Help tracking the condition of a form

[Former Community Member]

Hi All

Thank you for viewing my post.

I am a relavtive beginner with Livecycle but have got a reasonable grasp on scripting with javascript etc.

Here's my problem.

I have created an internal order acknowledgement form.

This form is filled in by our internal sales dept, and in the form they indicate the reviews required to process the order e.g. engineering review, operations review, sales review or a combination of them.

They do this via checkboes.

Currently when they submit the form, I have background script that saves the form based on specific information in the form i.e. order number + initals of user + customer name + todays date.pdf on our server (using the trusted application method). After this operation a Mailto command is specified to mail the form to the departments that are ticked.

Each department that is selected for review then has its own comments area and submit button on the form. Once the department has reviewed the order and done whatever work is required for it they simply submit the form which in turn gets saved as order number + initals of user + customer name + todays date + departmentname review completed.pdf, and emails the form back to the order processor.

OK this all works great!!

But it now means I have up to 4 forms being saved for each order, which is OK but now I have been asked to make it more tracable for metrics.

i.e. if a department looks at the folder where the forms are stored can they view quickly the forms requiring their attention.

So I have a few options but not sure how to achieve any of them.

1. - When each file is saved it then deletes the last? - risky because if it is open at hte time on anybodys computer this process wont happen, and I am not sure if it is possible to delete files with javascript through adobe reader?

2. - export certain fields on each submit  (just the order number, customer name and current status of submit buttons) to a single external file which I can then interrogate with excel or something similar). This sounds good but I have no idea how.

3. use a mysql database to collect the data from these fields but again not sure what is involved with this / or if its possible.

ANY HELP IS MUCH APPRECIATED.

THANK YOU IN ADVANCE.

[Former Community Member]

Understand your issue and typically this is handled by a Process Management or workflow product. LiveCycle has an option for this but it might be overkill for what you are trying to do. Anyways regarding your points:

1. You cannot delete anything from th efile system form inside of Acrobat (because of security)

2. You cannot export specific fields, you can export all of the data then manipulate it using some 3rd party program. Think in terms of submitting it to a srver then having a server program extract the bits you needd and do the update.

3. You can have the forms communicate with a DB but that requires the need for another LiveCycle module called Reader Extensions to allow Reader users to access the DB, If you are using Acrobat then that is not a requirement. I am giving a presentation on this topic next Tues (23rd of Mar) at 12 EST. If you are interested you can register here:

http://acrobatusers.com/events/2220/tech-talk-database-connected-forms

Paul

[Former Community Member]

Hi Paul

Thankyou for your response.

Is it possible to move a file from one directory to another using

JavaScript under adobe control?

Thankyou for the invite to your seminar I will attend.

Thanks

Graham

pguerett <forums@adobe.com>

19/03/2010 15:44

Please respond to

clearspace-412794753-561046-2-2671843@mail.forums.adobe.com

To

Graham Spaull <gspaull@moog.com>

cc

Subject

Help tracking the condition of a form

.

Understand your issue and typically this is handled by a Process

Management or workflow product. LiveCycle has an option for this but it

might be overkill for what you are trying to do. Anyways regarding your

points:

1. You cannot delete anything from th efile system form inside of Acrobat

(because of security)

2. You cannot export specific fields, you can export all of the data then

manipulate it using some 3rd party program. Think in terms of submitting

it to a srver then having a server program extract the bits you needd and

do the update.

3. You can have the forms communicate with a DB but that requires the need

for another LiveCycle module called Reader Extensions to allow Reader

users to access the DB, If you are using Acrobat then that is not a

requirement. I am giving a presentation on this topic next Tues (23rd of

Mar) at 12 EST. If you are interested you can register here:

http://acrobatusers.com/events/2220/tech-talk-database-connected-forms

Paul

[Former Community Member]

No ...that would break the model as well. Basically you cannot touch anything that is not under acrobat/reader control.

Paul