It seems Cloud Field Rule definitions have changed, how explicit do we need to be now?

posted on May 12, 2022

In the past if we stated SHOW WHEN, the system would HIDE WHEN NOT automatically.

However as of working on a project today, this no longer seems to be the case.

I have the following show field rule

There is no other rule that shows or hides the Job Specific Documents field, so no conflicts to worry about here.

Now the condition field, Job Specific Document?, has another rule to hide and ignore the data.

If the data is ignored, then it can not possibly be Yes, in this case the system used to hide instead of show. However in the current cloud version, the field still shows.

When I click on type Labor Compliance, Job Specific Document? is hidden and ignored, yet Job Specific Documents remains. I have to show the hidden field and change it to No before Job Specific Documents goes away. This is completley new field rule logic defintions compared with the past.

0 0

replied on May 12, 2022 • Show version history

I don't know if something was initially different in Cloud, but I've always seen this behavior with self-hosted Forms for as long as I've been using it.

Whether or not the data is ignored only applies to submission, not how it evaluates in field rules, so a hidden field that shows/hide something still triggers that rule even it is hidden/ignored.

I've always used sections, multiple conditions, etc. to avoid the behavior seen in your video.

0 0

replied on May 12, 2022

Oh I had memory of building out an entire processes that depended on the ignore feature for the other rules to work and always thought that was the primary reason for the option.

The only reason for the option is so that the variable is blank for use in conditional decisions? How is a a conditional in the business process diagram much different than a conditional in the field rules?

0 0

replied on May 12, 2022

It's not just about use in the conditional decisions, it is a matter of whether or not the value is submitted to the server so it affects the entire process from reporting to saving documents with metadata, and that behavior can be used to reset values or ensure defaults are used in specific steps.

For example, if you include a hidden field with a default value of the current step, you could still use that field to show/hide other fields/sections.

Then if you set it to Ignore, not only will it still work for the field rules, but the value won't be submitted so it will get a fresh value every time you load the form.

A conditional in the business process is substantially different from a conditional field rule because a field rule is looking at a "live" input/field on a web form whereas the the process diagram is using the submitted/stored values.

2 0

replied on May 12, 2022

Oh I see your case for hiding it and resetting it to default on future loading of the form. Thanks for the explanation

0 0

Discussion

Discussion

It seems Cloud Field Rule definitions have changed, how explicit do we need to be now?

Comments 4

Follow-Ups 0

Sign in to reply to this post.