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bc Getting Started with Form Guides Adobe® LiveCycle® ES Version 8.0 July 2007 © 2007 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved. Adobe® LiveCycle® ES 8.0 Getting Started with Form Guides for Microsoft® Windows® Edition 1.1, July 2007 If this guide is distributed with software that includes an end user agreement, this guide, as well as the software described in it, is furnished under license and may be used or copied only in accordance with the terms of such license. Except as permitted by any such license, no part of this guide may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Adobe Systems Incorporated. Please note that the content in this guide is protected under copyright law even if it is not distributed with software that includes an end user license agreement. 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Contents About This Document.................................................................................................................. 4 Who should read this document? ............................................................................................................................................ 4 Additional information................................................................................................................................................................. 4 1 About Form Guides...................................................................................................................... 6 2 Creating, Rendering, and Deploying Form Guides................................................................... 9 Creating form guides ..................................................................................................................................................................10 Rendering form guides ..............................................................................................................................................................10 Deploying form guides ..............................................................................................................................................................10 3 Walking Through Creating a New Form Guide........................................................................ 11 Getting started ..............................................................................................................................................................................11 Step 1: Starting Guide Builder..................................................................................................................................................12 Step 2: Creating the form guide structure ..........................................................................................................................14 Linking field captions ...........................................................................................................................................................15 Step 3: Previewing your form guide......................................................................................................................................16 Step 4: Customizing your form guide ...................................................................................................................................17 Form guide and panel layouts ..........................................................................................................................................17 Form guide properties .........................................................................................................................................................17 Panel properties and display rules...................................................................................................................................18 Visual appearance..................................................................................................................................................................18 Step 5: Saving your form guide...............................................................................................................................................19 Next steps........................................................................................................................................................................................19 4 Using a Form Guide in Workspace ES....................................................................................... 20 Prerequisites...................................................................................................................................................................................20 Getting started ..............................................................................................................................................................................20 Adding your form design and assets to the repository ...........................................................................................20 Creating a new process to deploy a form guide ...............................................................................................................21 Drawing a process diagram .........................................................................................................................................21 Creating an xfaForm variable ............................................................................................................................................22 Updating your process to use the xfaForm variable .................................................................................................23 Activating your process .......................................................................................................................................................24 Deploying a process to Workspace ES using Archive Administration ......................................................................24 Testing in Workspace ES ............................................................................................................................................................25 Next steps........................................................................................................................................................................................25 5 Customizing Form Guides Using Flex Builder ......................................................................... 