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frevvo allows you to generate forms automatically based on one or more pre-existing XML schemas. This enables you to quickly create forms that align with your databases, web services, BPM system, and key business applications.
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For practical examples of this approach please refer to Creating a Form Connected to your Database. |
In general, can frevvo can be created via two different methods:
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It's very common and easy to create your form by dragging and dropping controls from from frevvo' control palette to the form canvas. As you do this automatically frevvo automatically creates an XSD description of your form's controls. You can download this XSD from the Forms and Workflows Home Page. This method is typically used when your forms do not need to integrate with a back end system.
You can mix and match these two approaches of form creation. You can create all the controls in your form from XML schema elements. You can create all the controls in your form from the palettethe frevvo palette. Or you can create part of the form from schema elements and part from palette controls that have no relation to the elements in your schema.
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When you upload a schema to frevvo, you can use any and all global elements in the schema. If you want items from the schema that are not global elements, edit the schema and make the items global elements before uploading the schema to frevvo.
At a high level, when you work with schemas you do the following:
- Upload your schema to one of your projectsfrevvo projects
- Choose the global elements you want and add them to your form’s Data Sources
- Generate form controls from the global elements you added
- Modify the controls (if necessary) to suit your form
These steps are discussed in detail below.
"form" Schema
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Form Schema
frevvo automatically generates an XSD schema representation of your form as you drop controls from the palette the frevvo palette to the form designer canvas. You can download this XSD by selecting Download Schema from the
Action Menu on the Forms and Workflow Homepage. The XSD elements are named after the control names. The types are based on which control you selected from the palette. For example a Quantity control will appear as an xsd:integer. A dropdown will be an xsd:simpleType restriction. Controls with patterns such as the Zip will have an auto-generated type with your pattern. Click "expand Source" for an example.
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Generating an XML Schema
First, you need to generate an xml schema that will be uploaded to frevvo. See the chapter Creating a Form Connected to your Database for instructions on generating a schema using the frevvo Database Connector.
Using Your Schema
Before you can use global elements from a schema in a form, you must upload the schema XSD file into one of your projectsfrevvo projects. To upload a schema:
- From the Projects page, click the name of the project with the forms that will use the schema.
- Click Schemas from the left-hand menu.
- From the Schemas page, click the
Add icon.
- On the Upload Schema Page, type a meaningful name for your schema and provide a description. (These are optional but highly recommended.) The Name and Description are each limited to 255 characters.
- Click Browse, locate the schema XSD file or zipfile with multiple related XSDs on disk.
- If there are multiple global elements in the zipfile(s) specify exact name (relative to the top level directory separated by the '/' character of the XSD file containing the root schema.
- Click Upload.
If your schema is valid, its name now will appear on the Schemas page. You can sort the Schemas list alpahbetically (A-Z or Z-A). If you tried to upload an invalid schema, will frevvo will not allow the upload and display an error message.
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If you add a data source (XSD) to your form/workflow that has the root element name "form" that uses that frevvo uses by default for the palette control XSD, you will see an application error. To resolve, edit the form or workflow "Element Name" property and change it from the default "form" to whatever you want to call it. |
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After you close the page, you’ll see in the Data Sources area each element you chose. (We added the Address Book and Policy Information global elements in this example.) For each element you added to your form’s Data Sources, will frevvo will generate an XML instance document that you will see in the Submissions repository each time users submit your form, even if you do not end up generating a control from the element. Therefore, if you add an element to your form but later determine you don’t need to generate a control from it, make sure to delete the element from the form’s Data Sources.
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Adding multiple data sources from the same namespace will cause a clash in your form. And in fact will frevvo will assist you by preventing you from making this mistake. A warning message is displayed in the Add Data Source panel when you click plus.
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Similarly, multiple XSD files composing a single logical namespace is not supported. Instead, merge all XSD files for the same namespace into a single XSD file and then upload into into frevvo.
Generating Controls from Schema Elements
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The controls are added above the currently selected control. The only exception is if the control is part of a repeating group and the currently selected control is not one in that group. must frevvo must add controls in a repeating group to the same location on the form as the others from that same group. So it will ignore your selection.
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Schema elements that specify element restrictions will automatically be displayed as selection controls. It will display as a dropdown if there are four or more valid choices and a radio button if there are fewer than four valid values. You can change the display type between radio and dropdown and checkbox using the Display As property.
