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Keeping your Forms and
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Workflows in Sync
Forms that are used as steps in a workflow can be created in the Form or Flow Workflow designers. There are two approaches a designer can choose from when creating a flowworkflow:
- Create forms in the Forms designer and then drag the form(s) into the flow workflow as the steps (Existing Forms).
- Create the flow workflow by dragging a New Form from the palette and drop it onto the flow workflow canvas. Then click the
edit icon and create the form in the forms designer that opens up in the flow designerWorkflow Designer.
There are pros and cons to each approach when you need to make small updates to one of the steps of your flowworkflow:.
- The designer can go back and edit the forms in the forms designer then drag the updated forms into the flowworkflow. If you choose to do this, then you have to redo any properties for that step. (assign users/roles, task information, Pending messages, customized Save and Continue buttons etc).
- Or you can update the form directly in the flow workflow by clicking the
Let's say you create the perfect form step in a workflow and now you want to use it in another flowworkflow. How do you extract the form step from the flow workflow so that it is available in the Forms designer?
If you click on a form step in a workflow, you can download that step from the flow workflow as a standalone form and upload it into the Forms designer. Simply click on the step in the flow workflow then click the form icon. If you have designed your workflow using Linked Steps in a FlowWorkflow the icon to download the form step will only appear on the parent step.
The downloaded file is a _form.zip file and is named according to the convention shown below:
- the flow workflow name
- the version number of the form step plus 1
- _flow step name
- _form.zip
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This is an easy way to keep your forms and flows workflows in sync and reuse forms created/updated in the flow workflow designer in other workflows or as standalone forms.
Form actions and Doc actions, excluding Doc URIs, are copied to the extracted form if that step in the flow workflow was an existing form that was dragged into the flow workflow and that form had configured actions.
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Doc Uris are cleared when applied to a form that is created in the forms designer then dragged into the flow workflow designer as a step. Designers will have to manually add them to the extracted form.
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Limitations:
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The New Form palette control allows you to create a new form step in your workflow directly inside the flow designerWorkflow Designer. If you do not have an existing form for the step you require, drag & drop the New Form into your flow workflow and create the step in place. This will launch the form designer where you can add controls to the form just as you would if you designed the form from the Forms Home page.
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Click to select it. A unique and arbitrary name will be generated automatically for the step--Step 29 for example. To change the name of the flow workflow step:
Click anywhere in the General Setting section in the Properties Navigator on the left. This opens the Settings tab. Change the name of the step from the default to something meaningful in the Name field.
When you click on any step in the flowworkflow, a series of action icons displays depending on the step type. Creating a flow workflow step by dragging/dropping an existing form or a New Form from the Palette shows these icons:- Clicking the
- Clicking the
- Clicking the
Existing Forms
The palette contains all of the forms that you have already created and which are listed in your current application's forms home page. You can use any form as a step in the flowworkflow. Adding an existing form to the flow workflow creates a copy of that form. If you later edit the form from the forms home page, those changes will not affect the step in the flowworkflow. It remains as it was at the time you copied it into the flowworkflow. If you want to update the flow workflow to have a new copy of the form, delete the form from the flow workflow and drag it in again. You can also edit the form directly in the flowworkflow. Conversely these changes to the form inside the flow workflow do not affect the original form in the form home page.
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Click to select it.
When you click on any step in the flowworkflow, a series of action icons displays depending on the step type. Creating a flow workflow step by dragging/dropping an existing form or a New Form from the Palette shows these icons:- Clicking the
- Clicking the
- Clicking the
When you add an existing form as a step in your flowworkflow:
- PDF mappings associated with the form will be copied to the flowworkflow
- If the form has a configured Email data to a specified location doc action it will be copied to the Email tab for that step.
- If the Email data to a specified address wizard is empty but an Additional Email doc action is configured, it will be copied to the Email tab for that step.
