Question on forms in Forms Builder

Hi,

Using Forms Builder I designed a form using Electronic Form template as well as High Fidelity Form template. I could attach the same to a workflow and could update and save it. I am totally new to Forms Builder and have some questions:

1) I do not see the difference between Electronic Form template and High Fidelity Form template. I could attach both to a workflow. They look the same for me. Can you please say what exactly is the difference between these two with your experience?

2) When I attach a form to a workflow, the form itself is being updated. Is there a way I can use the form as template and use the form repeatedly. That means when I attach to a workflow, I need to get just a copy of the form. How can I achieve this?

3) Once a copy of the form is attached to a workflow, I am not able to create versions of the form, because when checked out it is not making a checked out copy on my desktop. It it is a normal document, it is doing, but it is not doing for the form. How can I resolve this?

4) Do I need to attach an adaptor? What is its use?

5) When I open the form, it is opening in a small popup window. Why is it doing so? How can i make it open in a normal browser?

6) The image on the form is shown as broken in the form when opened from the workflow task in my inbox? How can I fix it?

Please share your knowledge and experiences for figuring this out.

Thanks.

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Accepted answers

sagar.singh

1) I do not see the difference between Electronic Form template and High Fidelity Form template. I could attach both to a workflow. They look the same for me. Can you please say what exactly is the difference between these two with your experience?

Basic diff is that you can download and use the high-fidelity form to your local machine. They aer offline and not connected to the content server. As an object you can attach both to the workflow but e-forms are online and needs to be rendered by some documentum web application (webtop, da etc).

2) When I attach a form to a workflow, the form itself is being updated. Is there a way I can use the form as template and use the form repeatedly. That means when I attach to a workflow, I need to get just a copy of the form. How can I achieve this?

what is exactly yoru requirement ? you can create a copy of the form by initiating it (may be auto-method aur DQL to create an object)

3) Once a copy of the form is attached to a workflow, I am not able to create versions of the form, because when checked out it is not making a checked out copy on my desktop. It it is a normal document, it is doing, but it is not doing for the form. How can I resolve this?

No comment; not sure

4) Do I need to attach an adaptor? What is its use?

When you need to validate/autopopulate some fields on forms (or whole form validate) you can apply your adaptors to form. if your requirement is such, you can use adaptors but its not mandatory to use adaptors to forms.

5) When I open the form, it is opening in a small popup window. Why is it doing so? How can i make it open in a normal browser?

forms are not opened as an normal object. they are initiated and you need to create a instance of those.

6) The image on the form is shown as broken in the form when opened from the workflow task in my inbox? How can I fix it?

Try to give proper dimensions of the image. Its a resolution factor and should be resolved by resizing the image to appropriate size.

Hope above ans are helpful to you.

Regards,

All comments

sagar.singh

1) I do not see the difference between Electronic Form template and High Fidelity Form template. I could attach both to a workflow. They look the same for me. Can you please say what exactly is the difference between these two with your experience?

2) When I attach a form to a workflow, the form itself is being updated. Is there a way I can use the form as template and use the form repeatedly. That means when I attach to a workflow, I need to get just a copy of the form. How can I achieve this?

what is exactly yoru requirement ? you can create a copy of the form by initiating it (may be auto-method aur DQL to create an object)

3) Once a copy of the form is attached to a workflow, I am not able to create versions of the form, because when checked out it is not making a checked out copy on my desktop. It it is a normal document, it is doing, but it is not doing for the form. How can I resolve this?

No comment; not sure

4) Do I need to attach an adaptor? What is its use?

5) When I open the form, it is opening in a small popup window. Why is it doing so? How can i make it open in a normal browser?

forms are not opened as an normal object. they are initiated and you need to create a instance of those.

6) The image on the form is shown as broken in the form when opened from the workflow task in my inbox? How can I fix it?

Try to give proper dimensions of the image. Its a resolution factor and should be resolved by resizing the image to appropriate size.