Xsd:boolean types will automatically be displayed as a boolean checkbox. If checked, the value will be 'true' and if unchecked it will be 'false' if the element is required and no value if optional. You can set the label of the true and false options via the Labels property. However only the 1st option which maps to the 'true' choice will be displayed. If you add more then 2 labels the extra labels will be auto removed. If you set only a single label a 2d label of 'false' will be auto added for you.
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Modifying Controls Generated from Schema Elements
There are two ways to modify controls that you generated from schema elements. You canThe schema you retrieve from your database will be relatively generic. As a result the controls you generate from this database schema might need some tweaking to suit the specific needs of your form. You can modify a control’s behavior by making changes to the schema after you have retrieved it. There are two ways to modify controls that you generated from schema elements. You can:
- Make changes to the controls in the Forms Designer
- Make changes to the schema, and then update the schema in by frevvo by uploading the revised schema
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- Change the control Name — although this does not change the underlying XSD element name.
- Create rules that rely on the controls.
- Set default value for the controls.
- Rearrange the location of controls in your form. This includes moving sections into tabs or panels. As noted above, in addition to the normal drag and drop restrictions, you may not drag any control into or out of a repeat control generated from a schema element.
- Modify the control’s Display As property to change how the control looks on the form. The Display As property appears only for controls created from schema elements and appears instead of the Control Type property that you see for controls you have dragged in from the palette.
- Change the control’s label. You’ll see the new label name in the Submissions Repository Data Tab and in Excel if you download the submission results. However, the Submissions XML document for the schema will reflect the original element name.
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You can see an element’s XSD type by clicking the control in your form and hovering over the Properties area of the Forms Designer--the XSD type and the global element to which it is bound will be displayed as a tooltip. See Display As below. The only way to change the validation for a control generated from a schema element is to revise the schema and update the schema in with frevvo with the new version. The same is true for other changes you wish to make that you cannot accomplish in the Forms Designer.
You also cannot change the number of repeat items on the form. This is because the number is dictated by the minOccur in the schema. If minOccur=2 then there will by default be two repeat items displayed in the form designer, for example. Thus if you click the displayed in the form designer on a repeat from schema, it will display a message indicating that this operation is not permitted. To change the number of items on the form, edit the schema and change minOccurs.
Display As
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Adding Dropdown/Radio Options
Suppose you want users to select a specific manager’s name from a dropdown list. Your database has a 50-character limit but naturally does not include specific manager name restrictions, so the schema you retrieve initially might look something like this:
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<xsd:element minOccurs="0" name="Manager">
<xsd:simpleType>
<xsd:restriction base="xsd:string">
<xsd:maxLength value="50"/>
</xsd:restriction>
</xsd:simpleType>
</xsd:element> |
The control you generate from the initial schema will be formatted as a text control. You can make the control a dropdown by changing the control’s Display As property but you must add the actual restrictions to the schema itself, as shown below.
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<xsd:element minOccurs="0" name="Manager" type="ManagerType"/>
<xsd:simpleType name="ManagerType">
<xsd:restriction base="xsd:string">
<xsd:enumeration value="John Doe"/>
<xsd:enumeration value="Pat Johnson"/>
<xsd:enumeration value="Mary Smith"/>
</xsd:restriction>
</xsd:simpleType> |
You also can populate dropdown boxes dynamically from your database by writing a rule.
Adding Checkbox Options
You may also need a control to allow multi-select options. Like dropdowns and radios controls described above, the control you generate from the initial schema will be formatted as a text control. You can make the control a checkbox by changing the control’s Display As property to Checkbox and changing the actual schema type to xsd:list as shown below:
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<xsd:element minOccurs="0" name="colorChoice">
<xsd:simpleType>
<xsd:list itemType="xsd:string"/>
</xsd:simpleType>
</xsd:element> |
Once the Color Choice control is formatted as a checkbox, a labels property will display in the properties settings tab for this control. Enter your checkbox options here.
Limitations
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Currently it is not possible to list the options directly in the schema or to have a checkbox option containing a space. So a label of "dark blue" will appear in the database as "dark_blue". |
Dynamic Dropdown Options
Individual controls also may trigger SQL statements, if you’ve customized your form with rules. See Dynamic Options Rule Examples for examples of using the ResultSet returned from the Database Connector to dynamically populate the options in a dropdown control.
