Question

Can I blank out filled (hidden) fields via workflow Set Business Process Variables?

Forms Version 11

Updated September 3, 2024

asked on February 13, 2023

Looking for help with changing form fields via Workflow.

My workflow is correctly retrieving the variables, and correctly modifying my target Token Values, however, the instructions in Set Business Process Variables is NOT changing the fields to match the Token Values.

The idea is to get rid of the wrong data in the fields and leaving them blank, via workflow. But it's not blanking out those fields on the form.

Since the workflow was not CHANGING the fields on the form to the Token Values, I tried something I found on another LF Answer Post, using the DB.NULL token. I was hoping that if I blanked out the field first, then it would fill with the Token Values. Nope.

I have also tested to ensure workflow can just CHANGE what's in there by making one of the Token Values just the word TESTING, however, after a test the form did not reflect any change.

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replied on February 16, 2023

I might be confused as to what you are trying to do, but if you are just trying to set a variable value in Forms to be empty when having Workflow update it you would use the following on a single line in the Starting Variable Values area of the activity:

variablename =

You do not need to put a value after the = sign. My understanding is that if you use %(DB.NULL) it will set an empty value to NULL.

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replied on February 16, 2023 • Show version history

Well, ultimately, the workflow has to check first and then only make a change if it finds the ones that resulted in zeros. If a proper address was actually entered, then I want that address to stay.

The reason I'm ending up with these messy zeros is because of the formats that we are using to force people to enter the address in exactly the way we want them and then the pieces are all collected into one resulting format to use further in the process and save into the right template field in the repository when it becomes an official record.

Here's an example of the formula that is used to collect the pieces (and which results in zeros if no one entered any such Legal Address) =IF(OR(LEN(INDEX(Location_Area.Qtr,ROW()))=0,LEN(INDEX(Location_Area.Sec,ROW()))
=0,LEN(INDEX(Location_Area.TWP,ROW()))=0,LEN(INDEX(Location_Area.Rge,ROW()))
=0),"",CONCATENATE(INDEX(Location_Area.Qtr,ROW()),"-",RIGHT(CONCATENATE("000",INDEX(Location_Area.Sec,ROW())),2),"-",RIGHT(CONCATENATE("000",INDEX(Location_Area.TWP,ROW())),3),"-",RIGHT(CONCATENATE("000",INDEX(Location_Area.Rge,ROW())),2),"-W4"))

If no one uses the Long Legal type of address option, it results in 0-00-000-00-W4

This is how the workflow is validating the address (see clipshot). If it does find the messy zeros, it does not modify the token, meaning it leaves a blank token. If the retrieve variables does NOT find that exact set of zero's, it modifies the token with the retrieve variable so that the token in the Set Business Process Variables will either leave a blank if the zeros were found or copy back in what was found. But its not working.

=IF(OR(LEN(INDEX(Location_Area.Qtr,ROW()))=0,LEN(INDEX(Location_Area.Sec,ROW()))
=0,LEN(INDEX(Location_Area.TWP,ROW()))=0,LEN(INDEX(Location_Area.Rge,ROW()))
=0),"",CONCATENATE(INDEX(Location_Area.Qtr,ROW()),"-",RIGHT(CONCATENATE("000",INDEX(Location_Area.Sec,ROW())),2),"-",RIGHT(CONCATENATE("000",INDEX(Location_Area.TWP,ROW())),3),"-",RIGHT(CONCATENATE("000",INDEX(Location_Area.Rge,ROW())),2),"-W4"))

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replied on February 16, 2023 • Show version history

If you want, I would be happy to take a look at it with you. Just let me know and I'll send you my contact information.

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replied on February 17, 2023

Thanks for your very generous offer, Blake! I think in this case, I should contact our Laserfiche support and see if they can pinpoint the problem for me. We just upgraded and it might be related to that.

