Can LiveCycle do all of what I need?

Question

I wish to build a website where (only) authorized persons submit forms electronically via a Windows PC.  The information in these forms must then be automatically placed into a spreadsheet, and viewed on our website, without additional webmaster intervention.  We plan to restrict the download of our forms and website access by password.  I know some of the following are features of LiveCycle, but some features don’t seem to work when other features are enabled. 
I know this a big newbie post, and if this isn’t the correct forum, please let me know. 
Any help with these 18 issues would be greatly appreciated.   Greg – Cleveland  Ohio area.
1.    Forms are to be submitted to the website by authorized persons using a name and password.
2.    Forms must be dynamic.
3.    The forms will have a field for the submitter’s own comments.
4.    The data from each form must be kept together on a horizontal line on a table.  (Data will be name, address ,phone etc., with many fields being checked yes/no, a few with numbers, and a few fields provided for comments.  The data must be searchable by field. There will be no calculations or totals of the data.
5.    All completed forms should be able to be automatically archived on our website (.tiff?)  and able to be printed and downloaded by authorized visitors to our website in case comments are made.  (Would this also be possible if a scanned form is submitted?)
6.    The website/software must allow the viewer access (only as determined by his log-in and password) to all the forms matching the zip code(s) they are registered for.  (After signing in, they may use a “ENTER SITE NOW” link that will search for and display only forms and tables from specific zip codes.)
7.    The user cannot change any form fields, but they should be able to add notes or flag data for the next time they log on to our website.
8.    Data may be viewed on our website with the option to be downloaded to their PC for local archiving and printing.
9.    Self owned, controlled and managed on my secure server.
10.                       Information must be secure.
11.                       Digital signatures will be required.
12.                       The site must provide the authorized user form data in both a spreadsheet view and the original completed form-image.
13.                       Each field must be searchable, returning each form with that search request, and displayed in a table.
14.                       Forms will be downloadable from our website (unless e-mailing them is automated and triggered by the user’s request).
Optional website features, but very desirable:
15.                       Ideally, paper forms will also be able to be used.  The user would scan the completed paper form, convert it using OCR, and then submit it electronically for automatic loading into the website’s spreadsheet(s).   Possible?
16.                       The website should not show blank fields when the form’s data table is viewed online.
17.                       Ideally, the website will accept forms completed and submitted using a PDA or iPhone device. Doable?
18.                       Barcode scanning may be desirable, in the future.
My questions:
How much of the above is handled by the features found in LiveCycle Designer?
Is there standard “server side programming” I can employ for handling my form data automatically for display on my company website?  Does Adobe provide this service?  Are there Adobe partners you can refer me to that provide their own software for displaying the form data?
Is there any site you can send me to that is already doing what we wish to do on our site?