Adding ComboBox or Message Controls from Schema
In order to add a Message or ComboBox control, you will need to edit your schema and add the appinfo attribute. Define the attribute by adding xmlns:frevvo="http://www.frevvo.com/appinfo" at the end of Line 2 in your schema. Here is an example.
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<xsd:schema xmlns="http://www.frevvo.com/database/interns_forschema" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" targetNamespace="http://www.frevvo.com/database/interns_forschema"> |
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<xsd:schema xmlns="http://www.frevvo.com/database/interns_forschema" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" targetNamespace="http://www.frevvo.com/database/interns_forschema"> xmlns:frevvo="http://www.frevvo.com/appinfo" |
Then edit the element for the control you want to convert to a ComboBox as follows. The first line will already exist in your schema. You need to add the lines represented by lines #2-7 below.
Combobox
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<xsd:element default="ComboBox" minOccurs="0" name="Department" type="xsd:string">
<xsd:annotation>
<xsd:appinfo>
<frevvo:displaytype>ComboBox</frevvo:displaytype>
<frevvo:label>Department</frevvo:label>
</xsd:appinfo>
</xsd:annotation>
</xsd:element> |
Here is a screenshot of a schema before and after adding the annotation.
Message Control
Follow the same instructions as above but use this annotation:
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<xsd:element default="Message" minOccurs="0" name="MessageControl" type="xsd:string">
<xsd:annotation>
<xsd:appinfo>
<frevvo:displaytype>Message</frevvo:displaytype>
<frevvo:label>Message Control</frevvo:label>
</xsd:appinfo>
</xsd:annotation>
</xsd:element> |
Limiting potentially repeating Data
Often the schema from your database will allow any number of elements even though you know your form will never use more than one at a time. Every schema includes the “rows” element as shown in the partial schema below—note that based on the maxOccurs value of “unbounded” in the schema, there can be an unlimited number of customer elements.
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<xsd:schema xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns=http://www.frevvo.com/database/Customer
targetNamespace="http://www.frevvo.com/database/Customer">
<xsd:element name="Customers">
<xsd:complexType>
<xsd:sequence>
<xsd:element maxOccurs="unbounded" name="row">
<xsd:complexType>
<xsd:sequence |
Since the schema says the element is unbounded, the control you generate initially will be a repeat control. You’ll see the the 
repeat icon in the Forms Designer and if you don’t make any changes, users will see the + sign that comes with repeat controls.
In this case, change the schema to indicate you only want to work with one customer at a time, as shown below.
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>
<xsd:schema xmlns:xsd=http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema xmlns=http://www.frevvo.com/database/Customer
targetNamespace="http://www.frevvo.com/database/Customer">
<xsd:element name="Customer">
<xsd:complexType>
<xsd:sequence>
<xsd:element maxOccurs="1" name="row">
<xsd:complexType>
<xsd:sequence> |
Note that now maxOccurs="1" and that will force the + sign to disappear.
Type Restrictions
Sometimes the database field will let you enter any string such as a VarChar field. However if you field is a phone number you may which to have the form restrict the input to only valid phone numbers. See the section on patterns for more common type restrictions. In this example you still want the form input to be a text box. So we do not change the Format As.
Edit your xsd:
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<xsd:element minOccurs="0" name="Home Phone">
<xsd:simpleType>
<xsd:restriction base="xsd:string">
<xsd:maxLength value="12"/>
</xsd:restriction>
</xsd:simpleType>
</xsd:element> |
Add the following simpleType restriction to your xsd.
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<xsd:simpleType name="phoneType">
<xsd:restriction base="xsd:string">
<xsd:pattern value="\d{2}-\d{4}-\d{4}"/>
<xsd:pattern value="\d{4}-\d{3}-\d{3}"/>
</xsd:restriction>
</xsd:simpleType> |
Finally change the existing type for the Home Phone element to:
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<xsd:element minOccurs="0" name="Home Phone" type="phoneType"/> |
Now the frevvo form will only accept valid phone numbers. If you enter an invalid phone the form will flag the field as invalid.
