Interactive documents produced by KCM ComposerUI require additional user input for document production. During the server-based production of the document, the user may be prompted for additional information.

KCM Core is the foundation of KCM Document Production. KCM Core can access a wide range of data sources and allows a seamless integration of the document production process in the business processes of an organization. KCM Core runs as a number of Windows services that satisfy all kinds of standard or custom requests. KCM Core is designed to be highly scalable, and it is accessible through a number of APIs. See KCM Core Developer's Guide for more information on these APIs.

KCM document production is template-based. In KCM terminology a template is called a "Master template." KCM Repository offers an environment in which these models can be developed in a controlled fashion. It provides role-based authorization, revision management, reporting facilities, and dependency information. Also, dynamic objects such as Text Blocks and dynamic Forms, can be managed in KCM Repository. When producing a document that requires a Text Block or a dynamic Form, KCM Core retrieves these at runtime from the KCM Repository Server. See KCM Designer online help for more information on Text Blocks and Forms.

KCM ComposerUI is a web-based component that serves as an intermediary between KCM Core and the user. Whereas KCM Core communicates in terms of XForms XML messages, HTML Forms have to be presented to the user. Likewise, whereas the browser will post data in HTTP messages, KCM Core requires answers in XML format. KCM ComposerUI takes care of the translation between these two components. It is highly configurable and may be customized by adapting all kinds of resources, such as cascading style sheets, xsl transformations or resource files.

The chapter "Sample workflow" demonstrates that KCM ComposerUI can be used as a stand-alone application, which presents a list of Master Templates and supports document production given a selected Master Template. In many cases document production is offered to the user as part of another application. Therefore, KCM ComposerUI has been designed to integrate into another application easily.

This process involves three parties:

1. Integrating application, which can be anything from a simple client(-server) application to a complete portal.

2. End user

3. KCM ComposerUI

KCM ComposerUI offers different interfaces:

1. A server-to-server interface to allow the integrating application to prepare a Master Template run in which a single interactive document is produced. Preparation of a Master Template run involves a set of parameters and optionally one or more data files. A Master Template run is uniquely identified by a session identifier.
2. An HTTP interface to allow the end user to produce a document given such a session identifier. The user is guided through a wizard-like sequence of HTML forms.
3. A server-to-server interface to allow the integrating application to access the results of a Master Template run. For example, the produced document and some metadata about the Master Template run.

If the definition of the Master Template run is simple, it can also be passed as part of the HTTP interface. In most relevant cases, though, server-to-server preparation of Master Template runs is preferred.

See Integration for more details on integration of KCM ComposerUI in another application.

KCM ComposerUI consists of two components: An ASP.NET implementation that runs on Microsoft Internet Information Server, and a J2EE implementation that runs on J2EE-based web servers.