Multi-form workflow

[ebruchez]

Basic requirements:

• way to navigate from one form to the other and pass information around
• ability to link forms together
• require or suggest filling another form
  • once a given form is completed
  • at some point during the filling out of a form
    • e.g. "Fill out this separate form for dependents"
    • e.g. "Fill out this separate form for attachments"
  • can be optional
    • form A has checkbox which, when checked, requires completing form B before continuing
    • need to be able to check if form B is already filled
• landing page for a list of forms to fill out, possibly together
• way to reuse information already entered
  • for example: user entered contact info in form A
  • form B also has contact info fields
    • automatic import/sync
    • manual import/sync

See also private email.

[acspike]

+1. A few different departments have asked if this was possible.

[ebruchez]

@acspike Yes that would be a big one!

[andrewelkins]

+1 This would be very nice. Especially if you could assign the next form in the chain to someone or have someone review the submitted form before the next form could be completed.

[ebruchez]

@andrewelkins This would be nice, and to consider as part of Basic Workflow (#2256).

[ebruchez]

+1 from evaluator

[ebruchez]

This came up in a discussion today, although it's not necessarily the solution that is required.

For the linking back and forth, here is something that could work for simple scenarios:

• Create a custom "Link to form" control
  - Design-time: configure with app/form/version(?) name.
  • Runtime: button/link takes the user to the form's /new page
• New button/process to submit "back"
  • saves data
  • goes back to initial form, passing the document id created + final/draft
  • link control can indicate status of that data

In this scenario, there is no information passing (yet) from the first form to the second one.

[ebruchez]

Another question is, if several forms are linked, how to keep track and show the user which forms have been filled out, which are required, which can be repeated, etc.

We can generally describe a form grouping with a graph, including:

• the forms that are involved
• whether forms must be filled in a particular order
• what data must be passed/mapped between forms
• whether some forms are optional or not
• whether some forms can be filled multiple times

I can see two main approaches:

1. Make form groupings (we need a name for this) first-class.
2. Build this out of existing features.

[ebruchez]

There is a need for a UI that shows the user what forms are involved and their status, and allows operations such as saving and submitting.

We already have a feature with the wizard separate TOC that shows the status of form sections. Could we have a general form that has data that holds information about a group of forms?

Idea:

1. Form group editor

• Create a built-in UI to create a form group with Form Builder.
• Data for this form represents the relationship between forms and other aspects (form group graph).

2. Instance of form group

• Clone the form group data.
• Or this could be a separate "Runtime form group" form, reading the form group graph.
• The Wizard TOC would show the status information.

Not sure it's easily doable yet.

[ebruchez]

The following minimal communication between subforms and the master form/form group makes sense:

• workflow stage
• subform field(s)

This would allow the master form to control whether certain subforms are available, optional, or required based on the status and data of other forms.

[avernet]

+1 from customer