Creating Interact forms

When you open Forms in the Interact plugin, the Forms page displays. You can select a specific category folder, or the All categories folder, to view any forms that have been created. The forms display in descending date order, starting with the most recently updated.

The Forms page provides you with the following information and functions:

1. Filter – Filter the information that is displayed. You can turn on the required filters and enter or select the appropriate information for display, for example, you could turn on the Updated by filter and enter a specific user.

   By default, the Latest filter is turned on and only the latest versions of each form display. Earlier versions are hidden to provide a clean view. Click Filter to display the filters and turn off the Latest filter to see previous saved versions.

2. Import form – Import a form that has previously been exported from an Interact system.
3. Create form – Add a new form.
4. Rows per page – The number of forms that displays on the page. By default, this is set to five. Enter a number, or use the arrows, to change the number of forms seen on a page.
5. Previous and Next – Click to move through the pages of forms.
6. Category folders – The form categories. When selected, the category folder is highlighted and the forms for that category display.
7. Form name – The name of the form with a short summary displayed below.
8. Options – Access the tasks that can be carried out on the form.
9. Updated – The username and profile picture of the last user to update the form along with the date and time.
10. Locked by – The user who is currently editing the form. Other users will not be able to edit the form whilst it is locked. If the form is not locked, this area is blank.
11. Form statistics – Additional information about the form. This only displays data that has been committed for that version, it does not display any draft information, such as draft fields.

Add a form

Before you can create a form, a business process must already exist. If the Create form button is inactive, there are no available business processes to create a form for. You can only have one form associated with a business process. For more information about creating business processes, see ALM – Business processes.

1. On the Forms page, click Create form.

   The Create form page displays.

   

2. Complete the following mandatory fields to define the overall details of a form:

   • Business Process – The business process associated with the form you are creating.
   • Name – The name of the form.
   • Description – A description for the form.

   • Delivery method – The way the form will be delivered. Select Queue, Email, or both if required.

     Selecting Queue allows the submitted request to be added into a Blue Prism Queue for processing. Complete the following fields to configure details of the queue:

     • Environment – The environment that the submitted request will be made into.

     • Queue name – The queue in the selected environment that will be used to load the submission. The drop-down list displays the 10 most recently used queues. If you cannot see the queue you want, click the refresh icon to reload the queues for the selected environment, then start typing the name in the field to filter the list.

     • Priority – This is an optional field. The business priority for the submitted form. This can be any value between 1 to 999 with 1 being the highest priority.

       In the Cloud version of Hub and Interact, this functionality utilizes IADA and one of the key approaches used by IADA® is to measure the amount of work (queue items in Blue Prism) based on the Priority and Service Level Agreement (SLA). Each item is labeled with these metrics individually or inherits this value from the associated business process to support the ordering of work. When a Digital Worker is ‘available’ to execute a process, IADA® identifies the next best item based on configurable properties and returns the activity to the Digital Worker.

       This functionality is not available in the on-premises version of Hub and Interact.

     • SLA – This is an optional field. The business Service Level Agreement (SLA) timeframe in which the submitted request should be processed within. The definition is ddd.hh:mm:ss and the range from 000.00:00:01 to 999.23:59:59.

     Selecting Email will allow the submitted request to be forwarded to an email address for review. This is not the approval submission.

   • Interact role – The role to which this form will be available. Anyone who is a member of this role will be able to access the form in the Interact web application. The role must exist in Blue Prism Hub to be able to assign a form to it. If you need a new role, contact your Hub administrator. You can select more than one role.

     If you select a role while creating a new form, the form will be published to the Interact website as soon as it is saved for the first time.

     It is advisable to leave this field blank whilst creating the form. Once the form is finalized, you can edit the form details and complete this field to publish the form. For more information, see Deploying forms.

   • Default approval type – Allows the submission to be sent to another user for approval before it is sent for processing. By default, this is set to None, meaning the submission is not sent for approval. If you select:

     • Single approver, the Approver field displays for you to enter the user who will approve any requests from the form before final submission.
     • Any approver, anyone who is a member of the role will be able to approve any requests from the form before final submission.

     If an approval type is selected, the Exclude submitter check box displays. By default, this is selected – the person who submits the form is automatically excluded as an approver on the form. Therefore, if the form is submitted to the members of a role, and the submitter was a member, they would not be able to approve their own form. If required, you can clear this check box to enable submitters to approve their own forms in Interact.

   • Category – Allows forms to be grouped together in a defined category to determine who can access the form. For example, you may have categories for Finance, HR and Sales so you can allow specific users access only to the forms in the category that they need to do their role. Categories are defined by entering the name of the category. Once entered, a category will be available from the drop-down list.
   • Icon – Select the image that will appear with the form in Interact to allow easy identification. You can choose one of the preloaded icons by selecting Preset icons, these are defined into categories: Application, Banking, Data, Education, Emotion, Food, Gadgets, Medical, Network and Security, Science and Technology, Transportation, and User Interface. Alternatively, you can load your own icon by selecting Upload and browsing to your icon. Icons must be a PNG, JPG or SVG file, no bigger than 256 x 266 px and 30KB in size.

