Question

Forms public portal and document revisions

Forms

Updated February 15, 2017

asked on December 19, 2014

Hi,

I'm curious about A, how would you recommend handling this situation, and B, what the plans are for the future in handling these situations.

Here's the concept:

An anonymous user from the public submits a form. This form gets routed to a LF Named User for approval. The approver notices some mis-keyed information and would like to have the submitter fix their error. So the approver rejects the form with the appropriate comments. Is there a way to route this form back to the original submitter?

Secondly, are there any plans to implement a method for both authenticated Forms users, and non-authenticated Forms Portal users to correct errors on their submitted forms while they are still in-process? For example: I submit a form. An hour or so later I realize I forgot to include some information and would like to log in and update my submission. Is there a way to handle this, or are there any plans to incorporate this process into forms?

Thank you.

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Answer

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replied on December 22, 2014

If the user leaves their email address when submitting the initial form, you could have an email task that sends them a link to the starting form. They would fill it in and start another instance of the process. Depending on the complexity of your form, you could even use parameters in the URL to prefill the form with data from the current one. To the user it would look like it is the same form.

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replied on December 23, 2014

Thanks Miruna,

Do you know if there are any future plans for making this process easier to configure? Or possibly incorporating a "login" page to the Forms portal, where unlicensed form-fillers could create user profiles with email addresses? This is a fairly common question from prospective clients.

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replied on December 23, 2014

I'll pass your suggestion on to the powers that be in licensing. Currently, having a user account tied to an email address is what qualifies a user as a participant, so they need a participant license.

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replied on September 29, 2015

How would you fill in parameters in a URL. For instance I have a form that is called form and it has last_name as a variable... How would that email link look?

https://.../form (then what to fill the last name parameter)?

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replied on December 10, 2015 • Show version history

At the end of your url, you would add a "?" and then the variable name followed by an "=" and then the variable value. It will look something like:

https://server/forms/form/formname?variablename={/dataset/variablename}&variablename={/dataset/variablename}

When inputting that into the html editor, there are some nuances. The "&" will be html encoded to "&" which is ok. When sent it will be just as you expect.

Note: this feature only supports certain field types such as single line and number, and the variable name is case sensitive.

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Replies

replied on December 22, 2014

Hi Eric,

Currently, the best way to notify an unauthenticated participant is to include an email field on the form, and use Workflow to send an email alert in the event that it is rejected. In this case though, they'd need to start the form over from scratch. It's not currently possible to return an in-process form to an unauthenticated user.

There is a potential workaround though. You could use Workflow to write all the submitter's responses to a database, and assign them a unique ID that you also include in the notification email. When the submitter enters their unique ID at the beginning of the form, a lookup is run, and all their existing answers are re-populated.

As for your second scenario, I don't believe that there are currently plans in place to implement this functionality. Ideally, the designer of the form would use required fields and formatting constraints to ensure that submitters don't forget or mistype information. Our Forms team is always eager to hear about compelling use cases, though! If this is something that you think would improve the Forms experience, it would be great if you could expand on when and why this functionality would be helpful. The more specifics you provide, the better. Thanks!

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replied on December 23, 2014

Thanks Brett,

I believe the most important functionality that we encounter requests for is the ability to route back to the initial submitter. I mentioned above that it'd be great to have a system built-in to the LF Forms Portal where non-licensed users could create a login and profile. Possibly allowing us to route these forms back to them for review, and allowing them to track their submissions. I'd say it'd be important to limit their functionality to submit/re-submit only to protect the usefulness of the participant licensing.

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replied on December 22, 2014

Hi there,

1. Forms user task can be routed to authenticated users. For your public user scenario, can you provide more information? What type of public users? What type of information are being collected? What type of business processes?

2. Forms 9.2 doesn't allow public or non public user to retrieve the submission. Can you provide more information eg. if user update the submission, what'll happen to the original process? is there a time limitation so after certain time period/step, user can no longer update the submission?

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View 2 previous replies

replied on December 23, 2014

Hi Abby,

Further clarification on the above points (in order of my original post):

1. I'm thinking public users using the Forms Portal. Imagine a licensing/permitting set of forms that the public can fill out. A user submits a form and downloads a copy after submission. When reviewing this document they realize they applied for the wrong permit, or entered their name wrong, etc. Is there any way that an unauthenticated public user could update their submission, or are there any plans to make this a reality?

2. Right now it is possible to reject a form submission back to the initiator, and construct the path accordingly in the process modeler. Is there any way to do this with an unauthenticated forms portal user, or will they simply be forced to re-submit their form?

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replied on December 23, 2014 • Show version history

Hi Eric,

Thanks for your information.

I'm interested to know what "public users" in your real case scenario? Are they contractors for a company? Are they students for a college?

And what kind of information they submit?

When they resubmit, will they submit the exact same form with updated information?

You also mentioned you want the capability for a user to register themselves as participant users, what kind of users are allowed to do so in your use case?

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replied on December 23, 2014

These would be people in the general public. Submitters would be filling out permit applications, pet license applications, etc. Anything that you would go to City Hall to fill out would be a potential form. The information could include address, type of permit, and any information that may be required for the permit to be filed.

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replied on February 14, 2017

Hi,

Agree with Bret. Giving the public users the possibility to refill forms in case of missing info/documents, saving a draft for future submission and even possibility to e-sign their submitted application both in form mode or a document through a certificate will bring a lot of value to the solution. In fact, these have become the need of typical onboarding process. Hope LF will strongly consider these requests and provide these functionalities in its next release!

Regards

Vimal

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replied on February 15, 2017 • Show version history

Hi Vimal,

You can check out the new Community Licensing here: https://answers.laserfiche.com/questions/112291/New-Subscription-Pricing-Announced#114372

(note this is a VAR only link)

It sounds like this is going to offer the ability for the public to self-register accounts (think public sign-up). From what I understand, it looks like this will allow members of the public (non employees) to submit forms and have tasks routed back to them.

-Eric

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