Form - Lock fields after input but not signatures.

Good Afternoon,

I’ve been reading through the Adobe forums as well as other areas on the net, but can’t seem to find what I am looking for.

At present we are doing the below:

1. User will open a pre-made PDF form in Adobe Acrobat 7 Standard, and input the necessary values for each field.
2. They will then print the form to acrobat making everything on the form non-editable.
3. Then they will send this new non-editable form to one of their supervisors, who would then review the form and insert their digital signature somewhere on the form.
4. The supervisor will then send the form to another supervisor who also reviews the form and creates their digital signature on the form.
5. Then the form is then sent to the manager where the same things happens. The manager will review the form and insert his digital signature somewhere in an open space on the form.

We want to minimize some steps here to make it easier for the users as well as make the form more organized.

Below is what we are trying to accomplish with this form.

1. User will open pre-made PDF form in Adobe Acrobat 7 Standard, and input the necessary values for each field.
2. The user will then push some sort of button that will lock all editable fields (EXCEPT the signature fields, these must be left editable).
3. The user then sends the form to the supervisor, who will review the form and insert their digital signature in the blank signature box at the bottom of the page (I have already completed this step)
4. This supervisor will then send the form to the other supervisor to be reviewed and digitally signed in the next available signature box at the bottom of the page and then it will head on to the next person to be reviewed and signed.

So what I am looking for is a way for the first user to lock the editable fields once they are completed filling them in, course except for the signature fields which are about 10 of them.

Can anyone give me some advice on how to accomplish this? Please do note that I am working with “Adobe Livecycle Designer ES2” as well as “Acrobat X Professional”. Would also be good to mention that I knew nothing of LiveCycle until about an hour ago. So I am very new on how this works. My knowledge on Acrobat Professional I would say is between average to advanced.

Kind Regards,

K