Content rich vs content managed applications using LiveCycle Content Services ES

Using LiveCycle Content Services ES, one can create two basic types of application:

Content-Rich: The characteristics of these types of applications are that business processes or document automation is triggered by content events such as save, move or delete. Basically, a LiveCycle ES service is invoked if such an event occurs.

Content Managed: The characteristics of these types of applications are that business processes that require that content be stored or archived can communicate with Content Services to perform these actions. LiveCycle ES processes can integrate with Contentspace to manage content.

In this article, I will explore both types of applications and illustrate how easily they can be achieved with LiveCycle ES Update 1.

Content-Rich Applications

Let's begin with a sample content-rich application. In this case, we will imagine that our application requires that once a new document is stored in a content space that it be automatically converted to PDF and stored in a specific location.

In figure 1, we can see that I have created two spaces using the web interface provided with LiveCycle Content Services ES. It is called LiveCycle Contentspace ES. In this scenario, "Native Files" will be the location where we store our initial file (in this case, we'll use a word document); and "PDF Files" will be the destination where the resulting converted file will be stored.

Once we have our content spaces created, the next step is to define a rule on the Native Files space that will be applied for all files that are stored there. Using the intuitive Rules Wizard, we will create a rule that uses the built-in "Transform and copy content to specific space" action (See figure 2). That's it! All we need to do is store a .doc file in that content space and it will automatically be converted into PDF and saved in the "PDF Files" space.

Content Managed Applications

The next type of application is content managed. In this case, we'll imagine that we have a simple business approval process where a user completes an application form and submits it for approval. If the application is approved, it is archived in a content space titled "Approved ". If the application is rejected, then it will be stored in a spaced titled "Rejected".

As you can see in Figure 3, the process is very simple. The completed form is submitted to LiveCycle ES and this process is invoked. It goes to the department manager for review. The department manager would use LiveCycle Workspace ES to view his/her worklist and review the submission. Based on the selection made by the manager, the appropriate route is selected and the document is stored within LiveCycle Content Services ES using the storeContent service provided out of the box.

The storeContent service property page is very intuitive. All we need to specify is the Space Path. As illustrated in Figure 4, the browse button can be used to visually navigate the content spaces to locate the desired destination. Then a Node Name must be provided, this would be the file name for the PDF document. The Node Type must be set to document as we will be storing a PDF file. Node Content refers to the process variable that contains the PDF document content to be stored.

Repeat the same steps for the reject path and the process is complete.

To learn more about LiveCycle Content Services ES, I suggest you review the following:

• LiveCycle Content Services ES Product Page
• LiveCycle ES Documentation – Getting Started with LiveCycle Contentspace ES
• LiveCycle ES Documentation – LiveCycle Contentspace ES