Is there a way to start a Laserfiche forms process from Workflow? What I'd like to do is attach a document that arrives in Laserfiche to a specific Laserfiche Form and start the business process.
You can use the HTTP Form Post activity in Workflow to start a Forms business process.
You would have to script exporting the document from Laserfiche if you want to attach that file to the form. It's probably not the best way to go since you'd end up replicating a large portion of your repository into Forms over time.
Or, like you said, WF can pass a WA URL to Forms when it starts the BP. You could get Forms to embed Web Access, but it would be sort of clunky since the user would have to authenticate both to Forms and Web Access. It might just be easier to have the URL, so the user can open it in a separate Window.
We are working on a two-way integration between Forms and Workflow, but we don't have a timeframe for it at the moment.
Can you give more details about your use case? What kind of document is arriving in Laserfiche that you want to be able to attach to a Laserfiche Form? What is its format, file size, etc.? What will happen to it during the Forms business process? Does Workflow need to know the Forms business process status?
There are a variety of incoming, completed forms that are stored as single and multi-page TIFFs in Laserfiche. They're usually no more than 3 pages or so. Right now, we have several complex Workflows that take each of these document types through a series of approvals and then stores the documents in client folders at the end. The Workflows work well, however, new users have a difficult time following the steps of each unique process and they're use to clicking a series of buttons (having worked in another document management product) to move the documents on from one stage to the next.
I thought about using Workflow's Business Processes, but I don't think one set of users will be happy with it. My thought is to take a lot of the processing being done in Workflow and put it in Forms, because it's basically just checking boxes to make sure each step is done. A form that shows only the fields necessary for each document type at the right time in the process is much more elegant than having fields that can't be displayed and hidden at various times (other than by user/group),and we'll get more user buy-in. The document will be attached to an approval form. When each approver opens one of their tasks, they can open the attached document in one window and fill out the next part of the form in another window.
Once the form has gone through the entire approval process, it can call a Workflow that moves the document in Laserfiche to the appropriate folder, and attaches the approval form to it.
One thought I've had is to see if Workflow can pass in a Web Access URL to the document and present the document in an iframe on the form. If it can, we may be able to start the process from a form that basically just retrieves the next document's URL and passes that URL to the approval form, which then routes it through the approval process.
Any thoughts on this? Does my description make sense?
Thank you for providing the details of your use case! Is it possible to start the process from Forms? What is the current process to store the incoming documents?
You can use the HTTP Form Post activity in Workflow to start a Forms business process.
You would have to script exporting the document from Laserfiche if you want to attach that file to the form. It's probably not the best way to go since you'd end up replicating a large portion of your repository into Forms over time.
Or, like you said, WF can pass a WA URL to Forms when it starts the BP. You could get Forms to embed Web Access, but it would be sort of clunky since the user would have to authenticate both to Forms and Web Access. It might just be easier to have the URL, so the user can open it in a separate Window.
Thanks for your input!
Right now, the documents are scanned in when they're received. They're automatically indexed and are being routed through the Workflows designated for each type of document. The Workflows take them through the mandatory approval process, with fields set up as their checklist to ensure everything necessary is done. The values in fields indicate when Workflow should move the document to the next step. I want to make this process more user-friendly by creating a checklist form. The form itself is easy enough, but the users need to view the document while completing the checklist.
The new process I'm creating is starting with a form that runs a Workflow to find the next document in the queue. The Workflow gets the document's Web Access URL and some field values that are used to populate the fields on the form. It stores all of that information in a database with the Form's instance ID. Then the Forms instance does a database lookup, gets the URL and other field values, populates the form fields, and provides an active link to the document on the form. (I still have to create a database cleanup Workflow or program to delete the items that have already been used so they don't have duplicate information in two databases.)
The only problem I've found with the business process is that sometimes the URL isn't available when the form is displayed to the user. Either the Workflow didn't complete in time or the lookup was slow in getting the information. Not sure which, but I think it's the former. I'll have to figure that part out.
I plan on trying to embed Web Access in the form, but have to figure out how to do that. I'm a Javascript novice (haven't used it in years, except on one occasion). I assume if we use Windows Authentication, embedding Web Access won't seem clunky. It should automatically log users in and present the document. That's my hope anyhow!
Anyone know how to get the Form HTTP Post activity to have the authenticaion it needs to be able to use this idea in an actual workflow? cannot seem to get it working just yet
There is currently no way to accomplish this. I know there have been requests for this type of functionality though.