Navigation:  Enterprise Forms Modules > Form Template Manager > Form Template Details

Form Template Details is the main entry point for creating and modifying form templates. The facility allows users with appropriate security access to other sub maintenance screen of the form template.  These include form designer, custom security role designer, states and workflow designer.

There are two types of form templates: Parent and Child template.

• A parent form template is a complete form template and can exist in its own.  It contain all the required meta data such as the form layout, custom form roles, security mappings, states and workflow details.

• A child form template only contains the form layout and can not be used by itself.  It needs to be associated with a state of the parent form template.  A typical scenario of where a child form template is used is when there is an approval process, in a particular state additional data is required on a separate form for providing feedback and comments etc.

Both parent and child templates are required to go through an approval process before it can be utilized for capturing data.  The approval process is a build-in workflow system in which a form template must go through before it can be used.  This approval process is described in detailed here.

 

Form Template Details navigation bar when template is being locked by the current user

 

Form Template Details  -  links specific to navigation bar when template is In Development state and Not Locked

 

Form Template Details - links specific to the navigation bar when template is in Available state

 

 

Form Template Details main property section

 

 

Section describing the Form Template Usage Information

 

 

Form Template Details changes history section

 

 

 

Functionalities available from Form Template Details screen

• Create/Edit Form Template Details

• Create/Edit Form Layout

• Create/Assign Custom Form Template roles

• Create/Edit States

• Create/Edit Workflow

• Localize Form Fields (optional)

• Preview the Form Template

• Validate the Form Template

• Publish the Form Template

 

Other optional functionalities available within this screen

• Lock/Unlock for exclusive editing

• Preview previous Form Template version

• Rollback to previous Form Template version

• Delete Form Template

• Modify Sort Order for Change History List

• Modify Paging Size for Change History List

• Navigate between pages in Change History List

 

Create/Edit Form Template Details

• Select an item from the Create From Template property option if required to create the new form template from an existing form template.  If this option is selected everything associated with the selected form template (state, workflow, security settings) will be copied to the new form template.

• Select the Form Template Type from the Type field.  There are two possible Form Template types, Parent and Child

• Provide a name for the Form Template in the Name field.  This field is mandatory as indicate by the image next to the field.  This field will be used an the form template identifier throughout the system.

• Provide a description for the Description field.  This is an optional field

• Select "Use Flat Table Structure" option if form data is to be stored in a separate table/view generated by the system.

• If this option is selected the system will generate two database objects, table and view, named EFTable_{TemplateID} and EFView_{TemplateID}, e.g EFTable_1 and EFView_1 if the form template id is 1.  Select this option if data is required to be accessed by external systems to Enterprise Forms.

• If this options is not selected Enterprise Forms will store data in a built-in data structure provided by the system.

• Select "Single Submit Per User" option to restrict the number of times a user is allowed to submit the form.  In other words, a form user is only allowed to submit a form once.

• Description of read-only fields:

• Template ID:  this is the unique ID of the form template generated by the system when created.

• Version:  This is the current version number of the form template.  The version number is incremented when there is a change made in the system such as locking, unlocking or changing the state of the form template

• State:  The current state of the approval process for the form template.  This value is changed when the the form template is progressed through the workflow.

• Owner:  Name of the user who created the form template

• When created:  Time stamp of when the form template was created.

• Last updated:  Time stamp of when the form template was modified

• Locked by:  Name of the user who has exclusive access to the form template.  A user needs to have exclusive lock access to the form template in order to make changes to the Form Layout

• When locked:  Time stamp of when the form template was locked

• Click on the Update button to apply the changes

 

 

Create/Edit Form Layout

• Click on the Form Designer link button () to open the Form Template Designer screen to edit the form layout

 

 

Create/Assign Custom Form Template roles

• Click on the Access Roles link button () to open the Custom Form Roles designer screen to create and map DotNetnuke® native roles to each created Custom Form Role

 

TIP:

Custom Form Role is essentially a group of one or more native DotNetnuke® role.  Custom Form Role is used for determining and assigning the appropriate security access to each state of the workflow.  One or more Custom Forms Role must exist for a form template to be valid.

