Question

Multiple forms and one workflow. How would you extract the business variables from the form.

Workflow Laserfiche Forms

Updated March 8, 2018

asked on March 8, 2018

Hi,

I hope some one can help me simplify this process if possible. I have up to 20+ forms that use the same workflow that exports a form after modifying its metadata. The workflow uses the 'retrieve business process' construct to extract data from the form and modify its metadata.

At the moment, to retrieve the business process variables from the form the workflow has to use the form name in a conditional construct to find the business process variables for that specific form as you have to select the form explicitly when retrieving the forms business variables. The business process variables from the form are named the same for all forms even though the form content varies from form to form. At the moment I have to explicitly configure the 'retrieve business processes' for each form which is starting to make it a little unwieldly, especially as I have more forms to add. Is there a way to just extract the business process variables from the form that called the workflow?

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replied on March 8, 2018

Hi Mark

Have you considered using the Input/output feature in workflow?

On the common workflow you set up Input Variables for each of the variables you will need

My thought would be that you would create a basic workflow for each form type that you would call with a service task in your forms workflow that will retrieve that's forms specific variables, and then invoke the common workflow with those variables

The invoke Workflow will show you the available Input Variables for that workflow and allow you to map your retrieve variables to them which the invoked workflow will use as it's variables.

Hope this helps

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replied on March 8, 2018

Hi Steve,

I am looking at something like that at the moment but it still doesn't get me a way from the fact that I will have do the multiple conditionals. this way I can do it in separate workflow to the main.

One problem I have is that if someone changes the form name or even updates the form with a new one then they will have to remember to update the workflow conditional. I removed a form the other day and uploaded an new one (same name) and found that it broke the link to the 'retrieve business process conditional' in the workflow. I had to go into the workflow and re-select the form again to establish the link. I'll have 20 - 40 forms in multiple locations (yachts) that I may require to update, it just becomes a long drawn out process.

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replied on March 8, 2018

What I understood was that you have multiple forms that all have the same variable and wish not to have a bunch of conditional statements to identify the form where the value is coming from.

You don't have to do that, if you just assign your token value to the variable name, the value will always be the last submitted value.

Example: You have 2 forms, each one has a field with a variable "myName"

The first person submits the form as "John" and the workflow assigns the token as "John".

The form moves forward to a second person with the second form.

The second form submits the form as "Mike", and the workflow will assign the token as "Mike" regardless of which filed you pick in the "Retrieve Business Process Variables".

In this example just pick both of the checkboxes, and the value will be the last submitted value.

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replied on March 8, 2018

Hi Raul,

Thanks for the reply. The variables you are talking about within the workflow, are they not the input parameters? These are the variables that come standard with the form (bp process id, initiator name, etc), ones you don't need to retrieve process variables for. The variables I need are the ones inputed into the form, which as far as I was aware you can only extract using 'retrieve business process variables'.

I had a look and I cannot assign a token to the variable 'seafarer' (which is in the form) unless I retrieve it from the form first.

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replied on March 8, 2018 • Show version history

Yes. Unless you are doing something different after you retrieve the variable, using the same variable should work, no matter the form submitted.

This works:

Notice that there are three forms with the same variable, but the token only shows you one. That's because the value of the variable is always the same "last submitted value"

variables.PNG (8.69 KB)

| Download

Token.PNG (31.28 KB)

| Download

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replied on March 8, 2018

Hi Raul,

Are you talking about multiple forms within a single business process?

My requirement is multiple business processes with a single form, the forms in all the business processes have common fields. I have 20+ business process with a single 01.Submission form and all these forms have half a dozen commonly labelled fields.

Sorry if I hadn't explained it well at the beginning.

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Multiple forms and one workflow. How would you extract the business variables from the form.

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