Submissions Stored Inside of frevvo

This documentation is for frevvo v10.1. Not for you? Earlier documentation is available too.

Submissions Stored Inside of frevvo

frevvo comes with a built-in submissions repository. The repository can run on top of most SQL databases. By default, your form data is stored in the repository and can be viewed from the Submissions page. Fields in your form/workflow, set up as Searchable fields by the designer, can be used as criteria when searching submissions. You can also filter by default fields such as error, error description, submitter id, lock user id, started date, etc. The Insight Server and the Insight service must be running for the Submission view to work.

Cloud Customers will see options for both View Submissions and View Submission View (legacy). On Premise Customers have the options to hide the legacy view, among other configurations. The Submissions view works well on mobile devices and is easily embedded in a web page and wikis such as Confluence. 

  • The Export of submissions to Excel feature has been replaced by DownloadSubmissionstoCSVfileYou can still use the Export to Excel feature by accessing it from the Submissions Legacy view. However, the Legacy Submissions view and the Export to Excel may be removed in a future release.

  • Customers running frevvo with Confluence will not see the legacy submissions view from the Confluence Screen. It is only available when you log into your frevvo Confluence tenant.

Accessing Submissions

To access submissions for a particular form/workflow, the designer who created the form (owner) navigates to the Forms and Workflows Home Page and clicks the 

 Submissions icon for that form or workflow. The designer can grant permission to view/edit submissions to other designers and non-designer users/roles via the Access Control feature. Non-designers granted view/edit permissions, access submissions from the Shared Items tab.

A Shared Items link is added to newly created Spaces automatically and can be added to existing spaces.

Searchable Fields

Searchable fields can be used as search criteria for submissions and tasks. They also define the fields that will be displayed and exported in the export to a csv file. Once defined, frevvo can also go back and re-index your existing submissions so you can search them using the same fields.

Submissions View

When you click the

Submissions icon a Submissions view consisting of two sections displays:

  1. Submissions filter section

  2. Matching submissions results table.

Initially, the Submissions Filter section is collapsed. Click on the

blue arrow to expand it.

Submissions Filter

The Submissions filter section contains:

  • Section A - From Date and To Date fields to specify a date range.

  • Section B - Check the status of the submissions you are searching for

  • Other Filter Items section - setup your search criteria, including the capability to edit the logical expression used as the search criteria.

  • Reset button - To start over with a new set of filter criteria, click the Reset button. This will clear all criteria, including the from/to dates, state and all rows of the other filter items.



    When the expression or any of the sub-expressions change in any way, the submissions query is automatically re-run and the results are updated in the Submissions Table.

Submission From Date and To Date

The two date controls specify the time period for the submissions you see. The dates default to the current date and one month earlier, so you see one month of submission results when the Submissions page first displays.  Adjust the dates if you want a shorter or longer time period.

Submission Status

The Submissions table will show submissions in the following states: SAVED, PENDING, SUBMITTED, ABORTED, WAITING. Simply check the appropriate check box in the State section. For example, It would be easy for a manager to check  the current status of Expense Report approvals by checking one or all the submission types in the State box. The Submission Table dynamically changes as the submission state choices are checked/unchecked.

Here is an explanation of the available states:

  1. SAVED: This will return only those tasks which were created when users clicked the Save button on the form/workflow to save their partially filled forms

  2. PENDING: This will return all tasks which are pending, meaning someone else put these tasks in the users task list

  3. SUBMITTED: This will return all tasks which are completed, i.e. the form/workflow for which this task was created has been submitted

  4. ABORTED: This will return all the tasks that were deleted/aborted so the form/workflow never got submitted

  5. WAITING: The WAITING status can be used to find workflow tasks that have an Email or HTTP activity. A submission will show a state of WAITING  when a workflow is routed to an anonymous user and the workflow is suspended until the this step is completed.

Choose Search Criteria from Form/Workflow Data

The Other Filter Items section describes the conditions that submissions must match in order to be included in the Submission Table. Here is how the grid works:

  • Click the

    plus /

     minus icon to add/remove rows. Rows are labeled numerically beginning at 1 and are color coded. You can specify up to 100 rows of filter criteria.

  • Specify the field, condition and value for the search criteria you are adding. For most conditions, all three columns are required but there are some that may not require a value. 

  • As you add fields and conditions, they are automatically added to the logic expression field by appending an "AND" and the character of the sub-expression (A for the Date section, B for the State section or the number of the row in the filter table as appropriate). Each sub-expression is color coded for quick reference. The characters for the sub-expressions are also color coded to match the row in the grid where the expression is defined.

  • Click the Edit button to modify the logic expression.

  • Click the Reset button to clear all of the search criteria.

Let's take a closer look at the columns in the Other Filter Items grid.

Field Column

The Field column includes a dropdown where you can select any fields that were specified in the Searchable fields wizard in your form/workflow or you can choose from default columns that are available across all form and workflow types. 

Default Columns



Description



Description

Submitted Date

Time/Date of the submission. Also The Submitted Date is 'A' in the Submission Filter.

Error

Shown as a yellow triangle if the there is a submission error.