Display As
This property applies only to controls generated from XSD schema elements. If the control was dragged in from the palette, it has a Control Type property. Use the Display As property to change the way your control looks on your form when the control is imported from schema. For example, a text control can be changed to a dropdown or vice versa. Repeat and Table controls only have two options, Table and Repeat, in the Display As dropdown. A Repeat control can be changed to a table control and vice versa by selecting the appropriate option. Refer to the Control Type property for the details.
This will change the control's appearance but will not affect how the control validates data. If you need to modify the control's validation behavior, you must update the schema Updating a Schema.
To see the control's underlying data type and the global element to which it is bound, you can hover over the property tab. The expanded Data Source shown in the image below, displays the XSD path stated in the hover - the control named giftidea, is part of a complex type control named address, which is bound to the global element, addressBook. The underlying data type for the giftidea control, which was changed to display as a dropdown, will remain xs:string.
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Another way to set the labels is via a rule to dynamically initialize the options when the form loads. See the Business Rules chapter for more details. Also see the section on dynamic initialization from database SQL queries.
The Display As property is not available for the following schema controls: Message, Date, Time, Date/Time, T/F, ComboBox.
Required Schema Controls
The required property is disabled for controls from XSD . This is because validation is based on the XSD . Values in the xsd for the required property can be overidden with a business rule. Whether the control is required is based on the minOccurs value. If If minOccurs="0" then the control is not required. If minOccurs="1" then the control is required. If minOccurs is greater than 1 then it will be rendered in the form as a repeat control with the minimum number of items set to the minOccurs value.If you want to change whether or not the control is requiredbe rendered in the form as a repeat control with the minimum number of items set to the minOccurs value. A business rule can override the values in the XSD for the required property.
If your database column allows NULL then the XSD schema generated by the frevvo database connector will set minOccurs='0' for this control. When this control is used in your form the field will not be required. To make this field required you have to edit the XSD to set minOccurs='1' which makes the XSD schema more restrictive then your database schema.
To change the control's required status:
Write a business rule to make the field required.
Let's say a designer created a form from a schema that contained a non-required Text field - minOccurs = 0. The designer adds a Trigger control named tr1 and this simple rule to make the field required when the trigger control is clicked.
Here is the relevant section of the xsd:Section Column width 33% Code Block </xsd:element> <xsd:element minOccurs="0" name="NonRequiredControl" type="xsd:string"> <xsd:annotation> <xsd:appinfo> <frevvo:displaytype>Text</frevvo:displaytype> <frevvo:label>Non Required Control</frevvo:label> </xsd:appinfo> </xsd:annotation> </xsd:element>Column width 33% Code Block if(tr1.clicked){ NonRequiredControl.required = true; }Same Rule as above built with the Visual Rule Builder
Column width 34% - Edit the XSD and update it in the schema's tab for that project.
There are times when you have several fields that you want hidden and then only want to make visible depending on the value entered into another field. Thus only when the fields are visible do you want them to be required. Currently hidden required fields are still required and prevent the form from being submitted. Automatically making hidden fields not-required may be added in a future release of frevvo.
Imagine a form asks if a student speaks Spanish. If the answer is yes you want to make additional fields visible and required. But when the student doesn't speak Spanish the controls should remain hidden and not be required. Here is a solution for this use case:
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- Drag/Drop a Section control from the palette frevvo palette into the form
- Uncheck the visible and required properties on the section control
- Drag all of the from XSD controls that need to be required only when visible into the section control
- Add a form.load rule that sets <section>.required=false. It is not enough to set the required checkbox in the section's properties panel. It must also be done in a form.load rule
- Add a 2nd rule that sets <section>.required=true when you make the fields visible, with an else clause to hide the fields that clears all values from those hidden controls AND sets <section>.required=false
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Elements with a Nillable Attribute
fully frevvo fully supports nillable element attributes in schema. In previous versions, a required field (minOccurs = 1 or greater) in a form generated from schema, HAD to have a value for the form to be submitted. The control was considered required, ie. the control would display a yellow background color. Nillable attributes override the fact that the field is required and, if present and set to true, required controls will now be considered optional. When you submit a form and do NOT have a value in a minOccurs > 0 nillable field, the XML document generated by will contain frevvo will contain an EMPTY element like this <control name xsi:nil="true"/>.