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replied on February 17, 2023

You're very welcome, Connie. For your information, we are currently blanking out values the way you are trying to in our test environment using Forms 11 and Workflow 11 without any issues. It is also working in our production environment that is still running the latest versions of the 10 products.

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replied on February 17, 2023

Blake, if you have working workflows set up as tests, could you send me the downloads that I could compare notes with? I might be able to spot the problem myself if I can compare notes like that.

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replied on February 17, 2023

Unfortunately, I'm not able to share the workflow.

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replied on February 17, 2023

Okay, thanks anyways.

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replied on February 13, 2023 • Show version history

I could be mistaken, but in my experience, in order to clear out fields in a table and re-populate them with new data, I had to have two separate workflows, one to clear the table values and then one to populate them with the new data. Trying to do it within the same workflow never behaved as expected.

So the one clearing the tables looks like this:

And then the second workflow, which is populating the new values looks like this:

It is important to note that all of those tokens are multi-value tokens as they are populating into a table.

What's concerning me is that you are saying nothing has changed, even when you hardcoded a value to the word TESTING, that should have worked.

Have you confirmed that your workflow was triggered and ran without error when Forms called it? Did you look on the Monitor page to see if the workflow is showing any of the Forms values being updated? Have you confirmed the workflow activity is pointed at the correct server and form?

Edit to add - So that you know, the part about pointing the activity at the correct server and form is more about verifying the server. The selected form actually doesn't matter for the process pushing the values back to Forms, it'll push them back to whatever form called the workflow. What matters is the variable names, and selecting the right form helps it find the variable names, but any form that calls the workflow will be able to process it whether or not it is the specific form listed on the activity. This is how a workflow can be reusable across multiple form processes as long as they have the same variable names.

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replied on February 16, 2023

Thanks, Matthew! I have now

Copied the wf and changed it to just do the DB.NULL changes, but it is not making a change.
Tried changing the server connection, as I have two that have been used and it seems one is a better connection than the other. Still no go.
Moved the WF task to just prior to an active stage, hoping it needed to be assigned to an active stage before those changes would be reflected on the form prior to the Save to Repository task . Still no go.

What else could cause the Set Business Process Variables to not change as instructed?

Most recent test:

Result in the Respository:

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replied on February 16, 2023

The workflow has no error messages, the Activities says:

Parameters:

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replied on February 16, 2023

Have you gone into your process in Forms, gone to the monitor page, checked the history on your process, and clicked on the workflow activity? It should show all values that were updated on the form instance by the workflow. Whatever else is going on, it sure it sounding like you are not seeing the values on the Form instance being updated by the workflow. So we need to confirm whether or not that is the case.

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replied on February 16, 2023

No, I didn't think of that, but...

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replied on February 16, 2023

So, this workflow is not actually pushing values back to the form process.

Do you have other workflows that are working to push values to forms that you can compare to for differences?

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replied on February 16, 2023

Not many; and I have looked, but haven't found anything that helps... yet. I will keep looking.

And I have one other possiblity that I've asked my IT to look into that might be ... ...no, that can't be it because if it was the admin password that it uses to connect then it would have come up with an error message on the workflow report.

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replied on February 16, 2023

Ugh. So it's running the activity and not populating the values into Forms, and we don't know why. Unfortunately, I'm not certain what more I could do through this channel in order to determine why that is.

Unless you want to share a copy of your workflow, I'm kind of inclined to recommend having your Solution Provider take a look.

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replied on April 30, 2024 • Show version history

I'm was having a similar issue and it turned out I just needed to select the "Wait for the workflow to finish before proceeding" in order for the value to appear on the form. Just in case this helps anyone else.

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replied on September 3, 2024

I see that even though I clear Form field value as blank using workflow, Forms database has values stored from previous submissions. How do I make sure the value is cleared in Forms database across all submissions?

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replied on September 3, 2024

I replied to your other post.

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Can I blank out filled (hidden) fields via workflow Set Business Process Variables?

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