Question

Measure the time it takes to fill out and submit a form

Laserfiche Forms

Updated May 16, 2022

asked on May 13, 2022

Hi. I want to measure the amount of time it takes for a process initiator to complete and submit a form. It appears that the amount of time is only measured from the moment the initiator clicks Submit. But I want to know how long it takes for the initiator to fill out the form. This is important for my company, because our forms are quite long.

Explained another way, I can only see the amount of time it takes to approve the instance.

Does Laserfiche Forms capture this data anywhere (eg. SQL)? Or Is there any way to capture this going forward?

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Replies

replied on May 13, 2022

Forms would not capture the "started filling out time" by default because nothing is sent to the server until the form is submitted, so that's when the instance actually starts.

Tracking the submission time is relatively easy because you can create a read-only field, set the default value to use the "current date/time" variable, and it will be set automatically. Alternatively, you can just use the Instance Start Time variable since it should be the same.

For the "started filling out time" you could also use the current time default value, but for that one you don't want it to be read-only so you'd definitely want it to be hidden.

Once you have both values you could use them to calculate the "duration"

When a date/time field is set to current date/time,

Not read-only populates the "current" date/time when the form first loads
Read-only populates on submission

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replied on May 16, 2022

Thank you both for your suggestions, they both make sense. Will discuss internally and decide!

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replied on May 13, 2022

What if instead of your big form being the start form you had a small short form that just explained the process briefly and then was submitted, with it set to automatically assign the next task to the initiator, and automatically open it. Have your big form be the next task and have it within its own section on the process model. Now you can use the built-in functionality to track and report on the time in that second task.

If the big form has to be the initial submission, you could include some Javascript that updates a hidden fields with timestamps when the form is loaded and when it is submitted/rejected/approved.

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Measure the time it takes to fill out and submit a form

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