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Adobe Forms - Workflow - EP

Former Member
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Hi,

I am doing some loude thinking. Currently working on a proposal to create an application with Adobe Forms. The idea is to have a workflow as well where the relevant party fills in their part of a form and so it moves to the next. The forms will be made available centrally via EP. I just like some suggestions on what would be the best way to have the workflow. There is a WAS (Java) available as well.

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markus_meisl
Active Contributor
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Hi Khuram,

the integration of Interactive Forms and workflow is an area where SAP currently offers different possibilities. SAP plans to expand on the functions offered in the near future.

As of today, you have basically two choices:

1. Use the Internet Service Request framework used in mySAP ERP for HR and FI processes (see also http://service.sap.com/isr).

ISR has been expanded with mySAP ERP 2004 to be able to employ Interactive Forms (and Web Dynpro for Java at runtime), so it natively runs in the Portal. It currently offers the possibility to fill in forms online and make backend checks before processing the data entry. The downside: You need mySAP ERP 2004. (On the Interactive Forms homepage in SDN at http://sdn.sap.com/sdn/adobeforms.sdn you can find a good article under Current Articles on this written by Alan Rickayzen.)

2. Build your form using the ABAP integration of Interactive Forms, build a workflow from scratch using these development objects, then somehow get this into the Portal. This is, however, an option involving a lot of manual coding. I assume this wouldn't be wanted.

There will be an additional way to do this in the future:

With mySAP ERP 2005 (ramp-up starts in October 2005, mass shipment planned for Q2/2006), SAP will ship a framework called Guided Procedures that will do pretty much exactly what you are looking at: By default, it runs in the Portal (using the Universal Worklist) and uses, among others, PDF forms, including for offline workflows. It uses the SAP workflow engine to route the work items. You configure the workflow in a Portal-based interface that can be used by business process people as well.

As I said, it'll be shipped to all customers with mySAP ERP 2005 (in SAP NetWeaver 2004s). You will be able to hear more about this at SAP TechEd as part of the IT scenario Business Task Management.

Hope this helps.

Kind regards,

Markus Meisl

SAP NetWeaver Product Management