State

Submission status: SUBMITTED, PENDING, ABORTED, SAVED, ERROR WAITING. This column displays the submission types selected in the State section. The submission status is 'B' in the submission filter.

Submitter Id

ID of the last submitting user.

Submitter Name

The first and last name of the user who submitted the form/workflow.

Lock User Id

If the submission is currently locked (and not SUBMITTED), this is the user id of the user who has it locked.

Lock Date

Date and time a workflow last locked.

Lock User Name

If the submission is currently locked (and not SUBMITTED), this is the first and Last name of the user who has it locked.

Started Date

Date and time a form/workflow first started.

Age/Duration

For completed submissions (State=Submitted) this is the time interval for how long it was in process - from the first incomplete submission (Pending, saved, etc.) until it reached SUBMITTED status. If the submission is currently incomplete (i.e. SAVED, PENDING or WAITING), then the time interval shows how long has it been in process so far (Age).

Error Description

Descriptive text about a submission error.

Condition Column

The Condition column choices depend on the data type of the selected field. Click below to see a list of the data types and their corresponding options.

Data Type(s)



Conditions Available in the Dropdown List



Conditions Available in the Dropdown List

Date, Time, Date/Time

is equal to



is not equal to



is after



is before



is on or before



is on or after

only available for Date/Time controls

is within last



contains a value



does not contain a value

Number, Money, Quantity

is equal to



is not equal to



is greater than



is less than



is greater than or equal to



is less than or equal to



contains a value



does not contain a value

Text, TextArea, Email, DropDown, Radio, Checkbox

contains



does not contain



begins with



ends with



is equal to



is not equal to



contains a value



does not contain a value

Boolean Checkbox

is equal to

For example, the choices in the Condition dropdown, will be different if you select the Submitted Date or the ProjectName, which is a searchable field in the form/workflow from the Fields list.

Value Column

The values entered into the Value Column depend on the field type and also sometimes upon the condition chosen. Click below to see a table of the allowed values for Field Type(s) and conditions. The Values column is not case-sensitive, so entering "apple," "Apple," or "APPLE" will return the same list of results that contain those letters either upper- or lower-case.

Field Type



Value Entry Field Type

Notes



Value Entry Field Type

Notes

Date

Date Picker



Time

Time Entry



DateTime

Date and Time Picker

The 'is within last' condition is available for DateTime controls only. It does not apply to Date or Time controls. If you select the "is within last" condition, you must:

  • Enter the value using a special time duration entry format

  • Enter a duration in Years:Months:Days:Hours:Minutes. Any field to the left may be omitted. For example, 2 days and 4 hours may be expressed as 0:0:2:4:0 or as 2:4:0. Refer to the example below.

Number, Money, Quantity

number field



Text, TextArea, Email, DropDown, Radio, Checkbox

Text field



Boolean Checkbox

drop down containing true and false options



For Example, if you select a Date field, the Date Picker is provided to help enter the value. If you select a Text field from your form/workflow, you will be prompted to "Enter text" for the value. If you select the Error metadata field, the value choices will be True or False in a dropdown in the Value column.

A Date/Time field with the "is within last" condition selected, requires a special time duration entry. The duration must be entered in this format: Years:Months:Days:Hours:Minutes. Fields to the left may be omitted. For example, if you were searching for submissions that were submitted within the last 2 hours you can enter 02:00 or as 2:0. To search for submissions created within the last 2 months and 12 days, enter 02:12:00:00.

If you enter an invalid value, an error will display with instructions: 

Editing the Logical Expression

If you want to modify the logical expression, click the Edit button. The logic expression becomes editable.

The Logic Expression allows you to customize and combine the filter conditions using ANDs and ORs as well as parenthesis () to group terms of the expression.

  • Each filter item (expression) is represented by a letter (A for the Date range or B for the State or a number that corresponds to the row of the sub-expression in the Other Filter Items grid).

  • Combine the letters and numbers using parenthesis to group items as needed.

  • Build the logic of the overall predicate expression using AND and OR as appropriate.

  • Click save when done to save the expression. Please correct any indicated parse errors in order to save.

For example, let's say you have a Job Application that has 3 submissions:

You want to display the submissions that were submitted on November 7, 2016 or any of the applicants that live in Connecticut (Home Phone Area Code is 203):

  • Expand the Submissions Filter.

  • Select the SUBMITTED state.

  • Select the Acknowledgement Date field from the Fields dropdown

  • Select "is equal to" from the Condition dropdown.

  • Use the Date Picker to select "11/7/2016" as the value.

  • Add a row to the Other Filter Items grid.

  • Select the Home field from the Fields dropdown.

  • Select "begins with" from the Condition dropdown.

  • Enter "203" as the value.

At this point, the expression displays only one submission that has an Acknowledgement Date of 11/7/2016 AND has a Home Phone number that begins with an area code of 203.

This is not the expected results. To display the submissions that were submitted on November 7, 2016 OR have a Home Phone number that starts with an area code of 203, the logical expression has to be modified.

  • Click the Edit button.

  • Change the expression to A AND B AND (1 OR 2)

  • Click the Save button.

