Question

Forms Attachments - Controlling the names with multiple attachments

Forms

Updated July 10, 2021

asked on February 5, 2015

I have a form that will allow users to upload documents to Laserfiche. I want to be able to identify the type of document being upload so I created a document type field. I tried this with tables and collections and am getting the same result. Since a user can upload multiple documents at a time and I want to route the document based on the type. I included a template field for document type and am also including doc type in the attachment name.

My problem is when the document is stored in Laserfiche each attachment does not have an independent document type but rather a list of all document types submitted. 469-DocName-Choice 1;Choice2 and 469-DocName2-Choice 1;Choice 2. I created the template field as multi-value, which works (each type is a separate entry on the multi-value field) but how can I be sure I'm associating the correct document with the correct type?

I have attached screen shots of the template, processed documents and the form fields.

Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Sandy

TemplateFields.PNG (73.01 KB)

| Download

DocName.PNG (35.62 KB)

| Download

FormFields.PNG (11.85 KB)

| Download

2 0

Replies

replied on July 14, 2015

I find this same issue to be quite limiting as well. I have a form for uploading student records one student at a time and there are 50+ types of records that they are allowing. My table has a row for the document date, a dropdown of all available doc types (tied to the dynamic dropdown used in the corresponding template), and a place to attach a single document to that row. The above recommendation works if there are a finite type of documents you are allowing but with 50+ it is unreasonable to build 50+ different tables for upload. Additionally, the above recommendation does not allow for the dynamic nature of a document type field. There needs to be a way to associate a document attached within a table to the row it came from. This could be assigning a row # to it during the save to laserfiche portion and then cycling through the forms table data via a for each row. Or even better would be to just attach the data directly to the attachment based on the row it is in.

Has anyone found a dynamic & large-scale method for associating a document attached in a table with it's corresponding row information? Is Laserfiche looking to fix this limitation in future versions?

2 0

replied on November 23, 2017 • Show version history

This is an alternative method to Nathan's

First, create a collection, as you have done.

2. Save the form to LF, include the SubmissionID and InstanceID into the forms' metadata.

3. Save the attachements to a folder called "delete me" and have the workflow delete them. Messy but bare with me...

4. Create a workflow. The trigger will be the creatin of the form from step 2.

5. Add the activity Retrieve Business Process Variables and on its Properties tab, pass it the InstanceID and SubmissionID from the saved form.

6. create a loop to extract the doc type and matching document, and save them to laserfiche.

7. match the doc with the doc type

8. create the doc, attach the the current file, update the doctype.

9. simples. well, apart from creating docs just to delete them.

... And finally, the step to save and then delete can be omitted if you're not interested in saving a copy of the form (then just calling a workflow pieces should suffice) but I do like to save the form.

2 0

replied on July 15, 2015

Hi Laserfiche,

Has this issue been addressed? Is there another way? I'm in a similar boat where users are able to upload any of four or five document types.

-Ben

1 0

replied on July 10, 2021

This may have been answered already in another post but I was encountering the same issue the other day so I wanted to share what worked for me.

Starting with version Forms v10.2.1, you now have the ability to apply an index directly on the variable in the table and it will automatically associate metadata from the corresponding row for each attachment.

The syntax is {/dataset/Table/Column_1[Row()]}. In this example, the Table is the variable for my table and Column_1 is the variable for my field that I want to assign as metadata to my attachment. You can do this mapping entirely within forms (save to repository task) and won't need to use workflow.

Hope this is helpful to others!

1 0

replied on February 9, 2015

Hello Sandy,

The behaviour you are describing is consistent with what you would expect with Forms, because by adding multiple rows to the table, you are creating multiple values for each column. The problem occurs when trying to use one value within the column to name your attachments (dependent upon which row they were in).

I've found the simplest way round this is to view the problem from the opposite perspective. Instead of having a Row in a table for each Attachment, what will work is if you have a Section for each document type, with a File Upload field for each Section.

Then when configuring your Save To Repository, you will see for each Document Type there is the attachment option. At this point you can configure the Template Field values as you please, as well as naming the Document. Below is a Form named "Upload Table", with its Save to Repository task.