Adobe Forms + Workflow

[Former Member]

Hi all

I have a question on using Adobe Forms with Workflows. It is possible to have an Off-line Adobe form and when retrieving the information from the form, fire off a workflow in ECC6, without putting that data into any table?

Example:

1. Form for Vendor Master Create filled

2. System reads form and kicks off workflow for approval.

3. After approval completed, data in workflow container is used to create the data in SAP.

Thanks.

Nick

[pokrakam]

Yes, theoretically possible but before researching details I would suggest discussing this with the people who pay the bills. Adobe forms are licensed per form and in my experience the projects tend to stop there because they aren't cheap

Vendor creation doesn't sound worthwhile to spend that kind of money on, so I'd get that clarified before wasting a lot of time on it.

[Former Member]

Hi

Thanks for the reply. Will check the cost issue with my guys here. Would you know technically how this can be achieved though?

Thanks again.

Nick

[pokrakam]

Hi Nick,

I'd love to implement one myself as I think it's a great solution, but unfortunately I've never made it beyond the theoretical aspects, the brakes always come on when finding out how expensive they are.

A custom BSP/Webdynpro page all of a sudden sounds much more attractive, even if you hire someone to build it for you. But a few people here have implemented some Adobe functionality (not all smooth sailing by the sounds of things), so hopefully somone will respond. Otherwise search the archives and you should be able to dig up some posts.

Oh, there is also a testdrive system with Adobe forms for download here on SDN if you have a lot of time on your hands.

Cheers,

Mike

[Former Member]

Hi Nicholas,

agree with Mike's comments: they aren't cheap and furthermore Adobe forms are not applicable to all scenarios.

SAP Interactive Forms by Adobe as they are officially called are best suited into form scenarios where you just need to collect information (no complex UI logic like table management or dynamic actions). If you have more complex requirements on the form like calculations, report display etc. then leave it. You're better off with Web Dynpro ABAP/Java or BSP.

If however Adobe forms are a good fit UI wise, then I suggest having a look first at the ISR framework SAP delivers. I don't exactly remember, but it might even contain a standard scenario (formUIworkflow) for creating vendor master data requests.

What use the ISR brings in is that you can configure the form content characteristics (transaction QISRSCENARIO) and data passing to the to-be created notification without any coding. No custom tables thus needed, the notification acts as the data persistence object. There are also standard Web Dynpro apps delivered you can use to display the configured Adobe form.

What happens with ISR in the end is that a notification is created and a standard BUS7051-CREATED event is published. Then in your workflow you can in a background method extract the notification details and fill it anywhere you want.

If Adobe forms are not a good fit to the requirements, then creating a complete solution from scratch might be an only choice.

What we've done sometimes is that we've used the ISR notifications for persistence and created a custom BSP or Web Dynpro on top of it to act as the UI while workflow takes care of the actual process logic. There are a few ISR_* function modules you can use to programmatically create an ISR notification with, so it's not that tricky even. When compared with custom tables for data storage, you're backed up by some standard configuration options and you don't need to make your own development objects this way.

Hope this helps?

-Mikko