Questions concerning the use of Adobe Interactive Forms

[Former Member]

Hi All,

I have two questions that I would to see if I could get an answer to.

1) Has or can one use an Adobe Interactive form on a Tablet PC to allow a user to draw, say a small diagram or map, and have that image then stored in an R/3 database?

2) I may already know the answer to this, but want to verify it anyway. Can Adobe Interactive forms be used to provide data to other applications outside of SAP using NetWeavers J2EE or .Net API?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Mark

[Former Member]

Hello!

1) As far as I know (and can see in Adobe Designer opened at my PC right now) there are no standard controls

in the library that can be used to add drawing (ink) area to the form. Maybe external are available, but unlikely.

Even more, googling shoes that Adobe itself is not eager to support ink in their Acrobat products... Pity but so.

So my answer for the first question is "NO".

2) That depends on what you mean on "providing data to other applications outside of SAP using NetWeaver J2EE and .NET".

If you are using NetWeaver J2EE than you are still using SAP.

If you want to install SAP's ADS server on J2EE server from another vendor, than it is not a good idea:

First - it should be merely legal to use SAP software like this.

Second - Adobe's standalone forms solution (Link: [Adobe LiveCycle Forms ES|http://www.adobe.com/products/livecycle/]) should be cheaper.

On the other hand, if you create a simple form in LifeCycle Designer not inside SAP, but launched standalone and

set this form to send data to let's say XML-service, than there is no problem to use any other server application / platform.

It's just have to be a web-service like: support HTTP-requests with XML inside.

In the last case still the question persists "why use SAP in this case?"

Just few ERP 2005 licenses will cost more, than entire Adobe product line, so maybe you have to change the platform?

[Former Member]

Hi Petr,

Thank you for answering my questions. As far as the use of Adobe Forms outside of SAP, we are still wanting to use it for SAP transactions, so your answer was very well put. We may want to purchase the stand alone products from Adobe to get the additional functionality as well.

Thanks again,

Mark