Workflow Start a Forms Process

asked on October 1, 2021

What are the steps to have WF start a NEW forms process automictically. Here is what I'm doing. Staff send a PDF to a folder. QF will then process this PDF passing data to metadata template and initials a WF. In that WF all that data and metadata template will be imported. I then want to have WF initial a Forms Process. One of many reasons in initialing a Form process is so approving staff can approve whatever task I design. The problem here is that our staff member only Participant licenses. And yes, we only have a hand full of Laserfiche Full Licenses.

Now, if there is a better way of accomplishing the above process, and I'm thinking WF might do this but I don't know how, then that would be great too.

Thanks in Advance

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replied on October 1, 2021

I'm working on a project that has similar elements. We receive documents into special email addresses. These documents are processed by Email Archive, Quick Fields and Workflow, then passed to a Forms business process to gather accounting information and approval.

The short answer is that you'll use the "Invoke Business Process" activity to start the process. That said, the activity has a key limitation (at least in version 10, which I am still using). The key limitation is that while you can pass most field information into the process, you cannot pass a document in. Hopefully Laserfiche will add this capability in the near future (if they haven't already added it to version 11).

Like you, we are not able to assign full licenses to every participant in the process, and our participant licenses are the "old" kind that cost less than the ones they're selling now, but that don't allow users even read-only access to a repository.

While I would have liked to pass the document around to users in the Forms process, I used the following two workarounds.

First, for those participants who do have Laserfiche licenses, I configured LF Connector to lookup the document in the Windows client while they have the form open. Since Connector and Windows client both depend on client-side installations working, I also added a link to the form that will let users open the document using the web client. The web client is much slower--due to the need to log in, it takes long enough to annoy most of our users--but will work if they're not on a computer with Connector and Windows Client installed.

Second, for the step to be completed by participants who do not have full licenses, I call a workflow that emails the document to them. (Yes, I know, all you fellow ECM professionals reading this are cringing right now).

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replied on October 1, 2021

Hi Tim

What I do in these situations is I pass the URL to the document to the Forms process where I display the document in an iFrame or provide a link to the document with an HTML link. If you have the newer Particpant Userr type and not the Forms Authenticated Participant, the Form user can see the document in the iFrame or open it in the repository via the link in Read Only mode

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replied on October 1, 2021

Thank you for that great suggestion.

We may update our old participant users licenses to the new ones but for now our participants have no repository access. The Entry ID is what I passed to the form, which made it easy to allow access for my full users and to email the doc to my participants.

I actually like your idea of also passing the URL to the document since that means you don't have to create the URL on the form using Javascript.

I think it would be a wonderful enhancement if we can in the future pass documents or other attachments to a Forms process.

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