Question

Using Forms to get a 'Summary Report' from field values

Forms Version 10

Updated December 14, 2021

asked on March 5, 2018

I am doing a little research here before I start experimenting. Hopefully to save some time in the long run.

In one of my processes, I have designed a form that is very stripped down to serve as a Summary Report. It saves to the repository beautifully. How can I have my users click a button to open this 'other' form into a new tab in the browser?

I have discussed passing variables to the URL with my team. I have collections and tables in my source form. It is my understanding that those data types can't be passed as variables to a URL. Is that true??

Are there any other options out there?

Thank you!

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Replies

replied on March 5, 2018

Hi Chris,

For opening a URL in new tab, you can add html content to custom HTML field like this:

<a class="btn btn-primary" target="_blank" href="http://server/test">OPEN</a>

But if you mean to open a "form" that is not the form used in message start event of a process, that's not possible.

For passing variables to the URL, yes values cannot be passed to fields in table/collections directly. Maybe you can use custom script to populate values, but since URL has length limit, I wonder if that's enough for your data.

Possible option I could think of is to save the report data into database and use lookup rules to populate the values in a new process.

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replied on March 6, 2018

Thanks for the info. I suspected that was the case. Can you think of an alternative?

1) Can I kickoff a workflow process the form without submitting?

I am imagining (hopefully) I can send the data to workflow, then have workflow populate a form and return a URL of the the newly populated form (in the format I am looking for as a summary).

2) Another possibility could be to send to workflow and return the weblink URL of what was saved to the repository. Users could open the 'summary' from weblink.

Is it possible to send data from workflow before a form is submitted? I am guessing , no.

3) Here is an out of the box question: are there any ways to submit and still edit the form? Perhaps a save as draft and reopen to edit all occurring behind the scenes.

Hopefully you see where I am going with this. I am just testing the waters before I start a solution. Thanks Rui! You have helped me many times. If I ever meet you at a Laserfiche conference, I would love to buy you an adult beverage!

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replied on March 6, 2018

You cannot trigger Workflow process from Forms or get Workflow data into Forms before a form is submitted. That is, when no instance has been created, Forms could not work with Workflow. Maybe you can use Workflow SDK (see help here) but I'm not familiar with that part.

As for question 3, "submit and still edit the form", maybe you can use self-looped user task for editing the data after Forms is submitted, based on how the process flow is designed.

Besides, I'm on Shanghai site so you won't meet me at the Long Beach conference. Thanks for the kindness anyway

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replied on March 7, 2018 • Show version history

I happened to attend a User Group seminar yesterday and worked with one of the techs after the session. I came up with this idea earlier in the day and he helped me finalize it. I have reassigned one of the buttons in the user task to be "view summary". When a user clicks on it they are routed to another user task with a different default form (which is the summary). On the summary there is only one button (submit relabeled) named "return". This way the user can go back and forth as many times as they need.

Lastly, I assigned the user in the user task to be Previous Submitter from the token list. I also assigned this user to the copy of the user task ("[Pre] Department Approval copy" in the pic). I chose no email to be sent as well. Hope this helps someone someday.

Rui, if you ever find yourself on the East Coast of the U.S., let me know. The offer stands!

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replied on December 14, 2021

Anyone ever figure out how to pass variables to a URL when the variable contains the & symbol? That symbol separates the variables so it is throwing me off. Thanks!

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Using Forms to get a 'Summary Report' from field values

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