Question

Fill out PDF workflow activity, lock some fields but not all

Workflow Version 10 How To

Updated October 1, 2020

asked on September 23, 2020

I have a project where I take a PDF and fill out some of the fIelds. The other fields are going to be blank because I'm sending this out to people to fill out and return. The question is, can I lock or commit the values that workflow fills out and leave the rest available to be completed? I know the Workflow activity has the "Merge the field content into the image" feature but that locks up all the available fields.

I created the PDF with Adobe Pro so if there is a way to configure the PDF in a way that I can accomplish this, I'm more than willing to edit the PDF too.

0 0

Replies

replied on September 30, 2020

Have you considered using Forms to accomplish what your PDF does? This is functionality that Forms has out of the box. Just putting it out there.

1 0

View 1 previous reply

replied on October 1, 2020

Hello Chris,

Yes, we definitely thought about it. The issue is user accounts and authentication. I have about 500 of these forms to send out, The people that I send them to might not be the person filling them out. It's easy to forward on an email to someone, rather than reassign a forms process. Also, I would have to assign licenses to people that would only ever need access to LF for this one purpose.

Trust me, I wish I could do this with a web form but sending out 500 pdfs to people to fill out is the best solution. I just wish I could control the pdf better.

My solution to not being able to control all the fields is simple. Hidden fields. I found in Adobe Pro where I could add hidden fields and the workflow activity still lets me fill them in. So the primary key that I'm worried about people accidentally changing will also be stored in a hidden field that I can check when it is returned.

0 0

replied on October 1, 2020

Very cool workaround! I'll file away the hidden fields in Acrobat for later use :)

I am curious if you could use the anonymous users that Forms has? Maybe leverage Workflow to send the link out to the right people to fill out a form that has no necessity for a license? I am detecting a possibility here.....perhaps with a tweak to business process....

Technically, if the message is sent to an Exec (for example) and they forward it to their Admin Asst to fill out, the link would function the same way as a pdf attachment, no? Just with the added functionality.

Just playing devils advocate here...sorry to beat a dead horse

0 0

replied on October 1, 2020

I did think about that too but wasn't sure if I could use a public form since the process would need to start in Workflow. Once Workflow starts a Forms process, I figured that a user would need to log into Forms so I ruled it out. If I could fill in fields with workflow and then send 500 different links and the users would not have to authenticate, then it would work. I'm just not sure if that's possible based on my experience with public Forms.

0 0

replied on October 1, 2020

Basically you would just use Workflow to send a URL to the form. Something like that...

0 0

replied on September 23, 2020

That's not currently possible with Workflow. Merging fields into the image makes them all read-only.

0 0

replied on September 24, 2020

Good Morning Miruna,

Thank you for the response. I understand the Merge field option makes the whole document read-only. I think this could be a cool feature if possible in the future. Then the document is created with the values I want and still leaves the other values editable.

Do you know if there is a way to do this with the settings in Adobe?

0 0

replied on September 24, 2020

I don't known and it probably wouldn't matter as far as the activity goes. We use a 3rd party library to work with the PDF. We'll look if it supports this type of feature, but it's unlikely.

1 0

You are not allowed to follow up in this post.

Question

Question

Fill out PDF workflow activity, lock some fields but not all

Replies

Sign in to reply to this post.