26 Index ........................................................................................................................................... 27 3 About This Document Welcome to Getting Started with Form Guides. This document introduces you to form guides, an alternative view of a form that guides users through the form-filling process step by step. It provides high-level information about these topics: ● What form guides are ● Overview of how to create, render, and deploy form guides ● A walk-through of creating a simple form guide based on a form design ● A walk-through of deploying a form guide to Adobe® LiveCycle® Workspace ES ● Overview of the process for customizing form guides Who should read this document? This document is intended for anyone who is interested in learning about form guides. Although no previous knowledge is assumed, you should have an understanding of Adobe LiveCycle Designer ES, Adobe LiveCycle Workbench ES, Workspace ES, and Adobe LiveCycle ES (Enterprise Suite). Additional information Adobe has a wide variety of resources about form guides, targeted at a variety of audiences. 4 Adobe LiveCycle ES About This Document Getting Started with Form Guides Additional information To view these resources, go to the location specified in the See column in the following table. For information about See Detailed information about creating and editing form guides using Guide Builder. LiveCycle Designer ES Help, available within Designer ES] Customizing form guide layouts and components using Adobe Flex™ Builder™ Customizing Form Guides, available at www.adobe.com/go/learn_lc_fgCustomizing The ActionScript™ classes and properties included with LiveCycle ES. LiveCycle ES ActionScript Language, available at www.adobe.com/go/learn_lc_fgActionScript Rendering and deploying form guides using processes created in Workbench ES. LiveCycle Workbench ES Help, available within Workbench ES Rendering a form guide using the Adobe LiveCycle Forms ES API. Developing Applications Using LiveCycle ES APIs, available at www.adobe.com/go/learn_lc_programming Detailed information about the classes and methods included with LiveCycle ES. LiveCycle ES Java API Reference, available at www.adobe.com/go/learn_lc_JavaAPI LiveCycle ES terminology LiveCycle ES Glossary, available at www.adobe.com/go/learn_lc_glossary Other services and products that integrate with LiveCycle ES www.adobe.com Patch updates, technical notes, and additional information on this product version www.adobe.com/support/products/enterprise/ind ex.html 5 1 About Form Guides Form guides are an alternative view of a form that guides users through the form-filling process step by step. Form guides are based on the Adobe Flash® technology. To create form guides, form authors build on an existing form design to provide a more visually appealing and streamlined method of capturing form data. The enhanced interface can help reduce data entry errors through improved usability by simplifying the amount of information presented to a form filler at a given time. Along with the form guide you can also provide an Adobe PDF rendition of the form. The PDF often provides the contract or document of record of the transaction, which is useful for saving locally, printing, and archiving. In addition, if a digital signature is required, users sign the PDF and not the form guide. Each form guide is a collection of layouts, sections, panels, and controls that together provide an alternative interface of a form for users to view and fill. For example, the following images show a form and a form guide that are used to collect information for an accident claim. The original form uses a more traditional layout that is consistent with a printed form, whereas the form guide uses a layout similar to those used for content on a website. 6 Adobe LiveCycle ES About Form Guides Getting Started with Form Guides 7 Original form Form guide based on the original form Form guides provide form authors with various ways to customize and present forms to users. For example, form authors can use form guides to group required data into logical groups called sections. Form authors select a form guide layout that defines the presentation of sections and dictates how users navigate between sections. Each section is composed of one or more panels that contain a set of fields from the original form and any form guide navigational controls, such as Previous or Next buttons. The form guide then steps users through data entry by section. In each section, form authors can display help text or video to provide assistance to users with filling the fields in that section. Form authors can also set rules to control the display of optional sections based on user-entered data. When the form guide is completed, users can submit their form, either electronically or by printing a paper copy, according to the submission method defined by the form guide. In addition to the presentation enhancements that form authors can implement, form authors can import existing cascading style sheet (CSS) files to assist in creating a form guide appearance that is consistent with existing materials. Adobe LiveCycle ES About Form Guides Getting Started with Form Guides Each form guide is derived from a form, and data collected in a form guide automatically passes through to the form itself. Therefore, most scripts, validations, and other business logic on your form will continue to function on a form guide. For detailed information about form guide scripting support, see LiveCycle Designer ES Help. 8 2 Creating, Rendering, and Deploying Form Guides Form guides are integrated throughout LiveCycle ES. The process of creating, rendering, and deploying form guides involves various LiveCycle ES solution components as well as various skill sets. The image below illustrates the general process of creating, rendering, and deploying form guides as part of a LiveCycle ES solution. This process involves these tasks in the order shown: 1. Form authors create a form guide based on an existing form design by using Guide Builder in Designer ES. 2. After a form guide is created, a developer creates a new process in Workbench ES that includes a call to Adobe LiveCycle Forms ES to render the form design as a form guide (SWF file). 