The submissions that match the Date range and State conditions and either were submitted on November 7, 2016 OR contain a Home phone number that starts with an area code of 203:

Upon selecting the Save button, the logic expression is parsed for correctness. If there is any parsing failure, an error message describing the failure is displayed and the screen remains in edit mode. If there is no error, then the screen returns to read-only mode.

Recap

In summary, let's say Jerry, a manager wants to create a submission query to check the status of all Expense Reports for Sales Demonstrations performed by the Sales department within the last month:

  • Make sure you have a field in your Expense Report to specify the Project Name - for example, a dropdown with Infrastructure, Sales Demonstration and Customer Meeting options.

  • Make sure Jerry has been granted permission to view submissions in the Access Control List for the Expense Report workflow.

  • Create a Space and distribute the link to the Space to Jerry

  • Jerry access the Space and logs into frevvo.

  • Jerry clicks on the Important Items tab in the space.

  • Jerry clicks on the Shared Items tab.

  • Jerry clicks the

    Submissions tab for the Expense Report workflow.





  • On the Submission Filter screen, Jerry selects:

    • The Project Name field from the Fields dropdown

    • The contains condition from the Condition dropdown.

    • Types "Sales Demonstration" in the Value column.

    • In the Submission Table, Jerry can quickly see that Ricard Walker has saved an Expense Report for a Sales Demonstration to his Task List, Maria Myers has an Expense Report for a Sales Demonstration pending approval and an Expense Report for a Sales Demonstration was completed for Deborah Morris.


Submissions Table

Submissions matching the submission filter are displayed in the Submissions table. The table has the following features and behaviors:

  • The results are displayed a page at a time. The Previous, Next page buttons  and individual page links, located in the lower right corner, can be used to "page" through the submissions.

  • Select the number of submissions to display on a page from the choices in the Show 10 entries dropdown in the upper left corner. The default is 10, with 25, 50 and 100 being the other available sizes.

  • The Record/Page summary appears on the lower left of the table . This details the records being shown on the current page and the total records matching the criteria.

  • To select an Individual submission, check the checkbox next to that submission in the Select column (second) in the table. Checking the checkbox in the Select column header, selects  all submission records in the table. This action toggles the selection state of all rows in the table.

  • The table is responsive and only displays columns it can fit on the display. Additional columns can be viewed by clicking the

    plus icon. The overflow columns are displayed in this secondary row. The overflow columns will wrap if necessary.

  • Most columns in the table can be sorted. Clicking on a single column determines the sorting direction (ascending/descending) for all the sortable columns. An example of a column that cannot be sorted is Age/Duration. See below for the details.

Some of the Action buttons on the upper right of the Submissions Table require the selection of one or more submissions while others do not. Click below for a list of the buttons and their functions.

Action Button



Purpose

Submissions Selected

Behavior/Description



Purpose

Submissions Selected

Behavior/Description

Refresh

Refresh the submission page

N/A

Re-runs the query using the filter and re-loads the current page of data. Not often needed as most changes and actions automatically refresh the results table as needed.

View/Edit

View or edit submission details

One must be selected

This action is disabled unless one and only one submission row is selected. Double-clicking a row (desktop only) displays the submission details.

Delete

Delete Submission(s)

One or more must be selected.

Only enabled when one or more submissions is selected. The user is prompted with an ok/cancel dialog to make sure they want to delete the selected submissions. If ok/yes, the submissions are deleted and the filter re-run and the page of data refreshed. Only submissions in the SUBMITTED, ABORTED or ERROR state may be deleted.

Download

Download to CSV file

N/A

Downloads a CSV data file containing rows for all of the matching submission records with all columns included. This csv file can easily be uploaded to Excel.

Columns

Show/hide table columns

N/A

Used to show/hide columns in the  Submission Table. See SubmissionTableColumns for the details.

Submission Table Columns

The Submission Table displays all of the default columns plus columns for Searchable fields configured by the form/workflow designer. Click below for a list and description of the default columns.

Default Columns

The table list the describes the default columns that appear in the Submission Table. You cannot change the order of the default columns but you can Show or Hide them in the Submission Table.

Column Name

Formatted

Default Column

Description

Submitted

Date/time

Yes

Time/date of the submission

Error



Yes

A

yellow icon in the Err column indicates the data was captured but there was an issue with the request.  For example, if you set the form action property to go to a URL after the user clicks Submit but the URL is invalid, you would see a

yellow icon. Or if the form action was set to send an email but the email address was missing, this will also cause a

yellow icon to appear on the submission.

State

Text

Yes

Submission status: SUBMITTED, PENDING, ABORTED, SAVED, ERROR WAITING. This column displays the submission types selected in the State section of the Submissions Filter.

Submitter ID

Text

Yes

frevvo user ID of the logged in tenant user submitting the form or blank if the form was submitted by an anonymous user.

Submitter Name

Text

Yes

First and Last Name of the logged in tenant user submitting the form or blank if the form was submitted by an anonymous user.

Lock User ID

Text

Yes

If the submission is currently locked (and not SUBMITTED), this is the user id who has it locked.

Lock Date

Date/Time

Yes