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- Elements that contain both nillable=true and minOccurs=0, will NOT be generated in the xml frevvo xml document.
- Elements that are required, minOccurs > 0, and nillable = true will be treated as an optional element. This means that the UI will generate an optional control for this element instead of a required one.
- When the value is not specified in use mode, will frevvo will generate the element with xsi:nil=true. Ex: <control name xsi:nil="true"/>
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The XML document generated by when frevvo when the form is submitted looks like this: Notice the xsi:nil="true" for all controls where minOccurs > 0 AND nillable=true and the user did not enter a value into the form.
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If you need to make changes beyond those allowed in the Forms Designer, make the changes in your XSD file and replace the old schema in your project frevvo project with the new one.
To update a schema:
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When you open (edit) any form/workflow that used the schema, the Data Sources area will be refreshed automatically. Do not delete the updated elements from the Data Sources area unless you are absolutely sure no controls in your form were generated from the elements in the previous version of the schema. '''Also Also, do not delete the elements and try to re-add them'''. This will cause any controls that relied on the schema to become unbounded and moved out of the schema XML document into the form's default XML document.
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Update schema will fail if you change the 'global element name' of your schema. You will see this error:
This scenario is not supported by frevvo. Changing the global element name changes the schema and cannot be used to replace the previous schema. |
Let's say you upload a schema with two controls and build a form and a workflow with this form as a step from that schema. Then you modify your schema and delete one of the controls from the xsd. You update the original schema with the modified one. When you go to the Form/Workflow Home page, the form/workflow is flagged with an error. When schema update is done, any controls that are no longer valid to that schema are "detached" and fall into the default from scratch schema. marks frevvo marks them in error (pink background) to give the designer a visual cue that some investigation is necessary. 
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Adjusting Your Form after Schema Updates
Although automatically Although frevvo automatically refreshes the elements in the Data Sources area, this does not necessarily mean your form is up to date. You must edit your form, save it, and test it again to make sure the changes to the schema have produced the results you expected.
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Some minor schema changes handles frevvo handles automatically and does not require you to replace the control in the form. For example:
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For example, Let's say you create a form and a workflow that uses that form as a step from an Address Book schema. The form created from this schema contains Title, Last Name, Address2, Zip code, Home Phone and Gift Idea fields among others. You make these updates to the schema then update it as described above.
- Changed the minOccurs value for the Title field to 1 making it required.
- Deleted the Last Name field from the schema
- Moved the Home Phone field into the Address section and removed the Zip Code field from the Address section
- Added a Number of Members in Family field to the schema.
When you edit the form/workflow step, after updating the schema, warnings and instructions will show for any controls that have become unbound etc. Notice the Number of Members in Family field has been added to the Data Source and now can be added to the form/workflow.
Although we do not recommend leaving unbounded controls in your form, you are not explicitly prevented from doing so. If you save your form with unbounded controls, data submitted in these controls will be included in the default XML Submission document for the form itself as opposed to being captured in the XML document for the schema.
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One exception is repeating elements. If you edit your schema and delete elements from within a repeating complex type, will frevvo will automatically remove those deleted elements from your form. This is because a from schema repeating complex type is not allowed to contain any controls from the palette. Once the deleted elements automatically become unbound from the schema automatically frevvo automatically deletes them from the form.
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Searching submissions using a Repeat control from schema Data Sources is not supported. |
Deleting Unused Data Source Elements
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However, keep in mind that a separate XML document is created for each global element you've added to your form, so if you you don't need a global element, delete it from the form's Data Sources. Do this by clicking the icon next to the element's name. As the illustration below shows, you cannot delete child elements of a global element; you must delete the entire parent. If you have created controls for any child element, do not delete the global (parent) element.
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If you upload a schema you do not need, you can delete it. Choose Schemas from the left-hand menu and click the icon next to the name of the schema you wish to delete. (If you are working in the Forms Designer, you must finish or cancel your form to access frevvo's left-hand menu.)
If you choose to do this, be certain that none of your forms rely on elements from this schema. Any forms that use elements from the deleted elements will be adversely affected, so will so frevvo will prevent you from deleting any schemas that are currently in use. You will see this message that list all the forms/workflows that are using the schema.
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