Adobe PDF Workflow

Documents for Kuali Rice

May 19th, 2009

Aaron Godert

Manager, Enterprise Integration

Cornell Information Technologies

Overview• Enhancement built by Cornell for Kuali Rice• Allows for workflow documents to “wrap”

editable Adobe Acrobat PDF forms• Uses existing workflow (KEW) and application

development framework (KNS) features of Rice• Lowers the barrier to entry for creating workflow

documents; empowers campus

How it Works

PDFAdobe

Acrobat Pro

PDFAdobe

Acrobat Pro

KEWWorkflow

Config

KEWWorkflow

Config

FunctionalPerson in Unit

Kuali RiceConfig

Mgr/Devand/or

Tech-savvy Person in

Unit

Business Reasons• Quickly convert small paper based business

processes to workflow documents• Eliminate the need for programmer resources;

enable non-techies• Leverage existing commodity software (Adobe)• Achieve rapid exposure and wide-spread

adoption across Cornell• Cost-benefit: cheap to build the feature (60

hrs); cheap to build each form (8 hrs – 24 hrs)

Technical Benefits• Deployed in real-time; no system downtime

– PDF forms displayed in real-time; can live on owner’s web server simply as .pdf files pulled in as a URL

– Workflow configuration can be updated in real-time• Person building the PDF is closer to users; decompose

the development process• Tech-savvy people (not programmers) can build these in

hours and deploy out for testers• Data in form is sent to KEW; standard workflow rule

processing can occur

Risks and Limitations• Relying on commodity software

– Compatibility issues for browsers– Upgrades

• Limited functionality– Read-only after submission– Understanding boundaries– Control expectations

Looking Ahead• Piloting at Cornell starting mid-June

– Work out the kinks– Document

• Intend to bring to the Application Roadmap Committee (ARC) and the Technology Roadmap Committee (TRC) as an enhancement and contribution back to the Foundation