Visual Rule Builder

This documentation is for Live Forms 9.1. v9.1 is a Cloud Only release. Not for you? Earlier documentation is available too.

COVID-19 Response Info: At frevvo, our top priorities have always been employees and customers. We have taken several steps to promote the well-being of our people, to minimize services disruptions, and to help where we can. Visit our website for updates.

Visual Rule Builder

The Visual Rules Builder enables non-technical designers to add dynamic behaviors to a form/workflow. Here are several behaviors that you can create:

  • Show/Hide a Control(s) based on a specified condition
  • Show/Hide Steps in a workflow based on the step that the workflow is currently executing
  • Dynamically setting default values and control properties such as valid, printable, required and more.
  • Compute a Subtotal and Total

  • Populate fields with the logged in user’s information

  • Concatenate field data

  • Populate a Date field when the user signs

and much more....



 Watch this webinar for an overview of how to create dynamic forms/workflows without writing code.

 On this page:

When Do Rules Execute

Business Rules are executed under the following conditions:

  • When the form/workflow loads.

  • When a control's value that the rule depends on changes.

  • When you add a row to a Table control or click on the

    icon to add a repeating item.

If you want your rule to run Only when the form loads - check the Initialization Only checkbox at the top of the wizard. Typically, you would check this if there is some business logic that you want to execute before the form/workflow displays and users begin interacting with it.

When the rule displays in the Rule Builder tab, it will indicate that the rule has been flagged to run only when the form loads, if this checkbox is checked.

Rule Builder Wizards

The

Rule Builder walks you through three easy steps to define your condition and actions.

Condition wizard

Describe the conditions under which a set of actions should be executed. You can specify more than one condition in the same rule but you do not need a condition.

Each condition consists of the following:

 Part

Description

 Part

Description

Field or current step (Optional)

What field or current workflow step do you want to evaluate?

 

Operator

What condition do you want to test to see if it is true? Select to from the choices to use an expression or function in your rule

Value (Optional)

What value do you want to compare the Field or current step to?

What function/operator do you want to use to build the expression?

The left side Field and right side Value must be of a matching type. For example, you cannot use numeric expressions with text controls. If you've selected an incompatible value type, Help Mode will show an error to help you correct it.

Builtin Functions

The following functions are available in the Rule Builder for building expressions. Function names may be entered in any case (case insensitive).

Functions are entered into the Enter an Expression field in the wizards.

This field has two modes:

  • Lookup Mode

  • Help Mode

Lookup Mode

Lookup mode displays functions and controls from your form/workflow. The functions matching the typed text are displayed first followed by the form/workflow controls.

Lookup Mode is triggered as you enter text in the Value fields of the wizards.

Help Mode

Help mode shows help text for the function in the dropdown area. The help information includes:

  • function syntax

  • summary info about the function

  • an example

  • parameter information.

  • Expressions must have the same value type as the control. For example, the functions hour and minute are only available on Time controls. If there is a type discrepancy, the designer will see an error like this:

  • DateTime controls are meant to represent a point in time and therefor do not support the functions Year, Month, Day, Hour, or Minute.

Operators

Use these operators to build useful expressions:

In versions prior to v9.1, the '+' operator was used for both addition and concatenation. With the v9.1 upgrade, any '+' operators used for concatenation will be automatically updated to use the concat() function. Designers should use the concat() function for concatenation of text strings, and the '+' operator only for addition of numeric values. Using the '+' operator for concatenation will return an error prompting the designer to use concat() instead.

Action wizard 

Declare the actions that should be taken when the condition is true. The Functions/Operators listed above can also be selected as the value in this wizard.

Else Action wizard

Declare the actions that should be taken when the condition is false. The Functions/Operators listed above can also be selected as the value in this wizard. Else Actions are optional as not all rules require them. You cannot add FALSE actions if you do not have a condition specified in the rule.

Add A Rule

  1. Click the Run Builder button.

  2. Click the Add Condition button to create a new condition (optional).

  3. Select your Field or select current step to describe an action that will execute based on the workflow step currently executing.

  4. Select the Action from the dropdown.

  5. Select the Value, expression or function(optional).  To enter a text value, slide the

    toggle switch icon to the right and a field displays to the right.

  6. Click Next to advance to the Action wizard.

  7. Specify the actions to be taken if the condition is true.

  8. Click Next to advance to the Else Action wizard

  9. Specify the actions to be taken if the condition is false.

  10. Click Finish.

  11. Save your form/workflow.

  12. Click the Save and Test icon

     to verify that your rule is working as expected.