3. Using Workspace ES, the rendered form guide is made available to end users to view, fill, and submit. Adobe LiveCycle Workspace ES Form Design Create a new process Users view and fill forms in browser Render form guides Guide Builder Adobe LiveCycle Forms ES Form Guide Note: You can also deploy form guides by creating a custom Java™ or web services application that calls the API for Forms ES to render a form guide. See Deploying form guides. 9 Adobe LiveCycle ES Creating, Rendering, and Deploying Form Guides Getting Started with Form Guides Creating form guides 10 Creating form guides You create and edit form guides by using Guide Builder in Designer ES. Creating a form guide involves these general tasks in Guide Builder: ● Adding new sections and panels ● Dragging and dropping the form objects that will appear in each panel ● Changing the layout of the form guide and the individual panels ● Modifying the color of buttons, text, and backgrounds ● Specifying rule-based or answer-based conditional navigation of form guide panels based on form data or feedback ● Previewing your form guide in a web browser ● (Optional) Importing custom CSS or SWC files to share styles among form guides ● (Optional) Importing custom Flex library SWC files that contain custom form guide layouts, panels, or controls for use with your form guide For more information about Guide Builder and creating form guides, see Adobe Designer ES Help. For a general introduction to creating a new form guide, see “Walking Through Creating a New Form Guide” on page 11. Rendering form guides The process for rendering form guides is similar to the process used to render forms in PDF or HTML. You must create a new process in Workbench ES that uses the form guide rendering operation renderFormGuide. For more information about how to render a form guide by using the Forms service within Workbench ES, see Using a Form Guide in Workspace ES. It is also possible to call the API for Forms ES outside of Workbench ES by using either a Java or web services-based application. For more information, see Developing Applications Using LiveCycle ES API at http://www.adobe.com/go/learn_lc_programming. Deploying form guides When deploying a form guide in a LiveCycle ES solution, you can give users the ability to fill the form guide directly from their To Do lists within Workspace ES. To enable this functionality, you create a process in Workbench ES that includes a step to render a form design as a form guide. The process is deployed to Workspace ES where form fillers can view, fill, and submit the rendered form guide. For more information about deploying processes to Workspace ES, see Using a Form Guide in Workspace ES. You can also deploy form guides by using a Java or web services application. The application first calls the API for Forms ES to render a form design as a form guide and then returns the rendered form guide to a user either in a browser or by making the necessary files available in a publicly accessible URL. For more information, see Developing Applications Using LiveCycle ES APIs. 3 Walking Through Creating a New Form Guide This section walks you through the process involved in creating a new form guide from an existing Designer ES form design. Getting started The first step in creating a form guide is to start Designer ES and either open an existing form design or create a new form design within Designer ES. After you create and save your form design, you create a new form guide by following these general steps: ● Start Guide Builder. ● Define the form guide structure. ● Preview your form guide to verify the structure. ● Customize the appearance and behavior of the form guide. ● Save the form guide style information and apply the form guide updates to the form design. Note: To correctly preview form guides in a web browser, you must have Adobe Flash® Player 9.0.28.0 or later installed. Sample form design Throughout this chapter, you will use a mortgage application form as an example. The mortgage application form illustrates an electronic form that is based on an original paper form design. The sample mortgage application form uses conventions and layout techniques that are logical in situations where the form needs to be printed. However, those same conventions limit the online data entry experience. For example, all of the form fields are arranged on one side of a sheet of paper. Due to the space restriction, text size has been kept small and is difficult to read when viewing the entire form at once. The form is divided using plain white rectangles, and more meaningful text is not noticeable due to the space required for data entry. 