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Send A Form Back To Initiator For Corrections and Then Back Again For Approval

Forms Workflow Business Processes Forms Layout Designer Laserfiche
Updated June 5, 2024
asked on June 4, 2024 • Show version history

Hello Everyone, Please I need urgent help on this one. I have a fairly simple scenario. I have a form that is used to create a document for printing. That Form is sent to either of two people depending on who is selected. Whoever of the two approvers, can approve, Reject or revert the form for further corrections. When it is approved, a workflow Tasks initiates a workflow which creates the document and send for printing.

I have done the Approve and Reject bit and it is working. My challenge is

1. how to route back the form to the submitter/Initiator for corrections and resubmission of the form for approval when the Revert button is selected. Does it go back to the initial gateway where you choose who is to approve and then you pick the Approver again or how to send to the initial approver who reverted the form.

2. When the reverted form is approved, how do i connect to the Service Task that creates the final document for printing.? Do i have to create a fresh Workflow Service Task for the printing or connect to the existing one.

My Model diagram is below

Am using LF 11 On Premise.

A stepwise guide will be deeply appreciated.

Thanks

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Answer

SELECTED ANSWER
replied on June 4, 2024 • Show version history

@████████I have this working correctly on my end using exclusive gateways for the second half.

Revert and Reject pathways use conditions (Last user task = X), and Approve is set as my default.

Hope this helps!

Editing to add: Obviously your approval paths would lead to a workflow, mine was just set to send an email for testing purposes. :)

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Replies

replied on June 4, 2024

I believe Sarah has answered your original question, but I would also suggest if the form is returned for correction, you allow the user to either resubmit or to cancel their submission.  If you don't give them a cancel option at that step (just an action button that leads to an End Event in your process diagram when clicked), you risk ending up with a whole bunch of running instances that never go anywhere. 

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replied on June 5, 2024

Thanks Jennifer. Your sugggestion opened my eyes to some possibilities i had not thought of before.

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replied on June 4, 2024

If I'm reading your process diagram correctly, instead of routing "Send Rejection Email to Initiator" to "End Event", I would loop it back to "DCOS Decision" or "HEVP Decision" based on a variable (ex. the field used to decide who it routed to the first time, or the field showing the user who rejected it).

If you change the Email Service Tasks to User Tasks, you can click "Email users when this task is assigned or reassigned", then they will still get an email alert, but they will also need to re-complete the form before it is sent back for approval.

I just mocked this up quickly to show what I'm meaning, maybe this will work for you?

Let me know if you need me to rephrase anything or try to explain a little better what I'm meaning and I'll do my best to help.

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View 6 previous replies
replied on June 4, 2024

Sorry, just re-read and noticed you have Approve, Reject and Revert. Maybe something like this would be better?

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replied on June 4, 2024

Hello Sarah,
Thank you so much Sarah for such a speedy response. I am going to try this and revert.

But questions:

1. You suggest i should use User Task instead of  Email task for 

(a) Send Rejection Email to Initiator and use the Reassign function?

2. For The properties pane of  the Revert to Initiator User Task, Do i need to include the Submit(Revert), Approve and Reject Button in the Forms Tab?

3. Can you guide on what to set up for the Outflows Tab or i could just leave  it as it is?

 

Thanks again.

 

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replied on June 4, 2024

Hello Sarah,

I just tried the new process based on your model. But i find that when the form is reverted and DCOS approves, it goes back to initiator again, and again. It does not seem to recognise the Approve and rout appropriately.

 

What could be wrong?

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replied on June 4, 2024

Would you mind sharing another photo of your diagram so I can have a peek? It could be a number of things. Do you have any of the outflows marked as default?

For the properties pane of the Revert to Initiator User Task, I would just have Submit. (Although from your screenshot it looks like you're using Submit as your Revert button, so that could be causing the loop..)

In Cloud there is the option to add more action buttons, it's strange that wouldn't be a feature for On Prem.

Is there a reason to have rejections terminate the process, or would it be possible to use Reject as Revert, and keep Submit as Submit?

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replied on June 4, 2024

As I'm getting further through my coffee I'm realizing it might be your gateway. I believe you should be using exclusive gateways in the second half of your process, not inclusive.

