SAP S/4HANA Cloud – Output Management – Barcodes and QR Codes on forms

Printed outputs are needed by any business even in an otherwise digital world. With each such output, customers want to provide as much of information as possible, in as little a space as possible.

S/4HANA cloud form templates are extensively used for producing the requisite printed outputs for businesses. Barcodes and QR codes form an important and integral part of these outputs.

This blog intends to demonstrate how you can enable barcodes and QR codes on S/4HANA Cloud form templates, along with some important points to note while dealing with them.

In order to make a change to a standard form, it needs to be copied into a custom template and downloaded on a local PC. Changes then need to be made in a local installation of Adobe livecycle designer. Please see this blog to see how to copy to a custom template and download. The adobe livecycle designer can be downloaded from the S/4HANA Cloud system using the “Install Additional software” app.

Inserting a barcode on a custom form template should be quite simple. A barcode can be inserted just like another field like a text field or any other. The same applies to the QR codes. Once inserted, a barcode or a QR code needs to be bound to a data field to ensure the correct value is captured by the barcode.

Pre-requisites

You should already know how to copy, download a form template. In case you don’t, please refer to the blogs mentioned above.

After downloading the form template on which you want to add the barcode / QR code, open the same in the Adobe Livecycle designer. For an example, the balance confirmation form is considered for this blog. Please note that the form used in this example is a slightly customized form and may not be exactly the same as the standard form.

To add a barcode, choose an appropriate barcode from the Insert à Barcode menu option.

Note that there is a long list of barcodes that are supported to be added on the adobe forms. Do also note that QR code option is also available within the same list.

In our example, I will use a Codabar barcode to be added to the form.

Place the barcode at the appropriate place in the form. In this example, I have wrapped the barcode within a subform and rotated it by 90 degrees in a positioned subform container.

Now, bind the barcode to the required data field. In our example, I have bound it to the BalanceConfirmationRunID field of the form.

Save your form, upload it back to S/4HANA cloud and test it. The form should now have the barcode available in the output. In a similar way, a QR code can be added as well.

Hope this blog helps you to know how to achieve this requirement.