Advanced Form Action Examples

You can use a condition in a form action that compares against the current transition. This enables you to create different behaviors for different transitions. You can then use a form with the same visual design for multiple transitions rather than create a different transition form for each unique form action.

For example, you can create a form action that sets a Manager field as required when the Customer Priority field is set to "Critical." You may want this action to fire only for the "Evaluate" and "Assign" transitions, but not for the "Complete" transition.

In this case, add this condition to your action expression:

the current transition is/is not in the specified list of transitions

You can then specify transitions for which the action is valid or invalid, and the form action is then fired only for applicable transitions.

You can also use "Else If" conditions to build more complex form actions based on the current transition. For example, you may create an action that shows or hides fields based on specific transitions:

This particular action hides the Due Date field for all transitions except "Assign" and "Approve."

You can create a form action that calls another form action on the same form. This enables you to use a form action in different circumstances, without having to repeatedly create the action expression.

For example, you can create an action called "Show Manager Section Based on Priority." This action shows the Manager field section when the Priority field is set to "critical" and hides the Manager field section when any other value.

The action uses the event "When this action is called," as shown below:

You can then create other actions that call the "Show Manager Section Based on Priority" action based on a different action expression. For example, you can create an action that calls the "Show Manager Section Based on Priority" action when the value of Priority field changes.

You can create a form action that compares the values of two fields. This enables you to create different behaviors based on if the values match.

For example, you can create a form action that compares two text fields when the Compare button is clicked. Depending on if the values match, the message "Values are the same" or "Values are different" appears.

You can also create a form action that assigns a value to a field using another field's value. This enables users to copy the contents of one field to another, saving time and preventing repetition. If users need to modify the field's copied value, this does not change the originating field's value.

For example, you can create a form action that sets the "Actual Start" date/time field to the value of the "Proposed Start" date/time field when the Copy Date button is clicked.

The list of fields and controls available as a right-hand parameter is restricted by the field or control chosen as the left-hand parameter. The following guidelines apply to both comparing and copying field values:

• Left-hand Text fields, Buttons, EditBoxes, HyperLinks, Images, and Text controls/labels can be used with any right-hand field or control.
• Any left-hand field or control can be used with a right-hand Text field, Button, EditBox, HyperLink, Image, or Text control/label.
• Left-hand Single Relational, Multi-Relational, User, Multi-User, Single Selection, and Multi-Selection fields, as well as left-hand ComboBox and ListBox controls, cannot be used with any right-hand field or controls.
• Binary fields cannot be used with Trinary fields, and Binary/Trinary fields can be compared only with other Binary/Trinary fields that share the same control style (drop down, radio buttons, or checkbox).
• Date/Time fields are compatible if they share the same control style (date and time, date only, time of day, or elapsed time).
• A left-hand Sub-Relational field can be used with any right-hand field compatible with the field it references.
• All left-hand fields and controls not mentioned in the preceding items can be used with right-hand fields and controls of the same type.
• Numeric and Summation fields are cross-compatible.
• Text and RichText fields are cross-compatible. When a Text value is assigned to a RichText field, its line breaks are replaced with <br> tags. When a RichText value is assigned to a Text field, all markup tags are removed except for <br> tags, which are replaced with line breaks. RichText line breaks achieved by other means are lost in the conversion. Comparing the values of Text and RichText fields is not recommended.