Working with HTML Workspace

HTML Workspace is a part of Adobe® LiveCycle® Process Management Enterprise Suite 4. It matches the capabilities of the existing Flex-based Workspace and adds new capabilities to extend and integrate Workspace and make it more user-friendly.

HTML Workspace facilitates rendition of HTML Forms in addition to PDF forms and Flex forms. Now you can engage in business processes from mobile interfaces and web applications.

Also, HTML Workspace is highly customizable using the standard HTML and JavaScript™ development methodologies. It is a component-based software that easily integrates with your other web applications.

For more information, see Introduction to HTML Workspace.

Getting Familiar

To be familiar with the end-to-end process of creating an Adobe LiveCycle application to automate a business process, follow the walkthrough. You can create, manage, and test an application using LiveCycle Workbench, LiveCycle Designer, and HTML Workspace after following the walkthrough. For implementation details, see Creating Your First LiveCycle Application.

Functional Overview

You can use HTML Workspace to perform the following tasks:

Start a business process: HTML Workspace categories your processes as designed and set up by your organization. You can favorite the frequently used categories to access the categories quickly. When you start a process, you typically fill a form to start a business process that Adobe® LiveCycle® ES4 Process Management controls. For more information, see Starting Processes.

View and act upon tasks: When you view your To-do lists, you see tasks from a business process that are assigned to you, or to any groups that you belong to, or are the shared tasks of other users. You can open, work on, and complete the tasks as required. Typically, completing a task involves providing information, approving a form, or rejecting a form. For more information, see Working with To-do lists.

Track tasks: To track your tasks, you use the Tracking tab of HTML Workspace. You can search for active or completed processes that you started or participated in. You can view the tasks, assignments, and forms that were part of the process. You can also start new processes using form data from a process that you previously initiated. For more information, see Tracking processes.

New offerings of HTML Workspace

Support for a summary pane for tasks:

When you open a task, before the form opens, a pane allows you to show information about the task, using an external URL. Using Task Summary Pane additional and relevant information for a task can be displayed to add more value for the end user of HTML Workspace. See Display Summary Page for the implementation details.

Support for Manager View:

This capability allows managers to access or act on tasks of their reports. Managers can also drill down, in the organization hierarchy, to tasks of their indirect reports. See Managing tasks in an organizational hierarchy using Manager View for more details.

Support for user avatars:

Images, or avatars, for logged in user can now be displayed in the upper-right corner of the HTML Workspace. Also, in the Manager View, user avatars can be displayed to show the images of the managers and their reports. See Displaying the user avatar for more details.

Support for integrating third-party applications:

The capability to integrate with third-party applications can be used to bring your workflows entirely to LiveCycle Workspace. For example, you can render Correspondence Management letter templates as tasks within the LiveCycle Workspace window itself. Thus, you can complete the task without leaving LiveCycle Workspace. See Integrating Correspondence Management in HTML Workspace for detailed instructions.

Support for custom task rendering based on end user's device:

HTML Workspace provides support for HTML rendition of XDP forms. This support, when used in a render process that routes to different renditions of XDP based on the device or user-agent, allows users to view an XDP form as HTML on the mobile devices and as PDF on a desktop. This helps in providing seamless coverage of Process Management to users who work in varied environments on different devices.

Migrating from Flex Workspace to HTML Workspace

What continues to work

Adobe LiveCycle ES4 also deploys Flex Workspace by default. It continues to work as before and all your existing processes and customizations continue to work.

Migrating existing processes to HTML Workspace:

In HTML Workspace, the default render and submit services, in the default action profile, associated with XDP forms have changed and new services have been introduced. For details, see New render and submit service. To migrate your existing processes, that work with XDP forms, to make use of these services, you can follow these steps.

Mapping Flex Workspace customizations with HTML Workspace

The mapping between various types of customizations in both the workspaces is as follows.

Limitations of HTML Workspace

Some of the features of Flex Workspace that are not available in HTML Workspace include: messages and notification, welcome page, approval container, and option to manage column headings. For a complete list, see Features of Flex Workspace not available in HTML Workspace.

Developing with HTML Workspace

Architecture

HTML Workspace is an HTML and JavaScript™ based web application hosted on CRX™. When Workspace URL is opened in a browser, a CRX™ resource is accessed, and the application is rendered as an HTML page in the browser. The JavaScript libraries and the custom JavaScript code manages the internal and external behavior of the application, such as user interface, user interaction, and communication with LiveCycle server. For more details, see HTML Workspace architecture.

HTML Workspace customization

HTML Workspace supports a wide variety of customizations to update the layout of the user interface, its appearance, functionality, and much more. The customizations involve updating one or more of the following:

• Appearances of the user interface
• Functionality using semantic customizations
• Reusing HTML components in other web applications

The customization article explains the types of such customizations. See the list of all possible customizations here.

Set up the developer environment

HTML Workspace deliverables include a CRX package deployed on CRX, an SDK archive that contains the complete source code, third-party JavaScript libraries, and build scripts of HTML Workspace. Use these to set up the developer environment to perform the customizations mentioned above. For more details, see Building HTML Workspace code.

You can customize a major part of the interface and core functionality such as, fonts, color scheme, logo, login screen, error dialogs, integration with third-party applications, and reuse of components in third-party application. You can also enhance the contents displayed on the Task Summary page, show images for task route actions, and even modify the low-level Backbone Models and Views that create the HTML Workspace application. For various customizations and their instructions, see the developer topics.

HTML rendering of XDP Forms

By default, for a new process, an XDP form is rendered in PDF format on a desktop and in HTML format on a tablet. It is possible to render an XDP form in HTML format always. For details, see New Render and Submit Services.

Mobile Forms feature, that works with profiles, enables HTML rendition of XDP forms. By default, the 'Render New HTML Form' uses default.html profile, that you can change. You can also add custom changes that happen before rendering an XDP form in HTML format.

Deploy Demo App

Let us have a look at the key capabilities of Adobe LiveCycle ES4 using an end-to-end walkthrough of a sample government organization use case.

See the Deployment details to download and install the demo application packages followed by the Demo application walkthrough guide.

Mobile Workspace

To work on your business processes on a mobile device, you can use the Mobile Workspace offering of Adobe LiveCycle ES4. For more information, see the Mobile Workspace Overview.