11 Adobe LiveCycle ES Getting Started with Form Guides Walking Through Creating a New Form Guide Step 1: Starting Guide Builder 12 The following image illustrates what the mortgage application form looks like when viewed in PDF. This situation is typical where a form guide could be created to greatly improve a user’s online form-filling experience. In the next steps, you will walk through converting this form to a form guide. Step 1: Starting Guide Builder After you open or create a form in Designer ES, the first step is to start Guide Builder. Guide Builder is the tool within Designer ES that you will use to create and edit form guides. Each time you start Guide Builder, it opens in the default expanded view. From the expanded view, you can access all of the features of Guide Builder, such as customizing the appearance and behavior of your form guide and previewing the form guide in a web browser. Adobe LiveCycle ES Getting Started with Form Guides Walking Through Creating a New Form Guide Step 1: Starting Guide Builder 13 ➤ To start Guide Builder 1. Start Designer ES. 2. Open a form design (either an XDP file or a PDF file) created in Designer ES. 3. Select Tools > Create or Edit Form Guide. To change to the simplified view, click Hide Properties. From this view, you can modify the structure of your form guide, and drag text and field objects directly from your form design onto sections and panels. Adobe LiveCycle ES Walking Through Creating a New Form Guide Getting Started with Form Guides Step 2: Creating the form guide structure 14 Note: The default behavior of the Guide Builder window is not to remain on top of other applications. To change the behavior to always be on top, right-click and select Always On Top. Before experimenting with the various Guide Builder options, you should first consider how you want to logically structure your form guide to collect user data. Step 2: Creating the form guide structure The most important aspect of creating a new form guide is determining what information you need to collect from your users. Your original form design likely contains fields for capturing all of the necessary data; however, it may contain additional fields or information that is unnecessary for some form fillers. For example, the mortgage application form contains fields that record the status of the mortgage application, either Accepted or Rejected, in a section marked For Office Use Only. These fields can be omitted from the form guide because they are not relevant to the user filling the form. When you determine what information you need to collect, you must consider how to arrange the various text and fields from your original form. A form guide is organized into a hierarchy that consists of three different types of containers: Guide At the highest level, a guide stores all of the information for a particular form guide. You can create multiple form guides for each form design to handle different scenarios. For example, you can create one guide for a mortgage applicant, another for a mortgage broker, and another for a bank manager. Section Within a guide, you create one or more sections, which contain panels, which are used to organize into logical categories the information that you display to users. For example, you can divide the mortgage application into sections for the applicant information and loan information. Panel Each section contains one or more panels, which are the containers into which you will add or link text and fields from your original form, such as the form fields for the applicant name, address, and telephone number. ➤ To add a guide, section, or panel to the form guide hierarchy: ● Click Add Guide, Add Section, or Add Panel to add the corresponding item to the form guide hierarchy. ➤ To add text objects and fields to a panel: 1. In the Guide Builder expanded view, click Add or Bind Fields. 2. Drag objects from the Form Objects view onto panels in the form guide hierarchy. Using the mortgage application example, the following image illustrates one way to structure a form guide based on the original form design. In this example, a new section was created for six of the seven sections on the form design. Within each section, where appropriate, the structure includes separate panels to display the applicant and co-applicant information. The seventh section, named Signatures And Adobe LiveCycle ES Walking Through Creating a New Form Guide Getting Started with Form Guides Linking field captions 15 Processing, is omitted from the form guide because it requires users to digitally sign the form, which is an operation they can only perform on the PDF. Linking field captions On some forms, such as the mortgage application example, field captions may exist as separate text objects instead of text entered specifically as the caption of a data entry field in Designer ES. In these situations, you can link the text from a text object to the caption of a data entry field or even the name of a guide, section, or panel by dragging the text object onto the link icon for the associated field. Notice that in the preceding illustration that some captions are linked and some are not. The link icon is available when a link exists. ➤ To link text from a text object to an item in the form guide hierarchy: 1. In the Guide Builder expanded view, click Add Or Bind Fields. 2. In the Form Objects hierarchy, select the text object to bind. 3. Drag the text object onto one of the following items in the form guide hierarchy: ● Field ● Panel ● Section ● Guide The link symbol beside the item in the form guide hierarchy is no longer grayed out is now available, indicating that the object is now bound to a text object. After you create the structure of your form guide and add all relevant text and fields from your form design, you can preview your progress and visualize how users will interact with the form guide. At this point, the preview will only use default Guide Builder options. Later, you can customize the appearance of your form guide to suit your specific needs. Adobe LiveCycle ES Getting Started with Form Guides Walking Through Creating a New Form Guide Step 3: Previewing your form guide 16 Step 3: Previewing your form guide You can preview your form guide at any time in the expanded Guide Builder view by clicking the Preview button in the title bar. When you preview, Guide Builder renders your form guide as a SWF file and displays it in your default web browser. Note: To correctly preview form guides in a web browser, you must have Flash Player 9.0.28.0 or later installed. If you are using Microsoft® Internet Explorer, depending on your internet browser