As we (RHOMBUZZ – Adobe Solution Partner) work through many AEM Forms implementations and interact with new or prospective customers, we noticed one thing in common, and that is, people are not fully familiar with what they got (or get) with their AEM Forms license purchase.
This post is an overview to give you some context on AEM Forms and its licensing. Read on if you have these questions:
- What is AEM Forms?
- Do I need to purchase AEM Forms license if I already have AEM Sites or LiveCycle?
- What modules or features do I get with AEM Forms license?
What is AEM Forms?
AEM Forms (or Adobe Experience Manager Forms) is a software suite that helps you create different types of forms and documents, build sophisticated user-driven and automated workflow systems that typically use forms and documents, and even extend your business processes to remote field workers on the road via their mobile devices.
The forms could be
- Interactive dynamic PDF forms
- HTML5 or Mobile forms
- Adaptive or responsive forms
The documents could be
- Flattened print stream PDFs
- Adaptive documents
In our Adobe AEM Forms Training, we cover all the above form and document types in great detail.
AEM Forms Licensing
I assume you fall under one of these three categories:
- An existing Adobe LiveCycle ES/ES2/ES3/ES4 customer upgrading or migrating to AEM Forms. By the way, upgrading and migrating don’t mean the same for a LiveCycle customer! (Clue: AEM Forms OSGi vs AEM Forms JEE).
- An existing AEM Sites or CQ5 customer looking to expand into AEM Forms.
- A brand new AEM Forms customer or prospect.
Each of the categories above would be handled differently by the Adobe Sales Rep when it comes to licensing and pricing. But, irrespective of whether you are an existing LiveCycle customer or AEM Sites customer, you still need a separate AEM Forms license to use AEM Forms. Though AEM Forms is the upgrade path for an existing LiveCycle customer, it is not covered by your existing M&S agreement.
Note that AEM Forms is licensed per core basis. You can either choose a term license or a perpetual license (you will most likely be guided towards term licensing as the world is moving towards subscription model and a steady revenue stream!). There is also the managed services option where Adobe takes care of installing and maintaining AEM Forms on a server in its cloud infrastructure.
AEM Forms and its Modules:
Here is what you get with your license:
- AEM Forms on OSGi – the standard AEM quickstart jar with AEM Forms add-on package that brings in most of the Adobe LiveCycle capabilities as OSGi bundles
- AEM Forms on JEE – This is primarily the upgrade path for LiveCycle customers (or if your business use-case requires the sophisticated AEM Forms Workflow). This requires a JEE application server and a database.
- AEM Forms Workflow (requires AEM Forms JEE installation) – This is actually LiveCycle Process Management module and is different from AEM Workflow.
- AEM Forms Document Security (requires AEM Forms JEE installation – this is a separate add-on purchase)
- AEM Forms PDF Generator – Centrally deploy and manage PDF creation.
- AEM Forms PDF Forms – Renders and processes forms in PDF and HTML.
- AEM Forms Output – Renders forms in PDF, PDF/A, PCL, ZPL, IPL, DPL, TPCL and PostScript.
- AEM Forms HTML5 Workspace
- AEM Forms Designer tool for creating Form Templates,
- AEM Forms Workbench tool for created advanced and sophisticated user-driven backend workflow/processes
- AEM Forms App (available for android, to be available for iOS soon)
- Reader Extensions
- Correspondence Management
- Barcoded Forms
- Digital Signatures
- AEM Forms Connector for IBM Content Manager
- AEM Forms Connector for EMC Documentum
- AEM Forms Connector for IBM FileNet
- AEM Forms Connector for Microsoft SharePoint
- AEM Forms SDK
Note that even if you don’t have AEM Sites (the content management solution) license, AEM Forms licenses usually gets you a restricted access to use AEM Sites just for creating Forms Portal (web pages for the search, display, retrieval and processing of forms and documents).
If you want to learn more about how AEM Forms can solve your business challenges, you can email us at Experts@Rhombuzz.com, and we can help you get the most value out of your AEM Forms purchase.
If you are looking to get trained by one of our industry renowned Adobe Certified Instructors, click here.
