Defining Hints for Dynamic Selection of Default Render/Submit/Runtime Configuration

• US 20140033011A1
• Filed: 09/23/2009
• Published: 01/30/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 09/23/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Adobe Inc.
• Original Assignee: Adobe Systems Incorporated (Adobe Inc.)
• Inventors: Wandeler, Florentin N., Hightower, Jason
• Granted Patent: US 9,542,378 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/222
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/186 Templates

Abstract

The present embodiments are directed to systems and methods of creating and deploying electronic forms for collecting information from a user using a browser or other application. Various embodiments herein include features for automatically selecting and configuring services for rendering and submitting intelligent forms or other data structures in an automated process environment. The automated process environment may include features which permit an enterprise to blend electronic forms, process management, document security, and document generation capabilities to deliver applications which may reduce paperwork, accelerate decision-making processes, and help ensure regulatory compliance.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method, comprising:

retrieving a form definition template from a data storage, the form definition template including an electronic document and defining a form that includes electronic form data to be displayed to a user, the form definition template being deployable on one or more platforms when rendered into a runtime format;

retrieving behavior information associated with the form definition template, the retrieved behavior information specifying a render service to render the form definition template from a design format to a runtime format, the behavior information further specifying a submit service to capture data submitted by a user; and

based on the retrieved behavior information, automatically selecting, using a processor of a machine, the render service executing at a form server to merge customer-defined data into the form definition template and render the form definition template into a runtime format rendered form, the rendered form including the customer-defined data.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the specified render service is operative to render the form definition template into the runtime file format selected from the group consisting of:

portable document format (PDF) file format;

Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) file format; and

ShockWave Flash (SWF), file format.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the behavior information further specifies a data structure for data that is captured by the specified submit service.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

rendering the form definition template into the runtime format rendered form using the render service specified by the behavior information;

serving the rendered form to a user of a computer system;

capturing data submitted by the user using the submit service specified by the behavior information; and

storing the captured data in a data storage.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the behavior information further specifies a data structure for the form definition template.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the behavior information further specifies configuration information for the render service, the configuration information being used to automatically configure the render service.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the retrieving of the behavior information associated with the form definition template step is dependent upon a file type of the form definition template.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

rendering the form definition template into a runtime format rendered form using the render service specified by the behavior information; and

serving the rendered form to a user of a computer system.

3. (canceled)

10. A computer system, comprising:

a processor; and

a data storage storing;

a plurality of form definition templates, the plurality of form definition templates each including an electronic document and defining a form that includes electronic form data to be displayed to a user, the plurality of form definition templates being deployable on one or more platforms when rendered into a runtime format; and

behavior information associated with each of the form definition templates, the behavior information specifying a render service to merge customer-defined data into the form definition template and to render each form definition template from a design format to a runtime format, the behavior information further specifying a submit service to capture data submitted by a user of a form rendered from one of the plurality of form definition templates; and

a process design module that includes a behavior information retriever module;

the process design module is executed by the processor to generate a process that includes at least one of the plurality of form definition templates, and the behavior information retriever module is run by the processor to retrieve the behavior information associated with a form definition template included in the process, and based on the retrieved behavior information to automatically select the render service and the submit service executing at a form server, the render service to the merge customer-defined data into the firm definition template and to render the form definition template into a runtime format rendered form, the rendered form including the customer-defined data.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the specified render service is operative to render the form definition template into a runtime file format selected from the group consisting of:

portable document format (PDF) file format;

Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) file format; and

Shock Wave Flash (SWF) file format.

12. The system of claim 10, wherein the behavior information further specifies a file format for data that is captured by the specified submit service.

13. The system of claim 10, wherein the data storage stores:

a form server module, and a submit service module;

wherein the form server module is executed by the processor to serve the rendered form to users; and

wherein the submit service module is executed by the processor to capture data submitted by users of the rendered form.

14. The system of claim 10, wherein the behavior information further specifies a data structure for the form definition templates.

15. The system of claim 10, wherein the behavior information further specifies configuration information for the render server, the configuration information being used to automatically configure the render service.

16. The system of claim 10, wherein the behavior information retriever module is run by the processor to retrieve the behavior information associated with a form definition template included in the process dependent upon a file type of the form definition template.

17. The system of claim 10, wherein the data storage stores:

a form server module;

and

wherein the form server module is executed by the processor to serve the rendered form to users.

18. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium, with having instructions which when processed by a computer, cause the computer to perform operations comprising:

generating a form definition template that includes an electronic document and defines a form that includes electronic form data to be displayed to a user, the form definition template being deployable on one or more platforms when rendered into a runtime format;

generating behavior information associated with the form definition template, the behavior information specifying a render service to render the form definition template from a design format to the runtime format, the behavior information further specifying a submit service to capture data submitted by a user;

storing the behavior information associated with the form definition template in a data storage structure;

retrieving the behavior information associated with the form definition template; and

based on the retrieved behavior information, automatically selecting the render service executing server to merge customer-defined data into the form definition template and to render the form definition template into a runtime format rendered form, the rendered form including the customer-defined data.

19. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the specified render service is operative to render the form definition template into a runtime file format selected from the group consisting of:

portable document format (PDF) file format;

Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) file format; and

ShockWave Flash (SWF) file format.

20. (canceled)