How to add a variable to a live process

asked on June 22, 2017

Hi everyone,

We are using Laserfiche forms (version 10.1) for our Goal Setting and Performance Review process. The issue is that when saving a copy to the repository, we initially statically set what year it is. This means that we have to copy the process and change the year, every year.

Instead, I'm trying to introduce a variable on the form that keeps track of the fiscal year for that process, then use that in the file name when saving to the repository. However, we have live processes currently ongoing. I figured this shouldn't be too hard, since everyone in there (with a few exceptions) are just in the 2016 fiscal year. So my plan was to run an SQL update statement for cf_bp_data to update everyone to 2016, then simply adjust a few for 2017. Then from here on out, the year variable will be filled and everything will be fine.

Well the problem is that the new variable doesn't actually exist in the ongoing processes. It's impossible to update something that isn't there. Is it possible to update/refresh the current processes to get this variable in there? Or is my only option to finish off the 2016 instances statically and restart the 2017 instances with that variable?

Thanks

0 0

replied on June 22, 2017

You can add or remove any variables you like from a process, whether there are instances in progress or not. You do this from the Layout editor. To add a variable to a form, just make a new field and give it a variable name. To remove a variable, you need to click on the Variables tab and then click the gear icon beside a variable name to access the Delete feature. It is not recommended that you remove variables, unless you know what you are doing and are prepared to lose data. Once you have added/removed the variables on the form, you will need to reload the page to push those changes to the Forms database.

If you add a new variable, all the currently running instances will have no value for that variable, but they will still continue running. At this point, it sounds like you are then trying to insert a bunch of new entries into cf_bp_data to retroactively add a value for those running instances? I suppose that could work, but I don't know all the inner workings of forms to know if it won't break something. Let me know how that part turns out! I usually only ever update existing rows, not add new ones.

0 0

Question

Question

How to add a variable to a live process

Replies

Sign in to reply to this post.