security settings, you may need to manually allow form guides to be displayed each time you preview. You can disable this behavior by starting Internet Explorer, selecting Tools > Internet Options > Advanced > Security, and selecting Allow Active Content To Run In Files On My Computer. When previewing, Guide Builder displays warnings or errors, as well as log information, that occur during form guide rendering to help with debugging. If you encounter problems related to scripting, you can optionally turn off all scripting on your form guide by using the Exclude Scripting option in the Preview view. This allows you to temporarily ignore scripting errors so that you can debug the other areas of your form guide. Using the mortgage application example, the following image illustrates preview output using default Guide Builder settings. After you define the structure of your form guide, you can alter the appearance and behavior by using the customization capabilities of Guide Builder. Adobe LiveCycle ES Walking Through Creating a New Form Guide Getting Started with Form Guides Step 4: Customizing your form guide 17 Step 4: Customizing your form guide Using Guide Builder, you can modify the appearance and behavior of your form guide at both the guide level and the panel level, and you can also modify the appearance of text, fields, logos, and other form guide components. Form guide and panel layouts The visual customization that affects the form filler the most is applying layouts at the guide and panel levels within the form guide. Guide layouts specify the type of navigation control that the form guide uses and the placement of the navigational hierarchy, guide help text, and data entry panels. Panel layouts specify the flow of data within a single data entry panel. By default, Guide Builder uses the Left Accordion guide layout for the form guide and the One Column panel layout for all panels within the form guide. The image of the mortgage application example in Step 3: Previewing your form guide illustrates the appearance of these default layouts. ➤ To apply a new guide layout: 1. In the Guide Builder expanded view, click Edit Guide. 2. In the form guide hierarchy, select the guide container. 3. If it is not already displayed, click Select Guide Layout. 4. Select a form guide layout. ➤ To apply a new panel layout: 1. In the Guide Builder expanded view, click Edit Guide. 2. In the form guide hierarchy, select the panel container whose layout you want to change. 3. If it is not already displayed, click Select Panel Layout. 4. Select a form guide layout. Form guide properties At the guide container level, in addition to specifying a guide layout, specify any preferred behaviors for the form guide, including these behaviors: ● Visual effects that are displayed when the form guide initially renders in a browser ● Visual transitions that appear when navigating through the panels ● Form guide help text ● How data from the form guide is submitted from the form guide itself, from the PDF form, as a printed PDF, or from a hosted application such as Workspace ES. Note: If you choose to submit data from the form guide, you do not have to specify the submit button that will submit the data unless you have defined additional data processing on the submit button. Adobe LiveCycle ES Walking Through Creating a New Form Guide Getting Started with Form Guides Panel properties and display rules 18 ➤ To view and change form guide properties: 1. In the Guide Builder expanded view, click Edit Guide. 2. In the form guide hierarchy, select the guide container. 3. If it is not already displayed, click Guide Properties. 4. Change form guide properties as necessary. Panel properties and display rules At the panel container level, in addition to specifying a panel layout, specify any properties for the panel. However, unlike guide containers, in addition to properties, you can set certain display rules for panels that allow them to be displayed only in specific situations. For example, you can specify that a certain panel is displayed only when a field value is true. You can also create answer-based navigation by specifying simple questions that appear after a form filler navigates from the current panel to another panel. The answer-based navigation allows you to control which panel to present to the form filler based on how the form filler answers the question. For example, asking a form filler whether there is a co-applicant for the loan can eliminate displaying co-applicant related information. ➤ To view and change panel properties and display rules: 1. In the Guide Builder expanded view, click Edit Guide. 2. In the form guide hierarchy, select a panel container. 3. Click Set Panel Properties and change any of the panel properties. 4. Click Specify Panel Display Rules, select Use Display Rules, and add any display rules. 5. Click Specify Answer-Based Navigation and add any questions. Visual appearance Using Guide Builder, you can set the color schemes for all aspects of a form guide, including these: ● Form guide borders and backgrounds ● Form guide help and panel help ● Panel borders and backgrounds ● Buttons ● All levels of the form guide navigation tree ● Progress bar ● Colors and fonts of all form guide text Note: Guide Builder resets all form guide style information if you select a new form guide layout. You must save your style information in either a CSS file or a SWC file to reuse or share the information. ➤ To customize the visual appearance of your form guide: 1. In the Guide Builder expanded view, click Customize Appearance. Adobe LiveCycle ES Walking Through Creating a New Form Guide Getting Started with Form Guides Step 5: Saving your form guide 19 2. Browse through the following accordion menus and change any color and font options: ● Customize Guide, Logo, And Progress Bar ● Customize Panels ● Customize Field And Text ● Customize Buttons and Repeater Layouts ● Customize Navigation When you make changes to the visual appearance of your form guide, before you can apply your form