Question

How to display tablular data and a scanned document for approval - multi line invoice approval

Workflow Forms Quick Fields Laserfiche

Updated October 5, 2016

asked on February 18, 2014 • Show version history

Hi all,

I'm putting together an invoice approval system. This one is a little more complex because every line item needs to get a nominal code to be approved. In some cases a line item requires multiple codes but RegEx can assist there.. I've got means and ways of achieving this with Laserfiche template BUT it's not especially pretty; essentially a multi-value field of free text that is formatted into "quantity & description, nominal code, value."

What I would really like is the ability to display tabular information similar to Forms. Is it possible to post a document and metadata to LF Forms and send someone a URL to view and process. It must have the scanned image attached for review.

Regards,

Ben

---------------

(9:40 GMT, 19 Feb 2014)

Hi again,

There have been some good ideas and some that are good but not of use for me, probably because I didn't explain the process clearly (thanks for your time, though.) Hopefully this gives a better perspective.

Current Process

Grab a bundle of supplier invoices (approx. 1000 per month)
Shove 'em into a scanner and have Quickfields read out totals (tax, gross, net), invoice numbers and date (these go into single-value number and text fields on the template)
Send them to Laserfiche and use BPM to route the invoices for approval
The Approval process requires at least one "cost centre" (or nominal code) and the portion of the invoice to be applied to that code. (at the moment, a single comma delimited text field on the template and works fine, though not the prettiest solution)

Required Process

Grab a bundle of supplier invoices (approx. 1000 per month)
Shove 'em into a scanner and have Quickfields read out totals (tax, gross, net), invoice numbers and date (these go into single-value number and text fields on the template). Also read the line items: get description and values of each line item. (probably stored in a multi-value field but I don't want to constrain your creative juices)
Send them to Laserfiche and use BPM to route the invoices for approval
The Approval process requires at least one "cost centre" (or nominal code) per line item, and the portion of the invoice to be applied to that code.

0 0

Answer

APPROVED ANSWER

replied on February 25, 2014

At this point, I don't think using Forms will help with this process. It sounds like using business processes in Laserfiche and Workflow will accomplish what you're trying to do. In the future, we'd like to continue improving how Forms interacts with the repository so we'll keep this use case in mind.

0 0

Replies

replied on March 5, 2014

Kia ora Ben,

I tried this a while back, and *almost* had it working for well enough for production (we've got a number of sites would love to have it!). Couple of points though that have left it as a development project:

a) you need to check in JavaScript at what point the form is - if it's rendering for the first time, then build your iframe etc. If not, then it's rendering the form for saving into Laserfiche, so you don't want to be adding or removing iframes at this point (rendering can get a bit brittle!)

b) if you send a link with a pre-populated URL, then the user has to be logged in if the form is (as should be) restricted access. Unfortunately Forms doesn't do a redirect to the logon if the form is restricted (hint, hint).

c) I used a database rule to load the fields, so the only data in the URL was a random GUID. This isn't as good as a secure logon, but at least it obfuscates the data. As an aside, once the ID field is populated, you need to do a javascript trigger event on the field to get the database rule to run.

d) I held the image as a PDF on disk (and referenced in the database fields as above), as you can't do a "chromeless" document without having the public portal additional license. I could write a web service to extract the image and stream it to the browser, I just haven't got around to it...

d) I haven't been able to find a way to create a task directly into a users task list. The pre-populated URL noted above will start a workflow, but the form won't appear in any task lists until the first submission has taken place. It's almost like you want the system to do the start task to populate the form, then send it to the nominated user for coding (and then possibly onto another user for authorisation). The URL sent by email works, but it means that users are bouncing between environments. I'd rather they stayed in the one environment (Forms) to get their work list.

So, it works but it ain't pretty...the upshot is that Forms needs to support:

a) creating tasks directly in tasklists from external code (bypassing the starter form)

b) redirect for logon when the form has restricted access

Laserfiche, please consider these as feature requests!

Andrew.

1 0

replied on March 6, 2014

Kia ora Andrew,

(Although I'm Australian, I've been listening to Neil and Tim Finn this morning and you've just made me a bit homesick :) )

Thanks for your detailed reply. At least this approach is looking more feasible. Our other option is to create a custom front end for the Financial market, as some other companies have done fro other markets.

Which ever route we invest in will require some strategic decision making as both solutions will require an amount of risk to support. A custom GUI will at least protect us from changes made to Forms and keep us upgrade-friendly. Well, both ideas have the pros and cons anyway.

-Ben

0 0

replied on February 18, 2014

I haven't had a chance to play much with Forms, but could you embed an IFRAME set to display a WebLink URL? We've got WebLink embedded in our ERP system this way. The document viewer page is heavily modified to strip it down to just the document so that it fits.

0 0

replied on February 19, 2014

Hi Devin,

That would display a document... and a Forms URL could be used to populate the invoice number for a lookup... I guess I would need to java code the iFrame based on the invoice number, too.

I'd rather use a WebAccess iFrame but any solution is better than none... I'll not mark this answered just yet until I can test or in case I see a preferred idea. Thanks though :)

-Ben

0 0

replied on February 18, 2014 • Show version history

Hey Ben,

Sounds like tons of fun you've got ahead of you.

You can easily use an iFrame to show something through WebLink or Web Access, assuming they can log into those services (and have those service(s)).

To display a document without that, you will need to use javascript to modify the file-upload field. You will want the file-upload field to be required so they cannot submit the Form without it. If you do a bit of searching of the input type they use for File uploads, and how to display it, you should find a few articles on Stack Overflow.

0 0

replied on February 18, 2014

If I understand your requirements correctly, you should be able to use Laserfiche Forms to map out this process. You could use the starting form for a process in forms to capture the uploaded invoice in a file upload field. Then, you could create a second form that has the uploaded invoice attached to it and also has fields that the approver can fill in. After that, you could save the approver's form and the uploaded document to the repository.

0 0

replied on February 19, 2014

Hi Eric & Kenneth,

Thanks for replying but given my new-and-improved description of the requirements, could you suggest something else?

-Ben

0 0

APPROVED ANSWER

replied on February 25, 2014

0 0

replied on October 5, 2016

Hi Ben,

I'm a couple of years late in reading this but for current discussion we have been able to accomplish this using Forms in version 10.

Our process doesn't involve the data extraction from Quick Fields but it shouldn't differ too much.

Scan documents to Laserfiche
Workflow creates a Form Task using the Invoke Business Process activity
1. Adds a variable value for the EntryID into a hidden field on the Form
2. Creates a Web Access URL to the document using the Generate Web Access URLs activity and inserts this into a hidden field on the Form
User opens Form Task
1. (Using JQuery) The Web Access URL in the hidden field is copied to a Custom HTML field so that the user is presented with a link to the document that they can open
User opens document via URL and (in our case) the user adds the Line Items into a Table field manually

If you were wanting to extract the values using Quick Fields I would suggest pushing the data into SQL and then using a lookup on them based on the EntryID or unique reference to populate your Lines on the Form.

According to the roadmap Laserfiche are introducing the Metadata Field Sets in Q4 of 2016 which would allow this functionality in the Client!

Just wanted to add in my comments post-version 10 that's all!

Many thanks,

Dom

0 0

replied on October 5, 2016

According to the roadmap Laserfiche are introducing the Metadata Field Sets in Q4 of 2016 which would allow this functionality in the Client!

It was mentioned at the conference. I'm looking forward to seeing how it looks!

0 0

You are not allowed to follow up in this post.

Question

Question

How to display tablular data and a scanned document for approval - multi line invoice approval

Answer

Replies

Sign in to reply to this post.