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Question

Laserfiche Form Submission - Merge Electronic Files added to Form

Version 11 Workflow Forms Self-Hosted
Updated June 2
asked on June 1

We are looking in utilizing the Laserfiche Forms process to allow users to submit and add supporting documentation to a single entry in our Laserfiche Repository. 

I have built out the Form Business Process and the Workflow, and it seems to work on submitting the items, but they are being added as separate entries.

Is there a way to build into the Workflow for those files uploaded in the "Upload File field" to be added to the entry that is created for the Form? Not as a Link?

 

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SELECTED ANSWER
replied on June 2 • Show version history

Sure thing. Below is what the field configuration looks like in a "save to repository" task in the Forms process diagram for the form itself, NOT an upload. This is all based on an expense report form I have - your fields can be named whatever you want.

So the form itself is getting assigned a template, and the two fields you see here are being assigned to it. The Expense Report Doc Type field tells us that this document is the expense report form itself, not an upload. And the Forms Submission ID field is a string of text that uniquely identifies this particular submission to the repository.

The fields configured for files uploaded to the form looks similar, except that in my case, the Expense Report Doc Type field is assigned a value of "Receipt." This now gives Workflow what it needs to know that one (or more) document is a receipt, and one document is the image of the form. In the screenshot below, you'll see this workflow makes a decision - it does so based on the Expense Report Doc Type field. If the receipt path is taken, you can see it moves it to a different folder and delays the workflow for 1 minute to allow time for page generation (might be unnecessary but I include this in similar workflows). Then the conditional sequence at the bottom runs if the page count of the starting entry is greater than 1 and if it is, it uses the "search repository" activity to find the document with the same submission ID with an Expense Report Doc Type value of "Expense Report," and moves the pages from the starting entry to that document.


If everything works correctly, you should not have an empty document left over. In this case, the form restricts uploads to be image files or PDFs. The account that Forms uses to authenticate into Laserfiche is configured to generate pages on PDFs and NOT keep the original PDF. So I should just end up with image documents whose pages can be freely moved around.

Does that help?

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Replies

replied on June 1

Hi Sarah,

What this usually entails is setting up your Forms service account to generate pages on new documents and limit the file upload on the form to file extensions that pages can be generated from - hopefully these uploads will all be PDFs. That *should* cause pages to get generated on the file upload when it gets submitted to the repository. Then, your workflow can use a "Move Pages" activity to move the image pages to the form submission. 

I typically set my Forms process up so that all documents within a single submission get submitted with the process instance ID in a field value - that now gives me a value that's the same across all documents within a particular submission. I somehow separate the uploads from the form itself (field value, different folder, something) so that the workflow only acts on the file uploads. The workflow runs on the file uploads (which should have pages generated already because the account that Forms is using to submit to the repository is configured to generate pages) and uses the field value with the instance ID to identify the form you want to merge the upload with. When this workflow has finished running on the uploads for a particular submission, you can either be left with the original PDFs (if the service account is configured to keep the PDFs) or you'll be left with only the single, merged document. 

I can go into more detail on any of this if you have any questions.

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replied on June 1

I think I understand the concept you are describing. Would you be able to provide a screenshot of a workflow that includes this aspect? I'm trying to locate the exact tools that I can add to my workflow that will allow me to add the submitted attachments to the original eform entry.

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SELECTED ANSWER
replied on June 2 • Show version history

Sure thing. Below is what the field configuration looks like in a "save to repository" task in the Forms process diagram for the form itself, NOT an upload. This is all based on an expense report form I have - your fields can be named whatever you want.

So the form itself is getting assigned a template, and the two fields you see here are being assigned to it. The Expense Report Doc Type field tells us that this document is the expense report form itself, not an upload. And the Forms Submission ID field is a string of text that uniquely identifies this particular submission to the repository.

The fields configured for files uploaded to the form looks similar, except that in my case, the Expense Report Doc Type field is assigned a value of "Receipt." This now gives Workflow what it needs to know that one (or more) document is a receipt, and one document is the image of the form. In the screenshot below, you'll see this workflow makes a decision - it does so based on the Expense Report Doc Type field. If the receipt path is taken, you can see it moves it to a different folder and delays the workflow for 1 minute to allow time for page generation (might be unnecessary but I include this in similar workflows). Then the conditional sequence at the bottom runs if the page count of the starting entry is greater than 1 and if it is, it uses the "search repository" activity to find the document with the same submission ID with an Expense Report Doc Type value of "Expense Report," and moves the pages from the starting entry to that document.


If everything works correctly, you should not have an empty document left over. In this case, the form restricts uploads to be image files or PDFs. The account that Forms uses to authenticate into Laserfiche is configured to generate pages on PDFs and NOT keep the original PDF. So I should just end up with image documents whose pages can be freely moved around.

Does that help?

0 0
replied on June 2

Sure thing. Below is what the field configuration looks like in a "save to repository" task in the Forms process diagram for the form itself, NOT an upload.

So the form itself is getting assigned a template, and the two fields you see here are being assigned to it. The Expense Report Doc Type field tells us that this document is the expense report form itself, not an upload. And the Forms Submission ID field is a string of text that uniquely identifies this particular submission to the repository.

The fields configured for files uploaded to the form looks similar, except that in my case, the Expense Report Doc Type field is assigned a value of "Receipt." This now gives Workflow what it needs to know that one (or more) document is a receipt, and one document is the image of the form. In the screenshot below, you'll see this workflow makes a decision - it does so based on the Expense Report Doc Type field. If the receipt path is taken, you can see it moves it to a different folder and delays the workflow for 1 minute to allow time for page generation (might be unnecessary but I include this in similar workflows). Then the conditional sequence at the bottom runs if the page count of the starting entry is greater than 1 and if it is, it uses the "search repository" activity to find the document with the same submission ID with an Expense Report Doc Type value of "Expense Report," and moves the pages from the starting entry to that document.


If everything works correctly, you should not have an empty document left over. In this case, the form restricts uploads to be image files or PDFs. The account that Forms uses to authenticate into Laserfiche is configured to generate pages on PDFs and NOT keep the original PDF. So I should just end up with image documents whose pages can be freely moved around.

Does that help?

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