guide changes or return to your form guide hierarchy, you will be prompted to save your form guide style changes. For more information, see “Step 5: Saving your form guide” on page 19. Step 5: Saving your form guide If you have not made any style changes, you can save your form guide at any time by clicking Apply. This action stores the form guide information within the original form design. Note: Even after you have applied your form guide to the original form design, you must also save the original form design in Designer ES to save your form guide for future design sessions. When you make changes by using the Customize Appearance view in Guide Builder, you must save your style changes before applying your form guide changes or returning to the form guide hierarchy. All style information is saved in an external SWC file which must be stored and deployed with the form design that contains the form guide. After you save your form guide, close Guide Builder and save your form design in Designer ES. Next steps After you create a form guide, you must render and deploy it to your users. Using a Form Guide in Workspace ES discusses rendering and deploying form guides to your users by using processes created in Workbench ES. For more information, see the Form Guides Documentation Roadmap in the section Additional information. 4 Using a Form Guide in Workspace ES This section introduces you to the steps involved in rendering and deploying form guides to Workspace ES by using a process created in Workbench ES. This section only briefly introduces the form guide rendering and deployment options that are available. For more information, see LiveCycle Workbench ES Help at http://www.adobe.com/go/learn_lc_workbench. Prerequisites It is assumed that you have already created your first LiveCycle ES application using Creating Your First LiveCycle ES Application or that you are already familiar with creating a process diagram. In addition, you must have completed these tasks before you precede with this walk-through: ● Installed and configured Workbench ES, where you will create the process. ● Acquired access to Workspace ES with the appropriate permissions. ● Created a form guide from an existing form design using Guide Builder, a tool within Designer ES. Guide Builder includes a default form guide layout called Workspace that is configured to present a form guide in a way that is visually consistent with the Workspace ES interface. For more information about creating a form guide, see Walking Through Creating a New Form Guide. Example form design Throughout this section, you will use a mortgage application form as an example. The mortgage application form design illustrates an electronic form that is based on an original paper form. For more information about the mortgage application example form design, see Walking Through Creating a New Form Guide. Getting started Before you can begin to create a process that incorporates a form guide, you must ensure that you have completed the following tasks: ● Added the form design that contains your form guide and the form design asset files, such as your SWC file and associated image files, to the LiveCycle ES repository. For more information, see Adding your form design and assets to the repository. ● Imported the LiveCycle ES samples as part of the LiveCycle ES installation. To complete this chapter, you must use the Render Form Guide and Submit Form Guide processes located in the Samples - Forms category in Workbench ES. Adding your form design and assets to the repository To include a form guide in a process, you must first add the associated form design and its assets to the LiveCycle ES repository. Assets include image files used on the form design, even if they are embedded into the form design, associated schema files, and form guide style information saved in a SWC file. Your form design and its asset files must exist within the repository in the same relative folder structure as they did when the form design was created. For example, if you stored the form guide style information in 20 Adobe LiveCycle ES Getting Started with Form Guides Using a Form Guide in Workspace ES Creating a new process to deploy a form guide 21 either a CSS file or a SWC file that existed in the same folder as the form design, both files must exist in the same folder in the repository. ➤ To add your form design and assets to the LiveCycle ES repository: 1. Start Workbench ES. 2. Select File > Login and log in to LiveCycle ES. 3. In Workbench ES, select the Resources view. If the Resources view is not displayed, select Window > Show Views > Resources. 4. (Optional) To create a folder or folders to store your form design and its assets, in the Resources view, right-click and select New Folder, type a unique name for the folder, and then click OK. 5. Drag your form design from the location on your local file system into the Resources view and place it in the appropriate location. 6. Repeat Step 5 for all asset files associated with the form design. After the form design and associated assets are added to the repository, users can make changes by using the stand-alone version of Designer ES and dragging the updated files into the repository, or by using the Adobe Form Design perspective within Workbench ES. Creating a new process to deploy a form guide After you complete all of the steps in the Getting started section, you are ready to create a simple process that you can deploy to Workspace ES. In this example, you will create a process that renders a form guide to a user in Workspace ES and then routes the submitted form guide back to the user who initiated the process. In general, to create a process that deploys a form guide, you must complete the following tasks: ● Drawing a process diagram ● Creating an xfaForm variable ● Updating your process to use the xfaForm variable ● Activating your process When you have finished creating your process, you must configure it using LiveCycle Administration Console to make it available in Workspace ES. Drawing