Scenario: Creating postprocesses

Implementation overview
- Creating the process
Tools used
Best practices/tips and tricks

Once the final correspondence is generated, it can be bound to a LiveCycle process. Depending on the project requirement, this process can perform further actions such as archiving, printing, emailing, or sending the review.

Implementation overview

The postprocess bound to a letter template is called when the final correspondence is submitted. You can create a process that archives the letter, prints it, sends it via email, or that uses any of the other services available in Workbench. When you create the process in Workbench, use the following input variables:

inXMLDoc (xml type): The data submitted from the final correspondence.
nPDFDoc (document type): The final rendered correspondence (PDF), generated by the solution on submit. The submitted PDF can be interactive or non-interactive, based on the system configuration
redirectURL (string type): (Optional) The URL to which the user is redirect to after successful submission of the correspondence.

Important: The post process that you create needs to be short-lived. To set the postprocess type:

Select and right-click on the post-process.
Choose Configure -> Advanced
In the Type drop-down list, choose short-lived.

Note: When you select the process in the Letter Template Editor of the Manage Assets user interface, you can select from processes that use at least one of the above input variables. The output variable is optional.

Creating the process

The process that you bind to a letter template is called when the final correspondence is submitted. You can create a process that archives the letter, prints it, sends it via email, or that uses any of the other services available in Workbench.

When you create the process in Workbench, use the following input variables:

inXMLDoc (xml type): The data submitted from the final correspondence.
inPDFDoc (document type): A rendering of the selected letter template and XML, or portfolio template and XML.

Also use this output variable:

redirectURL (string type)

Note: When you select the process in the Letter Template Editor of the Manage Assets user interface, you can select from processes that use these input and output variables.

When the process is ready, deploy it using Workbench or Adobe LiveCycle Administration Console.

About the submitted data XML

As mentioned above, on submitting the correspondence, the postprocess is called with the letter PDF and the corresponding data XML. The data XML submitted to the postprocess also has additional metadata corresponding to the submitted letter, such as the letter name, submitted time (modificationDate), and so on. The metadata is located in the ICC Control Data section, under the <icc:meta> node. For example, the following is the structure of the XML data submitted to the postprocess:

<DataRoot> 
    ... 
    ... 
    <!-- the usual XML data here --> 
    ... 
    <!-- ICC Control Data --> 
    <icc:icc> 
        ... 
        ... <!-- this section would contain data corresponding to the selected modules --> 
        ... 
        <!-- Metadata section --> 
        <icc:meta> 
            <!-- Any additional incoming metadata, that may have been sent from DC, and already present in the XML --> 
 
            <letter>[Letter name]</letter> 
            <modificationDate>[Letter submit date]</modificationDate> 
 
            <!-- Any other custom attributes/metada sent from DC via the "cm_" rule, will have entries in the XML here --> 
        </icc:meta> 
    </icc:icc> 
</DataRoot>

Redirection on submit

If you want to extend the application to allow redirection to a custom location (URL), you can design a process that performs a set of operations and returns the redirect URL as a response. A successful submit returns an XML with the following structure as its response::

<iccSubmitResponse> 
    <redirect>{url}</redirect> 
</iccSubmitResponse>

If the postprocess returns a URL, that URL is returned in the response as shown above. Otherwise, the <redirect> element is either not specified or empty. The caller is responsible for validating the URL for security purposes. If a redirect URL is returned, the user is then redirected to the custom location, which could be a signature application that would let the user sign the finished letter. You can add a tag such as "requireSignature", which you key from in the customized version of the Letter service. To determine whether a redirect is necessary, provide the ability to capture a signature immediately after submitting a filled letter.

Submitting additional metadata

If necessary, you can customize the Create Correspondence user interface to send additional metadata to the postprocess called after submitting the letter. If the Submit servlet is called with (request) parameters whose names start with "cm_", then those attributes are added to the <icc:meta> section, under nodes with the name following the string after cm_ and the value of the node as the value of the parameter.

For example, if a request parameter cm_agent=Mark Robinson is sent to the servlet, the <icc:meta> node would have a child node <agent>Mark Robinson</agent>, as shown in this example:

Example:

<DataRoot> 
    ... 
    ... 
    <!-- the usual XML data here --> 
    ... 
    <!-- ICC Control Data --> 
    <icc:icc> 
        ... 
        ... <!-- this section would contain data corresponding to the selected modules --> 
        ... 
        <!-- Metadata section --> 
        <icc:meta> 
            <!-- Any additional incoming metadata, that may have been sent from DC, and already present in the XML --> 
 
            <letter>SampleLetter</letter> 
            <modificationDate>2010-08-28T08:55:59</modificationDate> 
                <agent>Mark Robinson</agent> 
            <!-- Any other custom attributes/metada sent from DC via the "cm_" rule, will have entries in the XML here --> 
        </icc:meta> 
    </icc:icc> 
</DataRoot>

Tools used

This scenario uses Workbench to create the process, and the Manage Assets user interface to bind the process to a letter template.

Best practices/tips and tricks

Following are”best practices” to be followed when creating postprocesses:

If the correspondence being submitted is used for reloading at a later time, then archive the XML data passed to the postprocess to a relevant location. The archive can be a CRX repository or any other content store that can later be referenced from the Create Correspondence application to reload the correspondence.
Do not modify the submitted XML data If modified, take care to ensure that the schema is kept intact.