My department is new to Live Cycle Designer. We created a PDF form using LCD ES that is used to approve the purchase of certain types of equipment. I've been asked to modify it to include a unique ID number, and I need advice on where to start.
The user goes to the web and opens the PDF approval form, fills it out, and clicks a submit button (on the form) which attaches the completed PDF to an email that is sent back to our office. Once the form reaches us, it has to be circulated to 4 or 5 other offices for review, and we would like to identify each form with a unique number so we can track its progress.
So what I've been asked to do is figure out a way to put an auto-generated unique number on the form at some point before it is emailed to us. The number can have any number of digits and/or characters (so long as it is human-readable), and doesn't need to be sequential. I think a 5 or 6 digit number would be fine.
I was thinking the right approach might be to create a little Access database to generate/store the ID numbers, and then get the Form to capture/read a new number each time the submit button is clicked. While I can connect to my test database just fine, I don't understand how to run an SQL statement from LCD, or how to do it based on events, like when the form opens or when the submit button is clicked. I haven't had any luck finding a good, similar example so far.
Is this the right way to go, or is there a better way to do this in LCD?
Thanks for your time,
-Max