a process diagram A process diagram is the visual representations of the business process that is being automated. For the purposes of this walk-through, we are using a simple example of a process diagram that has a single operation that assigns everything back to the user who initiated the process within Workspace ES. For more information about constructing process diagrams, see “Creating Processes” in LiveCycle Workbench ES Help. ➤ To construct a new process diagram: 1. Select File > New > New Process. Adobe LiveCycle ES Using a Form Guide in Workspace ES Getting Started with Form Guides Creating an xfaForm variable 22 2. Ensure that Create A New Process is selected and click Next. 3. Assign the process a unique name, category, and description, and then click Finish. For example, using the Mortgage Application form, type the following values: Name: Mortgage Application - Prebuilt Category: Mortgage Application Description: Mortgage application process for the prebuilt example 4. Click Finish. 5. In the Services view, select Process Management > User and drag the Assign Task operation into your process diagram. 6. In the Properties view, expand the General section and assign the operation a unique name. For example, type Fill and submit the mortgage application form guide as the name. 7. In the Properties view, expand the Initial User Selection section and select Assign To Process Creator. 8. Save your process diagram. After you have created your process diagram, you must create and configure a new xfaForm variable for the operation in your process. For more information, see Creating an xfaForm variable. Creating an xfaForm variable When you implement your process, you create a variable of type xfaForm to point to the form you want to use in your process. The xfaForm variable specifies the form design you want to render as a form guide, and also specifies the processes that will be used to render the form guide and handle the data submission in Workspace ES For more information about xfaForm variables, see “Creating xfaForm variables” in LiveCycle Workbench ES Help. ➤ To create an xfaForm variable for your process: 1. Select the process you created in the section Drawing a process diagram. 2. In the Variables view, click Create New Variable . 3. Assign the variable a unique name, title, and description. For example, you could use the following values: Name: fgVar Title: Mortgage Application Variable Description: Mortgage application xfaForm variable. 4. In the Type list select xfaForm. 5. In the General section, select Required and select Input. 6. In the DataType Specific Settings section, type the LiveCycle ES repository folder path and file name of the form design to include in your process. Adobe LiveCycle ES Using a Form Guide in Workspace ES Getting Started with Form Guides Updating your process to use the xfaForm variable 23 7. Click Advanced Settings, click Browse, select the invoke operation of the Render Form Guide process located in the Samples - Forms category, and then click OK. 8. In the Service Input section, do the following tasks: ● For the formUrl parameter, select task from the first list and select Form URL from the second list. ● For the inDocData parameter, select task from the first list and select Form Data from the second list. ● For the targetURL parameter, select Custom Configuration from the first list and select targetUrl from the second list. ● For the userAgent parameter, select Custom Configuration from the first list and select userAgent from the second list. 9. In the Service Output section, do the following tasks: ● For the outFormDoc parameter, select task from the first list and then Document from the second list. 10. Click the Submit Service tab, click Enable Submit Service, click Browse, select the invoke operation of the Submit Form Guide process located in the Samples - Forms category, and then click OK. 11. In the Service Input section, do the following tasks: ● For the document parameter, select task from the first list and select Submitted Content from the second list. ● For the environmentBuffer parameter, select Custom Configuration from the first list and select environmentBuffer from the second list. ● For the targetUrl parameter, select Custom Configuration from the first list and select targetUrl from the second list. ● For the userAgent parameter, select Custom Configuration from the first list and select userAgent from the second list. 12. In the Service Output section, do the following tasks: ● For the outputDocument parameter, select task from the first list and select Form Data from the second list. 13. Click OK, and then click OK again. After you have created your xfaForm variable, you must configure your process to use the new variable for data mapping. For more information, see Updating your process to use the xfaForm variable. Updating your process to use the xfaForm variable After you have created the xfaForm variable, you must update the operation in your process diagram to use the variable for input and output data mapping. Caution: If you do not configure your operation to use the xfaForm variable for data mapping, unexpected results may occur in Workspace ES when a form is submitted. ➤ To assign the xfaForm variable for input and output data mapping: 1. Select the operation in the process diagram you created in the section Drawing a process diagram. Adobe LiveCycle ES Using a Form Guide in Workspace ES Getting Started with Form Guides Activating your process 24 2. In the Properties view, expand the Form Data Mappings section and type the path to your xfaForm variable in the Input Form Variable and Output Form Data fields. For example, you can assign the following values: Input Form Variable: /process_data/fgVar Output Form Data: /process_data/fgVar 3. Save your process diagram. At this point, all that remains is to activate your process to make it available to Workspace ES. For more information, see Activating your process. Activating your process The last step in creating your process is to