Data Extraction from fillable PDF

Hi Mike .

I have a fillable  pdf form . I wish to save those values which user enters into that pdf ( not an Appian form) like name , address etc into the Appian database .How do I accomplish that ?

So to clarify, users are entering values onto the fillable PDF, then uploading it to Appian, after which you wish to extract the values and add to the Appian database?

Also, as a side note, I wasn't notified that you had replied since you didn't reply under my comment, or else I would've responded more quickly.

Mike , I am showing an editable PDF in a document viewer component. And yes any user can enter the values in the PDF and on click of upload button , I wish to etxract those entered values in the fields and add to Appian DB. Moreover I also wish to perform validations  on the entered field values . I think field level validation isn't possible on the pdf, but Can we perform some validation on click of upload button for the data entered ?

I don't believe this is possible - the document viewer component doesn't offer any capabilities to interact with data displayed, so there would be no way to save or capture any information the user entered. I think the closest you could come is what Mike mentioned, where you have the user download the PDF, enter the data, re-upload, and then parse out the data from the PDF.

To be honest though, I would not even recommend using that method. I think it would be a bad user experience and adds a lot of unnecessarily complexity to your design.

My main question is: could you build a form in Appian to capture this data (e.g. create text input fields to capture the information you want). If you have it as a native form, you get a lot of additional benefits because it's easier to update / maintain, you can define validations, you can use dynamic behavior, etc.

Peter Lewis said:

where you have the user download the PDF, enter the data, re-upload, and then parse out the data from the PDF.

Yes Peter, we can have an SAIL form for that , but the requirement is to have a PDF only. Also, as mentioned above , we can have the document download link , user can enter the data and re-upload the PDF. How Do I parse out the data entered into the PDF ? Do I need to use doc extraction feature for that ? Also , is it possible to download the newly edited PDF using any download button at that point of time after a successful upload? 

I'd still be a bit hesitant in that solution, but at least the parsing of the PDF form should be relatively easy with a PDF form. I believe you can use PDF Tools plugin, likely either the function getpdffields() or getpdftext().

Shikha said:

but the requirement is to have a PDF only

This seems like a regressive "requirement".  Appian forms are the best way to enter the data with validation, pretty much in all cases.  You're adding a lot of extra steps, both in terms of user input as well as in-process work, and therefore extra chances for in-process bugs as well as chances for end-user errors.

Basically the requirement is to have an offline PDF where we can directly edit the PDF , capture and store the entered values in DB and download the newly updated PDF. Is this a doable use case ,using either doc extraction or PDF tools plugin?

All of that is doable except you won't be able to allow a user to edit the PDF within an Appian form.  You'll need to have them open it in their local PDF viewer, save changes, then upload the changed version to Appian. 

I'm not sure where "download the newly updated PDF" comes into this, since the user who made the edits to the PDF will already have the latest version of the PDF on their local hard drive at this point.  Subsequent users would be able to download a copy of it, at least.

All of that is doable except you won't be able to allow a user to edit the PDF within an Appian form.  You'll need to have them open it in their local PDF viewer, save changes, then upload the changed version to Appian. 

I'm not sure where "download the newly updated PDF" comes into this, since the user who made the edits to the PDF will already have the latest version of the PDF on their local hard drive at this point.  Subsequent users would be able to download a copy of it, at least.