 

 

Create/Edit States

• Click on the Form States link button () to open the Form States screen to create and edit form states for the workflow

 

TIP:

Workflow states are the essential component of a workflow.  A workflow is basically a series of connected states.  A workflow must contain one or more connect steps.  Thus it is recommended to have at least two states in a workflow, even though it is possible to have a single state workflow whereby the same state can begin and end a workflow

 

 

Create/Edit Workflow

• Click on the Workflow link button () to open the Form Workflow screen to create and edit the workflow

 

 

Localize Form Fields

• Click on the Localization link button () to open Field Localization screen to create and maintain separate language versions of the form.

 

Preview the Form Template

• Click on the Preview link button () to Preview what the form will look like when it is in used

 

TIP:

Fields with Databinding properties may display error messages if they can not be bound to the field.  These errors will be to be addressed before it can be validated

 

 

Validate the Form Template

• Click on the Validate link button () to perform overall validation on the form template

 

TIP:

A form template must be validated before it can be published for use.  The validation process check for

• Existence of form fields in the Form Layout

• Existence of Custom Form Roles and associated mappings to native DotNetnuke® roles

• Existence of States and Workflow

• Errors for fields with Databinding properties.  Note that Conditional Databind properties can not be validated until it being used

 

Publish the Form Template

• Click on the Change State link button () to begin the process of publishing the Form Template

 

TIP:

When a form template is In Development state, it must not be unlocked before being able to progress the form template to the next level

 

Lock/Unlock for exclusive editing access

• Click on the Lock/Unlock link button (located next to the Lock By property) to Lock or Unlock the form template for exclusive edit access to the form template.

 

TIP:

This functionality is only available in the following conditions

• The Lock/Unlock link button is only available when the form template is In Development state.

• The Lock link button is only available when no user has exclusive exclusive lock access to the form template

• The Unlock link button is only available to the user who currently has exclusive lock access to the form template

• When the form template is locked, the read-only properties labels Locked By and When Locked display the appropriate information about the user who currently has exclusive lock access and when it was locked.  In addition, the Last Update property is also updated

• A history record is added when the form template is Locked or Unlocked by a user

 

Preview previous Form Template version

• Click on the Preview button () located on the far right of each row of the Forms Template Changes History list to Preview the form template at that particular version

 

 

Rollback to previous Form Template version

• Click on the Rollback button () located on the far right of of each designated row of the Form Template Changes History list to rollback the current version of the form template to the listed version

• Press Ok to confirm the rollback process or Cancel to cancel the rollback process

 

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Some additional notes to be aware

• Rollback functionality is only available when form template is In Development state

• Rollback functionality is only available when the current user has exclusive lock access to the form template

• When rollback occurs, only the form layout of the form template is rolled back

• A minor (or point) increment is applied to the current form template version

 

 

Delete Form Template

• Click on the Delete link button () to delete the form template

• Press Ok to confirm the delete process or Cancel to cancel the delete process

 

TIP:

When a form template is deleted, ALL information including data instances of the form template is removed from the system.  Once deleted, it can not be recovered.

 

 

Modify Sort Order for Change History List

• To sort on how Form Template Changes History list should be displayed, click on the header name link button for the required column to sort

• How the list is being sorted is indicated the by red arrows ( ) next to the column header name.  The red arrow pointing down indicates the list is being sorted in descending order for the selected column.  The red arrow pointing up indicates the list is being sorted in ascending order for the selected column.

TIP:  Sort ordering of Form Template Changes History list is personalized thus the next time the user gets back to this screen the sort order will be remembered.

 

 

Modify Paging Size for Change History List

• In the Records Per Page  field, select a page size from the list of available sizes.  This action re-orders the list and displays form template records up to the size selected.

 

TIP:

Form Template Changes History paging size  is personalized thus the next time the user gets back to this screen the paging size will be remembered.

 

 

Navigate between pages in Change History List

• To navigate between pages of the Form Template Changes History list, click on the the required number link button displayed at the bottom bar of the list.

 

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