make it available to Workspace ES by activating it in Workbench ES. For your process to work correctly, the render and submit processes you specified in the Creating an xfaForm variable section must also be activated in Workbench ES. If they are not, activate them by following the procedure below. ➤ To activate your process: ● In the Processes view, right-click your process and select Activate. Deploying a process to Workspace ES using Archive Administration After you finish creating your process, you must create a new Workspace ES category and set an endpoint using Archive Administration. For more information about using Archive Administration, see Archive Administration Help in LiveCycle Administration Console. ➤ To create Workspace ES category and endpoints using Archive Administration: 1. Start LiveCycle Administration Console and log in using administrator privileges. By default, the URL of the LiveCycle Administration Console is http://servername:8080/adminui/. 2. From the Home page, click Services > Archive Administration > Category Management. 3. Click Add . 4. Type a unique category name and a description. For example, you could use the following values: Name: Mortgage Application Description: A prebuilt form guide mortgage application example. 5. Return to Archive Administration and click Service Management. 6. Locate your process and select it from the list. 7. On the Configure Mortgage Application - Prebuilt page, click the End Points tab and select TaskManager from the list. 8. Click Add. Adobe LiveCycle ES Using a Form Guide in Workspace ES Getting Started with Form Guides Testing in Workspace ES 25 9. Type a unique endpoint name, a description, and any task instructions. For example, you could use the following values: Name: Mortgage Application - Prebuilt Description: A prebuilt example of a mortgage application form guide. Task Instructions: Fill and submit the mortgage application form. Categorization: Mortgage Application Operation Name: invoke 10. In the Categorization list, select the category you created in Step 6 and, in the Operation Name list, select invoke. 11. Click Add. 12. Click the Security tab and click Add Principal. 13. Select the entry named All Principals, select the INVOKE_PERM permission, and then click Add. The process is now available for all users to initiate from within Workspace ES. Testing in Workspace ES When a process is available in Workspace ES, users can initiate the process and test to verify that process routing, form guide rendering, and data handling are working correctly. To view a form guide in Workspace ES, users must be members of the Workspace ES role. For information about adding users to the Workspace ES role, see LiveCycle Workbench ES Help. ➤ To test your form guide using Workspace ES: 1. Start Workspace ES and log in. 2. Click Start Process. 3. Select the new category you created and click the corresponding process. For example, select the Mortgage Application category and click the Mortgage Application - Prebuilt process. The form guide renders on the Form tab within Workspace ES. 4. Fill out the form guide and then click Complete. 5. In Workspace ES, click To Do. 6. Click the form in the process, verify that the data you entered appears correctly, and then click Complete. Next steps To learn more about additional documentation related to form guides, see the Form Guides Documentation Roadmap in the section Additional information. 5 Customizing Form Guides Using Flex Builder Guide Builder in Designer ES provides a number of ways for you to customize the appearance and behavior of form guides. However, advanced developers can choose to customize their form guides in the following ways: ● Creating custom CSS files that you can import into Guide Builder to quickly update form guide styles and easily share styles across multiple form guides. ● Creating custom form guide layouts, panel layouts, and controls by using Flex Builder. Flex Builder is an open-source integrated development environment (IDE) built on the Eclipse workbench. Note: Creating customized form guide layouts, panel layouts, and controls is optional. Only advanced users who have a thorough knowledge of Flex Builder should attempt to modify form guide components in Flex Builder. For more information about customizing form guides by using a CSS file or Flex Builder, see Customizing Form Guides at www.adobe.com/go/learn_lc_fgCustomizing. For more information about using Flex Builder, go to www.adobe.com/go/learn_lc_Flex. 26 Index A H ActionScript 26 activating a process 24 Adobe Flash 9 Adobe LiveCycle Designer ES 10 Adobe LiveCycle Forms ES 10 Adobe LiveCycle Workbench ES 10 Adobe LiveCycle Workspace ES 10 hierarchy, form guide 14 HTML transformation 10 B binding field captions to text objects 15 C controls 6, 10 creating form guides 11 process diagrams 21 xfaForm variables 22 creating form guides 9 creating new form guides 10 CSS files 6 custom CSS files 10 customizing form guides guide and panel layouts 17 using Flex Builder 26 D deploying a form guide 20 deploying a form guide, process 21 deploying form guides 9, 10 display rules 18 documentation, related 4 F Flex Builder 26 form guide hierarchy 14 form guide layouts 10 form guide properties 17 form guides about 6 creating 10 customizing 26 deploying 10 rendering 10 I information resources 4 L layouts 6 libraries, SWC 10 linking 15 LiveCycle ES. See Adobe entries P panel 14 panel display rules 18 panel properties 18 panels 6, 10 PDF transformation 10 previewing 16 process diagram, creating 21 properties form guide 17 panel 18 R renderForm operation 10 rendering a form guide 20 rendering form guides 9, 10 repository, adding a form guide 20 S saving a form guide 19 section 14 sections 6 starting Guide Builder 12 SWC libraries 10 SWF 9 T testing a form guide in Workspace ES 25 U using a form guide in Workspace ES 20 G guide 14 Guide Builder 10 default view 12 simplified view 12 X xfaForm variables creating 22 using in processes 23 27
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