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If the following properties are selected in your form, they will be unchanged when you drag and drop this form into a flow workflow as one of the steps: Settings:
Style:
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Drag a Summary step anywhere in your flowworkflow. This will simply display a Summary view of all the data that has been entered into the various steps of the flow workflow prior to the Summary step at runtime. Clicking on the Details button navigates to the selected step for viewing/editing.
Previously completed steps in a workflow can be viewed by all users but editing data is only allowed for the user that initiated the flowworkflow. For example, if the Summary step is part of a screenflow performed by the same user, editing is allowed when this user clicks on the Details button. Once the flow workflow navigates to a different user, previous steps are rendered read-only and cannot be edited. Refer to Flow Workflow Processing Modes for more information.
The Print button is available on Summary steps by default. Refer to Printing FlowsWorkflows for the details.
When you click on the Summary step, you will see
The designer can specify a CSS class, a Button label and a Decorator for the Summary step on the Settings property tab.
The fields that display on the Summary Step are selected by the designer in the Summary wizard.
HTTP
Drag an HTTP step from the Palette and drop it anywhere in your flowworkflow. If you are adding it as the first step, drop it into the guide box. You will only see the guide box when adding the first step.
Click to select it.
When you click on any step in the flowworkflow, a series of action icons displays depending on the step type. Creating a flow workflow step by dragging/dropping an HTTP shows these icons:
- Clicking the
- Clicking the
- Clicking the
HTTP Wait - Notify
HTTP Wait-Notify is a step, configured with a post url, that can be added to a flowworkflow. The flow workflow data is posted to this url when the task is executed. A call back url is included in the post. The flow workflow and task are suspended until the receiver posts back.
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Consider this scenario. Your company has a purchase process workflow. One of the steps in the workflow requires approval from several other approvers before the flow workflow can continue to the next step. These approvals should happen in parallel and not one after the other. A web component that would manage those approvals is in place. An HTTP step can be added to the Live forms flow workflow with a URL to the web component to collect the signatures. The callback URL will be included in that post. The flow workflow will be suspended until all the signatures are collected. The remote web component will notify the Live Form flow workflow using the callback URL when the signature task is completed. If the HTTP step in the flow workflow has doc actions configured, they will be performed and the flow workflow will proceed to the next step.
Now let’s take a look at a simple flow workflow that will accomplish the scenario described above. This flow workflow contains the Purchase Request form submitted by the company purchasing manager as the first step. The second step is an HTTP step which provides the url to the web component that handles collecting the signatures from all the required approvers. The third step is a Summary step. Remember the flow workflow will be suspended until all the approval signatures have been collected by the web component. The web program will then use the callback url to proceed to the Summary step of the flowworkflow.
- Click on the HTTP step and open the Settings tab. Enter the URL for your post. In the image below, we are entering the URL to a remote test server running a service that can be used to test this feature: http://<server:port>/services/testwaitnotify.
- Configure Email or a post to a web application if required. These actions will be performed when the HTTP step is completed. Remember to slide the
When the first step in the flow workflow is submitted, an outbound message similar to the one shown below is captured in the frevvo.log:
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This URL is used by the remote service to “wake” up the Live Forms flowworkflow. Any document actions configured will be performed and the Live Forms flow workflow will resume. Flow Workflow visibility can be set to any of the choices.
You cannot reset a flowworkflow to an HTTP step. Look for a status of WAITING in the Audit Trail to find HTTP steps in a flow workflow that are in a suspended state.
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If navigation is used to go to previous step, the HTTP step will be skipped. In this case if a user who has navigated back, makes some changes in a form and proceeds forward through the flowworkflow, the backend system will not have updated data. If you use the HTTP step, it is important to realize that it will not get called again if the user navigates around. The designer may not want to have the navigation bar visible or prior steps' data should be read-only. The HTTP step will get recalled if you reset to a prior step and the flow workflow continues through it's normal steps. |
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