field collection is a set of interactive form fields (text field, checkboxes, numeric fields etc...) taht you define as part of the form design and you "assign" to a particular Signature Field object.

Regards

Steve

[LC_Apprentice]

Steve,

Thanks for the input and the timely response.  I think I have the basic idea and I have been able to place the signature field object and associate the section/subform with the signature field.  Question now is how do I create D. signatures for these other departments to use?  I don't have the budget to go out and purchase these and I don't need that level of security anyhow.  Is there an easy way to do this?

or should I just go with trying to create a script to make objects read only?

[Jono_Moore]

I've been playing with this on a couple of forms.

You can create a button for the person to click that "signs" their part of the document by making it read-only before forwarding it on. We don't have digital signatures, so we've been using language like "by clicking this button you affirm you are who you're supposed to be...blah blah blah."

You can manually create digital signatures for people in your organization using Acrobat, but if you have lots of people it would be a real pain.

[LC_Apprentice]

I was playing around with Adobe and I saw that one could create signatures.  My main problem was that how did I create the type that Adobe needs for the document.  Then I found that after creating the signature, you had to export it and this created the *.p7c or *.cer file that I needed to link to the signature field when using LiveCycle.  Like you said though, I have a number of people that could sign this document and that sounds like a ton of work to create them all.  I will if needed but I think your way sounds more efficeint.  What is the scripting I would use with the button?  I assume when clicking the button I would somehow have to change the state of the subform/section to make it read only but what do I have for the click event?

[Jono_Moore]

You use fieldName.access = "readOnly"; I'm currently using a script that locks down the whole form:

// Get the field containers from each page.
for (var i = 0; i < xfa.host.numPages; i++) {
var oFields = xfa.layout.pageContent(i, "field");
var nodesLength = oFields.length;
// Set the access type.
for (var j = 0; j < nodesLength; j++) {
var oItem = oFields.item(j);
if (oItem != this) {
oItem.access = "readOnly";

}

}

}

(Double check the number of closing braces if you use the above script, I've copied it out of another chunk of code (I'm using WindJack's AcroDialogs to do popups))

You'll have to play around with just doing subforms - I'm not sure if the readOnly will propogate to child items. You may have to use a variation of the script to loop through a subform making things read only. Hopefully Paul or someone here can help you with that, I'm not sure how to change it to do a subform only.

[LC_Apprentice]

Thank you everyone for your input.  I finally went with creating departmental Digital IDs and certificates, distributing those and using the digital signature box to modify the fields I needed to be set as read only.  I couldn't figure out the scripting for setting specific subforms to read only and so I had to take this route.

Again, I appreciate all the help.

[Jodi1725]

Have you found that when a department emails the form back to you that the information they supposedly entered is missing?  I am having that problem with one of the forms I created in Livecycle.  The user fills out their department info - saves the form - then when they email it and I reopen the form the info they entered is gone.

Back to the attachements question.  Is there a way in livecycle to add an attachment in your form?  Right now I am creating the form and then adding the attachment in Adobe using the "add a file as a comment"  Is there anyway to actually put it in livecycle?

thanks!
Jodi

[Former Community Member]

Are they using Acrobat or Reader to do the mailing? Is th eform Reader Extended to allow local save?

Paul

[Jodi1725]

Yea Paul!!!

The user is using Reader and the from is Reader Enabled.  Is there something else I have to do when I extend the the rights in reader to make it allow local save?

[ab198100]

I have to send documents to my boss in PDF files

[ab198100]

Do I have to use Acrobat reader to send PDF files