Hope above ans are helpful to you.

Regards,

ArunSelvaraj

Hi,

Using Forms Builder I designed a form using Electronic Form template as well as High Fidelity Form template. I could attach the same to a workflow and could update and save it. I am totally new to Forms Builder and have some questions:1) I do not see the difference between Electronic Form template and High Fidelity Form template. I could attach both to a workflow. They look the same for me. Can you please say what exactly is the difference between these two with your experience?

A well defined is provided in the documentation of Forms Builder. Please go through it for clear picture. Try the below link to download xCP informatin center. A step by step documentaion is there for you requirement.

https://developer-content.emc.com/cimgs/xCP_1.6_IC.zip

 2) When I attach a form to a workflow, the form itself is being updated. Is there a way I can use the form as template and use the form repeatedly. That means when I attach to a workflow, I need to get just a copy of the form. How can I achieve this?

look at this thread

https://community.emc.com/docs/DOC-7633

 3) Once a copy of the form is attached to a workflow, I am not able to create versions of the form, because when checked out it is not making a checked out copy on my desktop. It it is a normal document, it is doing, but it is not doing for the form. How can I resolve this?

For your requirement it should not be do like this. try as mentioned in the above thread, just use e form as a template and enter values. store the values as meta data. No need to attach the actual form to the workflow.

4) Do I need to attach an adaptor? What is its use?

Its depend on your requirment. If you have some fields to be auto populated from db rather than hardcoding. Use adapters. for eg displaying all the country names in the drop dowm list.

5) When I open the form, it is opening in a small popup window. Why is it doing so? How can i make it open in a normal browser?

If you starting the workflow from the process list in Taskspace it wont open as pop up. Decide how to start your workflow, using button click or from process list. If button click then have to create action for it. In forms builder you can configure the action buttons to open in pop up window or same window.

6) The image on the form is shown as broken in the form when opened from the workflow task in my inbox? How can I fix it?

Might have browser compatibility issue.

Hope it helps. Dont forget to mark thread as answered if you got the expected!

--Arun

athati

Thanks Sagar and Arun for your detailed answers.

Actually my requirements is to design a form that can be attached to a workflow after the information is filled in. The form will have some selectable (from dropdown list) fields and some text boxes. Thats all. A user must be able to create a copy of the form, fill in the info, attach to a workflow and send it to next performer in the workflow. Thats all. This my requirement?

Now please give me some more advices if you have any. Shall I create a High Fidelity Form? Do I need to create a template to get a copy every time a user creates a copy of the form before he/she fills in? Shall I create a form of type dm_document or any other type (I am confused with the available types in through form builder)?

Please advise me.

Thanks.

athati

Thanks Sagar.

Answer to your question under # 2:

My requirement is "I must be able to use the created form as a template and a user must be able to create a copy, fill in and attach to a workflow". I think this is possible if I create a Template under Templates cabinet. I am not able to do so, because I could not export the same under System/Forms to my computer as a form and import into "Templates" cabinet as a form. While exporting, I am getting an XML file instead of a "Form". That XML file when imported to "Templates" cabinet, it is going as XML file only instead of as "Form". Hope I am clear.

Please advise me if you have any other idea.

Thanks.

aflowers001

Form are separated, similar to workflow, between template and instance. You have the form template which is the design of a form but you use and pass round an instance that has it's own data and reference back to the correct template containing the UI definition and data fields.

A major distinction between a high fidelity form and a 'standard' form is the look and feel. A High fidelity form can be made to look pixel perfect, i.e. it can exactly match a paper form, whereas a standard form is more akin to a simple html page in that it has the data entry fields but they are laid out in a 'html' way.

Also high fidelity forms require the installation of client side artifacts, or did in the revision I looked at. Basically they are based on the OpenOffice product so either need an applet/activex or a full copy of open office on the client in order to display.