IBM Workplace Forms: Guide to Building and Integrating a Sample Workplace Forms Application

Chapter 7. Zero Footprint with WebForm Server 247

Webform Server allows users to sign forms using Clickwrap signatures, and to verify other

types of signatures that have already been applied to the form. However, Webform Server

does not allow users to sign forms using any other signature types. This means that

signature-based security is limited when using Webform Server. While Clickwrap signatures

prove acceptance of a document, they do not provide the same level of authentication as

digital signatures.

7.3 Web services moves the solution to Viewer only

Stage 2 of the implementation forced the solution to a Viewer only client experience because

of the decision to use Web services as the integration technology. Since Web services is

Viewer based solution, a Zero Footprint environment was eliminated as an option. This

simplified the Forms Design process since there was no longer a need to be concerned with a

browser only environment.

The effort to solve this challenge exceeded the scope of the redbook. The following approach

could have allowed a Zero Footprint solution.

Client-side Web service calls are not supported in Zero Footprint. In order to enable this

capability, the Web services functionality would have to be re-partitioned so that the calls to

Web services from the form (client side) are moved to the Web Application (Servlet or

Portlet).

The likely solution would include creating a button that submits the form and putting an action

on it (url?action=wscall). When the Servlet detects the request, it would perform the Web

service call within your Servlet/Portlet [Server <—> Service]. When the Web service call is

successful, the API would be used to insert the data into the form and return the result.

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