Exclusive split = either/or

Inclusive split = and/or

If adjusting your action buttons doesn't stop the loop, I'd try switching those out and see if that fixes the issue!

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replied on June 4, 2024

Thanks Sarah.

For the Outflows, I have the approve and Reject set as default path but not for the revert button.

Also, when I initially used Exclusive Gateway for teh second part of the process, the process didnt work until i changed to inclusive.

Below is my original model.

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replied on June 4, 2024

You should be using conditions for the outflows, you should not have multiple default paths, that has the potential to cause a loop as well.

Can you share a photo of the current diagram, that you said is looping back to the initiator over and over?

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SELECTED ANSWER
replied on June 4, 2024 • Show version history

@████████I have this working correctly on my end using exclusive gateways for the second half.

Revert and Reject pathways use conditions (Last user task = X), and Approve is set as my default.

Hope this helps!

Editing to add: Obviously your approval paths would lead to a workflow, mine was just set to send an email for testing purposes. :)

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replied on June 4, 2024

@Sarah, obvisously there is significant modification based on the new model you just shared. So I am going to remodel based on it.  Thank you so much much. I will revert on how that goes. Meanwhile this is the one that was loopiing....

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replied on June 5, 2024

Hello Sarah,

It worked perfectly. I cannot thank you enough. But i have one challenge that came out of this:

There is a comment field on the form which allows an approver to comment on before reverting the form. When that comment field is field with some instruction and the form is reverted to the initial submitter, the content of the comment field is no longer there. I wonder why that is.

Does this have anything to do with last user task versus last action? I can hardly tell the difference.

Please can you help again?

 

Thank you.

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View 6 previous replies
replied on June 5, 2024

Perfect, I'm so glad to hear this worked for you!

Regarding the comment field, if I'm honest, I use CSS to disable it on all of my forms as I don't like the way it functions. (As you mentioned, the comments disappear, which isn't ideal.)

In the CSS field, if you add the following code you can disable it:

#comment-container {
  display:none;
}

You can also disable it using field rules, but I find copying over this little snippet of coding is quicker.

If you still want a comments section, I would recommend adding a multi-line field so you can store the variable information from there. You can also add field rules to enable/disable the multi-line field when process step is/is not "X", so only the approver is able to fill in comments.

Let me know if you have any questions! :)

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replied on June 5, 2024

Thanks @Sarah. Ok.I want to keep the comments field. Also, I am using the Multi Line field for the comments but it doesnt get saved. I dont know if it is possible to insert a Save Form kind of rule or activity...each time the form is submitted or approved.

I leave this to your genius. :)

Also, the "Process Step is X" example that you gave is not available in the Field Rules. But of course other available variables there can be used though.

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replied on June 5, 2024

Strange that your added multi-line field isn't saving properly, are you using the same variable throughout the process? If so, it should be saving your information. If not, that could be your issue.

Do you have these options for field rules? I'm not sure if maybe I have more options being on Cloud? "Notes" would be whichever variable you are using for your multi-line comments field.

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replied on June 5, 2024

@Sarah, actually you have more variable options being on cloud. Am on OnPrem. There is no process step option in the field rules.

I just want to be able to save the comment field. Its not saving right now. Every other inputs in all the fields work except the Multiline comment Field. May be this is a bug. I will try HTML field and see if it works with that and update you.

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replied on June 5, 2024

Bummer! Hopefully that feature is on it's way to you soon.

The built in comment field will not save information. However, if you're adding a new multi-line field I'm not sure why that wouldn't be saving for you. Perhaps delete it and try creating as a new variable?

I'm sorry I'm not more help, I haven't run into this issue with multi-line fields not saving!

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replied on June 5, 2024

Actually, you can use Process Step and Process Stage with On Prem.  I think it may have come with Forms 11 Update 3.  You need to be using the Modern Designer.

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replied on June 5, 2024

Thanks Rob. I'll check that out.

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replied on June 5, 2024

@Sarah, actually there is no comment field, just the Multi-line field. But when I moved the Multi-line field out of the field collection, it seemed to be saving. But am still testing to be very sure. Thanks for all your help. I have made tremendous progress

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replied on June 5, 2024

No problem at all! Happy to hear that you're making progress. :)

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