Question

How can I assign the same form to multiple users.

Forms

Updated September 22, 2015

asked on September 17, 2015

Hi everyone!

We are trying to send the same form to more than one user, for its approval. The name of these users are typed in a previous form. Since the number of users changes we cannot have static number of fields. We tried the following:

Create a table, there we added any number of users, after that we used these fields to assign them for the next forms. However it only worked with the first field, the other fields were not recognized:

We looked for this problem in answers and it seems it's a known problem with tables and collectors.

Since the first point didn't work we thought that maybe using a group (created in WF) could fix the problem, sadly we cannot assign groups. Reviewing the documentation we found out that it will be available in Forms 10.

Now, for some specific reasons we need to do it like this, so we will really appreciate if someone could give us an advice since we cannot wait until the version 10 is realeased.

Best regards.

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Replies

replied on September 22, 2015

Hi there,

For now, you can use individual Single Line fields (not in a collection), to fill in the assigned to Username with custom javascript. And in User Task, assign to fill in Single Line field variable name.

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replied on September 22, 2015

Hi Ricardo,

Even though Abby already responded to your question, I took some time to walk through how you might go about using this.

As you mentioned, the ability to assign tasks to groups will be available in the upcoming Forms 10 release. In the meantime, there are several workarounds that you can configure to achieve a similar outcome. The two main obstacles I'm seeing in this scenario is that a) you need a way to assign an approval task to multiple users that is dynamic, and b) these users need to approve the task in parallel rather than having only one person complete the task for the group.

Again, you are correct about the currently limited functionality of tables and collections for assigning multiple users to a task. Like Abby mentioned, one way to circumvent this issue is to have a different field for each potential user. Since the number of users changes, you could display the right number of fields by attaching field rules to a drop down or radio button that first selects the number of users. For example, the User 2 field below is shown when the Number of Users field is set to "2" or "3." This way, you'll be able to collect individual variables for the different users for routing and can change the amount of fields available to suit your needs.

Machine generated alternative text:
Multiple User Approval
Number ot Users
User 1
User 2
Submit
01@203

The next step for this scenario would be to assign individual user tasks based on whether the field contains a username or not. An idea for this might be to set up a gateway that then leads to a user task branch for each possible user if the field is not empty. There are also some known issues with how Forms handles gateway merging, so I would refer to the following use cases that have been posted on Answers:

A workaround that uses nested gateways to accommodate conditional tasks.
A workaround that notifies if any user approves or rejects by adding a field rather than using the Accept and Reject buttons.

Of course, your Forms process will be specific to your scenario, but hopefully this will tide you over until Forms 10 is released.

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replied on September 22, 2015

Hi Abby and Anita,

Thanks for taking your time! We also thought something similar to Anita's solution, however the main problem is that the number of users can change dramatically.

We came up with a solution, we use a WF that reads the collection's fields, then use a foreach to send the form to all the users.

Thanks again!

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How can I assign the same form to multiple users.

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