Integrate your partners with interactive forms - automated processing of purchase order confirmations using SAP Interactive Forms by Adobe

Connecting to business partners electronically is one of the most important information technology management issues. Interactive forms enable companies to automate processes with their vendors and customers. In comparison to well discussed technologies like electronic data interchange (EDI) or online portals, interactive forms are hardly considered in the literature as an alternative business-to-business (B2B) technology. In this paper, we discuss the advantages of interactive forms and present a real-life scenario in which they are used to integrate suppliers. In our case, an automotive industry company uses SAP Interactive Forms by Adobe to process purchase order confirmations in its SAP system. Based on an empirical study, we developed a comparison scheme for B2B technologies. Interactive forms turned out to be the best technology to support the purchase order confirmation process. We describe the process flow and the implementation of the prototype. Subsequently, we present the results of a feedback round with the process owners of the company which was carried out nine months after the introduction of the new procedure with interactive forms. These results include an analysis of the extent of use as well as some suggestions for the improvement of the solution. Based on those findings we discuss useful enhancements for the application to meet the adapted requirements and to accelerate technology adoption.