Answer 1

Hi Greg, I'll try to answer some of your questions in order:
1.    Forms are to be submitted to the website by authorized persons using a name and password.
-> There are a number of ways you can protect your form and the submission process.  Ideally you would apply a policy to the form so that it could only be accessed by people with the appropriate user name and password.  Alternatively if you don’t want to restrict access to the form and only the submission process you could “protect” the submission process by wrapping the submission process with a user name and password prompt using Web Services to call a back-end process that checks the users credentials before passing the data back.
http://www.adobe.com/products/livecycle/rightsmanagement/
2.    Forms must be dynamic.
-> Adobe LiveCycle Designer ES can create Dynamic forms.  There are plenty of samples in the samples directory of Designer that will demonstrate dynamic forms, i.e.: the additional of new lines / pages / sections in a form. 
3.    The forms will have a field for the submitter’s own comments.
-> You can add a form field dynamically for comments in a dynamic form if you wish.  Just keep in mind that Acrobat commenting is slightly different than adding a field to a form to allow commenting at a specific section in your form.
4.    The data from each form must be kept together on a horizontal line on a table.  (Data will be name, address ,phone etc., with many fields being checked yes/no, a few with numbers, and a few fields provided for comments.  The data must be searchable by field. There will be no calculations or totals of the data.
-> This depends on how you plan on extracting the data from your form.  There is no direct-to-excel functionality out of the box but you could create a custom component to create the output in whatever format you require.  Adobe LiveCycle Forms will be your starting point (to populate and extract data).
http://www.adobe.com/products/livecycle/forms/
5.    All completed forms should be able to be automatically archived on our website (.tiff?)  and able to be printed and downloaded by authorized visitors to our website in case comments are made.  (Would this also be possible if a scanned form is submitted?)
-> Adobe LiveCycle Output could do PDF to TIFF conversion or alternatively PDF/A output for long term archival.
6.    The website/software must allow the viewer access (only as determined by his log-in and password) to all the forms matching the zip code(s) they are registered for.  (After signing in, they may use a “ENTER SITE NOW” link that will search for and display only forms and tables from specific zip codes.)
-> This would be a customization to Workspace http://help.adobe.com/en_US/livecycle/es/customizeworkspaceui.pdf or the creation of your own Web UI.
7.    The user cannot change any form fields, but they should be able to add notes or flag data for the next time they log on to our website.
-> In this case I would suggest “flattening” the forms and then Reader Extending them so that they cannot be modified but commenting can be added with the free Adobe Reader.
http://www.adobe.com/products/livecycle/readerextensions/
8.    Data may be viewed on our website with the option to be downloaded to their PC for local archiving and printing.
-> Again, LiveCycle Forms can be used to extract the data, it’s up to you on how it is published.
9.    Self owned, controlled and managed on my secure server.
-> LiveCycle is a server-based product.  Check the compatibility matrix for server support options.
http://www.adobe.com/support/products/enterprise/knowledgecenter/softcomp2_0_1.pdf
10.                       Information must be secure.
-> Data can be secured within the PDF and transmitted by secure means.
11.                       Digital signatures will be required.
-> Digital Signatures can be applied to a Reader Extended form using the free Adobe Reader and verified on the back end using  LC Digital Signatures.
http://www.adobe.com/products/livecycle/digitalsignatures/
12.                       The site must provide the authorized user form data in both a spreadsheet view and the original completed form-image.
-> This would be a custom UI.  Using iFrames would probably give you the view you're looking for (ie: inside browser view of both spreadsheet and form).
13.                       Each field must be searchable, returning each form with that search request, and displayed in a table.
-> If you don’t already have a repository and search capability in-house then you can add on Content Services.
http://www.adobe.com/products/livecycle/contentservices/
14.                       Forms will be downloadable from our website (unless e-mailing them is automated and triggered by the user’s request).
-> This can be done through Workspace for credential-carrying customers or simply provide the PDF’s as you would an HTML page.
Optional website features, but very desirable:
15.                       Ideally, paper forms will also be able to be used.  The user would scan the completed paper form, convert it using OCR, and then submit it electronically for automatic loading into the website’s spreadsheet(s).   Possible?
-> Check out Barcoded Forms.  This is the ideal paper to digital solution.  Forms filled-in and then printed may get a decent OCR rate though, not 100% like you would get with Barcoded Forms.
http://www.adobe.com/products/livecycle/barcodedforms/
16.                       The website should not show blank fields when the form’s data table is viewed online.
-> Again, your custom UI.
17.                       Ideally, the website will accept forms completed and submitted using a PDA or iPhone device. Doable?
-> Adobe LiveCycle Forms can render the same forms designed with Designer in PDF or HTML format (not many people know this).        
http://www.adobe.com/products/livecycle/forms/features.html
18.                      Barcode scanning may be desirable, in the future.
-> The decoder provided with Adobe LiveCycle Barcoded Forms does provide you with 1D and 2D decoding capabilities.  This can be used to route forms and of course, decode data from 2D barcoded forms.
Let me know if you have any other questions.