I can see many posts about using data in servoy to fill fields in a pdf form, BUT…
Many of my clients are not online untill the end of the day. they fill out pdf forms that get uploaded into my database via a 360 Works supercontainer in
filemaker. I know how to duplicate this upload process in servoy. I have looked at the pdf example that uses the pdf template ONLINE. Would it be possible to script or use a plugin to move the form data from the pdf file in the container field to the servoy/sql table?
We already have 5k or so of pdf files in container fields and in supercontainer fields (web viewer) and we mirror these same fields in filemaker databases. We are converting to servoy and I would love to streamline this. If the user could fill the forms offline and then submit the data into servoy/sql database when online becomes available that would be great.
Servoy has many PDF capabilities. First you mentioned that your customers upload PDF forms. Later you asked about submitting form data only to a sql database. Please explain a little more about what you want to achieve. What is the typical workflow?
Are your users using the full verion of Adobe Acrobat or are they using the free Adobe Reader? What are their limitations regarding access to the internet?
Hi Dean,
The PDF forms are created with full version acrobat. Each user downloads a blank PDF, unzips it, fills it out with acrobat reader and uploads it to Supercontainer/FMP currently. I am writing a conversion to Servoy to make this better. Currently the PDF is filled in OFFLINE and uploaded to container fields ONLINE. The same data must then be retyped into the database. The retype is currently prone to errors. The PDF documents uploaded are viewed by an outside agency online via the web viewer. The live data in the database is used internally by the billing department. We really would like to fill out the PDF’s offline and then upload them somehow to the server, populating the relevant fields without the duplicate data entry. We can do some number crunching inside the forms, but this is really best done in the database itself. The PDF forms are really only used to collect the data, It must then still be processed via the database. It would be acceptable to do that as a batch process once a month if that is possible.
The original workflow was all online, but as the company evolved that has changed. Now the PDF’s are more attractive due to a much higher employee mobility and a greater need to work offline. The data still needs to be accumulated and processed centrally for many reasons. That is why I am looking for a way to retain the best of both systems. I know adobe software will collect form data (via email?) but we want to stay with Servoy for this, and I have very limited experience with adobe forms data collection. All users have access to the internet at some point during the day, many of them use access points that are public, such as the public library. All have laptops (macbooks).
With the Servoy pdf plugin you can host the pdf forms from a server. Each form can have a “Submit” button. When clicked the “Submit” button will submit the data to the back end database. You can then present a list of submitted forms within Servoy webclient and include an “Edit” button for modifying any submitted form and a “View” button for embedding the data onto the pdf form. Multiple filled-in pdf forms can be combined into one pdf form. You can also include the option to email a pdf form or email a link to a pdf form.
There are many possible approaches. What I have described above does require that your users have access to the internet. If that is possible then it sounds like you can both reduce the number of steps that users must complete and eliminate duplicate data entry.