Adobe Extends LiveCycle Line

Adobe Systems beefed up its line of server-based products for the enterprise, adding software that offers component-based building blocks for assembling workflows and analyzing business processes.

Like the rest of the LiveCycle portfolio, the new Adobe LiveCycle Workflow software enables the creation and distribution of interactive documents and forms that can be filled out, routed and secured according to customer-defined rules and policies.

Adobe works with approximately two dozen U.S. systems integrators that can sell and implement the LiveCycle server line.

With LiveCycle Workflow—the fruit of last year’s acquisition of Q-Link Technologies—Adobe provides a graphical interface for assembling business flows. These Q-Link Process Application Components, or Q-PACs, actually encapsulate actions for, say, routing documents outside the corporate firewall, performing common application integrations or sending instant messages to users’ phones.

“This becomes a platform for ongoing business automation,” said Steve Rotter, senior product marketing manager at Adobe, San Jose, Calif. “Systems integrators focused on specific verticals can wrap their IP in these Q-PACs, and the subject matter experts in the field can assemble them for their customers.”

That’s what Avoka Technologies, Sydney, Australia, does. A solution provider that specializes in business process management systems, Avoka has created about 20 Q-PACs for the new Adobe product.

“LiveCycle Workflow clearly has great functionality for document processes, but it’s adaptable to many workflow types,” said Avoka CEO Philip Copeland. “The industry is still in the early days of adopting BPM automation, and the way it will evolve is by people building these sorts of Q-PAC components. The next step will be to prebuild solution templates that address specific industries.”

LiveCycle Workflow also offers 2-D bar codes to capture information as users enter it, which then stays with the printed document as it’s routed. It uses business activity monitoring technology licensed from Celequest as well, providing realtime dashboards for managing business processes.