How can I assign tasks from names in a form table but if a name is repeated in the table, not email someone twice?

asked on December 10, 2021 • Show version history

I have an inspection report that lists deficiencies in a table and each row of deficiencies has a name field to assign that row to someone as a task.

The next step in the process needs to email everyone named on a row so that they know they have a task to complete. I currently have the form working, but it emails each name. If a name is in there twice, they get two emails. If they were named 3-4 times, they get 3-4 emails etc, etc.

I'm thinking of a hidden field that would be formulated to collect the names to email out to, but it would have actually two conditions.

1) First condition would be... if the name is already in the list, don't collect it again.

2) Second condition... if the radio button for status says "completed" then don't collect this name.

The form process is in a loop so that individuals can come in and continue adding comments until ALL of the tasks are completed. So, if I can get these two conditions working it will...

1) Solve the problem of someone getting notified of a newly assigned form more than once.

2) Sove the problem of EVERYONE getting the REMINDERS when some of the people have completed their tasks.

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replied on December 10, 2021

Is the email being sent using workflow or is it a Forms Email Activity?

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View 10 previous replies

replied on December 10, 2021

Forms Email Activity. I hadn't thought of using wf to send the emails. Do you have an example of a wf that is set up just for sending out email notification regarding form assignments? (I'm a very visual person; if I see it, I can usually recreate it!) :)

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replied on December 10, 2021

What I was thinking in Workflow, is that if you assigned the people to be notified to a WF Token, you could then use the Token Editor and Function Remove Duplicates to only have each name once, and then a loop on that Token to Send the emails

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replied on December 13, 2021 • Show version history

Question, Steve:

I have the workflow created now, however, if the email is being sent from workflow now, how do I get the link to the form into the email in the same way our users are used to seeing it in the email that usually comes from LF Forms?

.... or, can I have the wf send the names back to the form into a hidden field that the form would use to determine who to send the emails to?

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replied on December 13, 2021

If the email is being generated from WF, the easy way is to just send them the URL to the Inbox Task and reference their project, meaning they'll have to find the project in their task inbox list, as opposed to it directly opening the task.

Would you like something different than that?

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replied on December 13, 2021

Ya, most of the people that will be getting assigned to these tasks are older men working outside on buildings who already hate anything electronic so anything that is different from before becomes a real problem to them.

It would actually be better if workflow could do the work of figuring out who NOT to send to (based on what radio button is current) and then populate a hidden field on the form, ESPECIALLY since I don't think the Reminder set up (fourth tab) can send reminders using this workflow.

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replied on October 13, 2022

Hi @Steve Knowlton, I'm suddenly back to this after being pulled away to other projects for awhile. So, I've built the workflow, but don't know how to get the values in the tokens back into the Forms process to be used to either email the (duplicates removed) names or to assign tasks.

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replied on October 13, 2022 • Show version history

This "Set Business Process Variables" looks right but has errors.

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SELECTED ANSWER

replied on October 14, 2022

Hi Connie - here you appear to be attempting to assign the variable with the ForEach Values when it should have been the Assign Token Values.

As the Values are coming from a Forms Table, you should be able to only have one For each loop and to assign all of the values from inside that loop. At that same time you could have a condition to check if the task is completed as well to exclude those

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replied on October 14, 2022

If you'd like to chat or look at this together, I'd be happy to jump on a call with you

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replied on October 14, 2022

Sure, that would be Awesome! What media? Phone, Zoom, Teams...?

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replied on October 14, 2022

Teams, I can send you an invite, what is your email?

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replied on October 20, 2022

Thanks for all your help, Steve, I got it all working and am now adapting it to the live form!

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replied on October 21, 2022 • Show version history

For anyone else that is looking for a similar solution, this is what we decided on:

The original form spins off a smaller (single task) form for each row in the table. This allows me to not need to figure out how to get the right people assigned at the right times. Plus, I think the people being assigned to these tasks will like this better. Most of the people being assigned tasks are people that work out of the office and would be reviewing what was assigned on their phones, so the new (single task) form is designed to be more mobile app friendly. They don't need to see everyone's tasks in the table, they only need to see their own.

In order to do this, three workflows were required:

A spinoff wf that creates the individual task forms for every line in the table.
A "check if completed" wf that the original form process uses to monitor progress. When the wf confirms all tasks are complete, the original form process moves on.
A wf that starts after each individual task form is submitted. This wf posts the data (comments and date) from the task form into an SQL table. This allows for the #2 wf to check for completions AND allows for the completions to be posted to the original form's table (via Lookup Rules) so that the final record will show each task in the table was completed and any comments that were made.

Thanks again, Steve!

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How can I assign tasks from names in a form table but if a name is repeated in the table, not email someone twice?

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