Question

Template Pseudo-Required Fields

Laserfiche

Updated June 8, 2022

asked on June 8, 2022

We are looking for a way to show that fields are required on our template, without actually requiring the fields.

Does anyone know a way to do this?

This is to improve usability, so that users who may not be intimately familiar with the template know what they should be filling in as mandatory.

If we require these fields, Laserfiche will not let users set the template without filling that information in. This prevents users from filling in information partially.

For example: when users load 100 identical forms signed by each employee; we'd like to list that the form type is required and the employee number is required, but let the user do a mass import with just the form type and enter in the employee numbers later. (actual use cases would be more complex than that, of course)

Changing field name wouldn't be ideal, because fields are re-used between templates.

The ideal for me would be a way to set field name formatting, so that we could make names bold or italicized, or perhaps even color-coded (though I hate to imagine the rainbow-templates THAT option might cause).

Any suggestions?

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replied on June 8, 2022

This might not be helpful, but maybe it is.

I have a process in Workflow where users are loading documents into a central location and then the Workflow moves them to a variety of locations based on the metadata fields. There is a "type" field that is the primary source of how it is decided to handle it.

There are some fields that are need for some types but not others. So I don't have the fields required, but the Workflow will fail to process if it's missing.

The way I handle it in Workflow is an "error" token starts out empty. On each conditional path that it could take based on the type, it includes a conditional sequence to check for the specific required fields for that type, and if they are missing, it adds to the "error" token (it takes whatever is already in the token and adds on to it, so multiple items could be listed even though it's not a multi-value token). Then it has a conditional sequence that checks if the "error" token is empty - if it is, then it processes the steps it takes to rename and move the document - if it is not empty, it skips those steps. Then at the very end of the workflow, it checks again if the "error" token is empty, and if it is not, then it copies the contents of that token into an errors field (which isn't part of the template but is extra). That way, anything that can process via the Workflow does, and anything that cannot has a message in the fields explaining what required items were missing.

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replied on June 8, 2022

Similar to what Matthew mentioned, I have processes where files are imported to a central folder and then Workflow processes them from there. Using starting conditions and/or logic in the workflow, we only process if all "required" fields are present. So anything that lingers in the folder is a visual cue that there's something missing. In my case, incoming folders are process-specific so what we need from users is limited to just that process (usually just a couple fields and then we look up the rest).

For some of these processes, I actually have a "scan" version of the template with only a few fields; when it's good to go, the workflow will switch over to the proper template and fill out the rest of the fields. The "scan" versions of the field can be renamed in helpful ways, though the options are a bit limited compared to something like Forms.

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Template Pseudo-Required Fields

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