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Business rules are added by editing your form or workflow. Click the Rules icon in the form designer toolbar shown below to add new business rules and edit any existing rules in your form.

You may create a new rule by clicking on the icon. Your new rule is given a randomly generated name. You can edit the name as described below.

Each rule has three icons. Each is described below.

  • Click the icon to edit an existing rule. You can edit the name, description and statement (JavaScript code) for the rule.
  • Click the icon to delete a rule. Confirm your choice in the dialog that pops up and the rule will be immediately removed. This is an irreversible process so make sure you do not need the rule before you delete it.

Rules can be temporarily disabled by unchecking the ''enabled''' checkbox visible by opening a rule for edit.

Refer to Rules Examples for many real world samples.

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  • form.load : This property is true when the form is first loading. It is useful for setting default values via rules that you need to be set before the user starts interacting with the form. This also holds true for flows. This property is true when each step of a workflow is first loading.
  • form.unload : This property is true when users click the form's submit button. It is useful for setting control values just prior to the execution of the form's Doc Actions and Form Actions. This also holds true for flows. This property is true when the user clicks the continue button for each workflow step. Refer to this topic for the details about a change in behavior that has been implemented for Forms only.
  • form.positionUpdated : This property is used for the Geo location feature. You can fire a rule using this special identifier every time the position is updated.

Examples of identifiers used in  rules are:

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The validator also supports global directives. Use the global directive to identify additional global objects and functions defined in the execution environment and made available to the rule for which it is not appropriate to include a var statement in the rule code itself. One directive can be used to list all additional globals on a single line. Currently there are no known cases requiring the use of the global directive.  

Rule Editor Functions

The Rule Validator includes an enhanced editor designed to provide an easy experience when developing rules.The rule editor box includes the following features:  

FeaturesDescription
Line NumbersLine numbers in the rule code editor make it easier to correlate reported validation errors with the line of code.
Bracket auto closeType a {, ( or [ and the closing bracket is automatically inserted.
Match BracketPlace the cursor on a bracket and both it and the matching bracket are shown in a matching distinctive color (green).
Syntax Hi-lightingJavaScript syntax hi-lighting with keywords, variables, comments, etc. shown in distinctive colors.
Auto IndentNew lines are auto-indented according to generally accepted code formatting rules.
Code FoldingBracketed code blocks (functions, if-then-else blocks, etc.) are collapsible. Click the arrow immediately to the right of the line numbers to collapse/expand code blocks.
Full screen edit mode

Expand the editor to full screen mode if you need more space to work. Click the "double arrow" expand icon (directly above the editor box) or press F2 when your cursor is inside the Rule box to expand to full screen. The ESC key returns you to small window mode.

Auto Complete/HintingWhen composing a rule, the designer can pick from a list of available controls and their properties directly within the rule editor. The pick list is context sensitive and will behave differently based on where the cursor is located when it is invoked. When on a blank space or immediately following an open bracket/brace, it can be manually invoked using Ctrl-Space to bring up a list of controls. Typing a dot (.) immediately after a  control name or after the index ("[i]") that follows a control name will automatically bring up a context sensitive pick list of properties applicable to that control for selection. You can type the first letter of the item you are looking for and the property starting with that character will be highlighted in the list. Continue typing and the matching options will progressively narrow to the characters typed. Double click your choice using the mouse or press the Enter key to select an item. Any other key dismisses the pick list. . See the example below
HelpThe help icon displays a small help window listing the hot keys described above - (F2, ESC and Ctrl-Space)

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Follow these important points when writing your rule:

  1. Your rule can set minOccurs to 0 even if the design time setting > 0, but you cannot set minOccurs to a value which is greater than the current maxOccurs.  

  2. Your rule can set maxOccurs to a value that exceeds the design time setting, but you cannot set maxOccurs to a value below the current minOccurs value.

  3. Repeat items and table rows are added if your rule increases the Min# property and are removed when the rule decreases the Max#.

  4. Added rows due to increase in Min# will trigger the itemAdded property. 
  5. This feature can be used for schema controls, but min/maxOccurs values have to be set within the limit given in the schema. For example, if the schema has text control defined with minOccurs=2 and maxOccurs=100. We cannot set minOccurs less than 2 and max greater than 100.

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  1. the URL to the web service
  2. payload (data) constructed as a JavaScript object.
  3. headers constructed as a javaScript object

The advantages to this approach are:

  1. the rule will fail when executed if the object syntax is incorrect
  2. takes care of encoding to JSON automatically.

In previous versions of , the post, put, |get, |delete} methods accepted only a string object for payload and header parameters. To use native javascript objects, the designer would have to use JSON.stringify({name:Name.value}) to make it work.

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Here is another example. The image shows a section of a business rule used to read from a Google sheet. Notice Sample 2 (Headers as a JavaScript object) does not include the single quotes present in the first sample (Headers as a string). Although both methods will work, Sample 2 shows the preferred method:

 

The advantages to this approach are:

  1. the rule will fail when executed if the object syntax is incorrect
  2. takes care of encoding to JSON automatically.

Dynamic Content

Real business forms often require dynamic content in dropdown list.  Often based on the value entered into one form field, the values in other fields or options available in select controls need to be dynamic.

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Security Subject Information from LDAP

LDAP supports both the standard subject attributes and custom attributes. When a user is successfully authenticated by the LDAP security manager, Live Forms automatically retrieves Last Name, First Name and Email Address for this user from the LDAP server. You can retrieve custom attributes in addition to the standard ones from Active Directory and pull the data into your form/flow using  business rules. 

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Attributes with more than one value are also supported. For example, The carLicense attribute can return multiple licenses. You can write a rule to populate dropdown options with those values. Make sure the carLicense attribute is added to the custom field on the LDAP Configuration screen and of course, there are multiple carLicense attributes, each one containing a different value for the dropdown options, set up for appropriate users on the LDAP server.

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Note

The manager attribute maps to the built-in data - subject.reports. to. This means you can retrieve this value in a rule or use subject.reports.to for flow navigation if you configure the manager attribute in your LDAP tenant.

Built-in Methods

 provides built-in helper methods for common functionality required by business rules.

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Click the View All button to display all the rules in your form/flow. Then use a browser search (Ctrl+F) to highlight all the places in your rules where a particular search item is mentioned. For example, if you were looking for all the rules that set the required property for a section, search for  'SectionName.required' (replace SectionName with the name of your section ) . This view might be helpful when correcting errors reported by the Rules Editor.

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