AEM Workflow Training for AEM Forms

Enterprise AEM Workflow Training Overview

This section teaches students how to build, automate, and extend AEM Workflows that support AEM Forms submissions across both AEM Forms on OSGi and AEM Forms as a Cloud Service. Students learn human-centric and system-centric workflow patterns; how to invoke Form Data Model (FDM) services; how to generate, assemble, and secure documents; and how to process submitted form data. Each course builds progressively—from foundational workflow concepts to advanced orchestration of end-to-end form processing solutions.

In addition to configuration-based workflow design, this section introduces developers to extending AEM through custom workflow steps written in Java and ECMA. Students learn how to build OSGi services, integrate them into workflow models, and create reusable components that behave like native AEM workflow steps. This combination of configuration and development skills enables teams to deliver highly flexible, scalable, and enterprise-grade workflow solutions.

Introduction

Workflow has always been a core capability of AEM Forms, enabling organizations to automate form processing, document generation, reviews, and back-office integrations. This introductory course explains the workflow tools available on AEM Forms on OSGi and AEM Forms as a Cloud Service, and sets the foundation for building both simple and advanced workflow models.

Form Submission and Review

In this course, students build a review workflow for submitted forms using the Assign Task step from the Forms Workflow category. As both workflow developers and reviewers, students configure task behavior, interact with the AEM Inbox, and explore review options—including the ability to revise form data when the task is presented in interactive mode. This exercise teaches the fundamentals of human-centric workflow design.

Invoke a Form Data Model Service

AEM Forms provides enterprise-grade data integration through Form Data Models (FDMs), which connect forms and workflows to databases, REST APIs, and other back-end systems. In this course, students create an FDM in Forms → Data Integrations and use the Invoke a Form Data Model Service workflow step to fetch or update external data as part of an automated workflow.

Process Form Submission

This hands-on exercise guides students through building a workflow that processes form data, the generated Document of Record (DoR), and any uploaded attachments. Students implement business logic using the OR Split, which enables conditional branching, and write ECMA scripts to extend workflow functionality. This course demonstrates how to orchestrate complex submission flows in AEM.

Use the Process Step

Students learn how to use the Process Step to execute a custom workflow process implementation. Building on earlier exercises, students add a Process Step to a workflow model and configure it to call the WriteDoRToDisk OSGi service created in the Programming Custom Workflow Steps course on aemforms.training. This exercise demonstrates how custom Java services integrate seamlessly into workflow automation.

Document Services

This course explores the AEM Forms Document Services, a set of powerful automation capabilities originally introduced in Adobe LiveCycle and now available on both JEE and OSGi. Students use out-of-the-box workflow steps—including Generate Non-Interactive PDF, Secure Document, Invoke DDX, and Sign Document—to automate document creation, assembly, encryption, and certification. This course highlights how AEM Workflows can become robust document-processing pipelines.

Programming Custom Workflow Steps (Java)

This course teaches developers how to extend AEM Forms workflows by building fully functional custom workflow steps using Java and OSGi. Moving beyond configuration, students learn how to create workflow processes that behave exactly like Adobe’s out-of-the-box steps—executing business logic, interacting with workflow data, and integrating directly into workflow models through the Process Step.

Students begin by creating a Maven-based AEM project and implementing the WorkflowProcess interface, gaining a clear understanding of how the execute method interacts with core workflow objects such as WorkItem, WorkflowSession, and MetaDataMap. Through hands-on exercises—including the WriteDoRToDisk and GetUserInfo projects—students work with Java streams, iterators, Sling adaptation, and AEM APIs to read, transform, and persist workflow data.

The course concludes with compiling and deploying OSGi bundles, managing them through the AEM Web Console, and invoking custom services within workflow models. By the end of the course, students will be able to design and implement production-ready custom workflow steps that extend AEM’s capabilities and support complex, enterprise-grade workflow automation scenarios.

Create Workflow Step Components

In this advanced course, students build a fully custom and reusable AEM Workflow Step component that behaves like Adobe’s out-of-the-box steps. Students develop an OSGi-based WorkflowProcess implementation and pair it with a Sites-style component under /apps featuring a cq:dialog built with CoralUI (Granite UI). Workflow authors can configure this step directly in the Workflow Model Editor through user-friendly dialog fields. The completed component invokes the GetUserInfo OSGi service developed in the Programming Custom Workflow Steps course, demonstrating the full lifecycle of designing, implementing, and deploying a production-ready custom workflow step.

These courses are part of our complete AEM Forms eLearning platform, designed for developers, administrators, and architects who need to build modern enterprise form solutions through online AEM Forms training. Visit aemforms.training to access our full library of online AEM Forms training and start building real-world expertise with hands-on AEM Forms courses today.