3. Click Create form at the bottom of the page.

   The Edit form page displays for your newly created form. You can now add the required elements to the form:

   • Pages
   • Fields
   • Rules

Add pages to a form

It can help to think about how the pages appear in Interact; each page appears as a tab on the form within the Interact screen. As such, you can have multiple pages per form to break the amount of information required into specific sections. You can also define rules so that only specific pages will appear when certain criteria are met.

It is recommended that the maximum number of pages in a form is 10, with a maximum of 30 fields per page. Above this, the time to render increases.

If you have just created a new form and now want to add pages, go to step 2.

1. On the Interact Forms page, click Options next to the required form and click Edit form.

   The Edit form page displays.

2. Click Create page.

   The Create page panel displays.

   

3. Enter a name and description for the new page.
4. If required, select Hidden. When selected, the page will only display when certain criteria is fulfilled.

5. To immediately create another page, select Create another.

   When you save this page, a notification displays confirming the page has been created and the panel stays open enabling you to immediately enter details for a new page. The fields contain the information that you have just saved and you can edit them as required.

6. Click Save.

   The Edit form page displays showing any pages you have created.

   

   The elements that make up your form are shown in the area directly below the form title. The area to the right is the testing area – this displays your form as users will see it in Interact, enabling you to test the fields that you have added.

Add fields to a form

If you have just created a new form with a page and now want to add fields, go to step 2.

1. On the Interact Forms page, click Options next to the required form and click Edit form.

   The Edit form page displays.

2. Click the ellipsis icon for the appropriate page and click Create field.

   

   The Choose capture type dialog displays.

   

3. Select the required capture type:

   Text Number Time Paragraph Dropdown Checkbox group

   Text area Date Upload Horizontal rule Radio group Table

   These all create input fields within your form, with the exception of the Horizontal Rule. The Horizontal Rule is purely a visual element. For more information on these types, see Using the capture types in forms.

   The Create page displays for the field type you have selected.

   If you want to use a different field type, click Change type on the Create page.

4. Complete the required fields for the type of capture you have selected. Regardless of the input field type, they all contain the following common fields which should be completed as a minimum:

   • Initial State –The state that the field is set to when a user first accesses the form:
     • Optional – It does not matter whether a user completes the field or not.
     • Mandatory – Must be completed by the user before the form can be submitted.
     • Read-Only – The field cannot be edited. This is typically used as an input from an automation where the information has been retrieved and updated so the user can review.
     • Hidden – The field has rules applied so that it only appears when a predetermined condition is met.
   • Label – This is the text that will appear alongside the field in the form. This should be a friendly name so a user can understand what they should be entering into the field. Labels are restricted to 50 characters.
   • Automation ID – This is the name that ties to the data item within the automation. This field has a restricted format, it can only be lowercase letters and no spaces or special characters are allowed. A hyphen, ‘-‘, is allowed to represent a space. When a Label is applied, an Automation ID is automatically generated using the formatting restrictions, this is only a suggestion and can be changed if required. The automation identifier is restricted to 50 characters.
   • Description – Although this is not a mandatory field it provides the ‘help text’ alongside the field in the form. The descriptions for all fields are restricted to 150 characters.

5. Optionally, if the data that is entered is likely to be of a sensitive nature, you can select one or both of the following:

   • Mask data on entry – If this option is selected, the information entered displays as dots on the screen as the Interact user types into the field.
   • Purge data on submission – If this option is selected, any data entered in this field by the Interact user will be removed when the form is submitted and will not be stored in the Interact database. The data is only stored in the Blue Prism database, and any additional storage destinations configured as part of the automation process for the form.

   These options are only available for Text fields. Therefore, if you want to submit a number and redact the content, use a Text field for the input rather than a Number field.

6. If applicable, select the type of regular expression you want to use:

   • Simple – This enables you to put simple restrictions on the field entry, such as limit the length of the entry, specify allowed characters and prohibited characters, and set an initial value. For more information, see Using the capture types in forms.
   • Regex – This enables you to define more complex restrictions such as if you want the data in the field to conform to a specific structure, like a post code or identification number. For more information on regular expressions, see Using regular expressions.

7. Click Create field.

   The field is added to the form. Repeat the steps until you have all the required fields.

   

   You can reorder the fields by clicking the icon and dragging and dropping them into a new location.

   You can select one field to be identified as the key field by clicking the ellipsis icon and selecting Make key field. Once selected, a key icon appears along the bottom of the field tile. Key fields can then be used within Interact submissions as a filter to look for particular text. For more information, see Key field.

   Only a Text or Number field type can be selected to be a key field.

   If a Text field has been set to use Mask data on entry or Purge data on submission, do not set it as the key field as this could expose the data entered in the field.

Add rules to a form

Rules enable you to control the form and activate different fields or pages depending on whether specified conditions are met. Using the testing area, rules can be tested prior to releasing the form for normal user usage. For more information on rules, see Using rules.

The inbuilt rule which is enforced in the Interact user interface, where you cannot move to a new page if there are mandatory fields that need to be completed on the current page, does not apply in the testing area.

If you have just created a new form and you still have the Edit form page open, go to step 2.

1. On the Interact Forms page, click Options next to the required form and click Edit form.

   The Edit form page displays.

2. Click the ellipsis icon for the appropriate field and click Create rule.

   

   The Create rule page displays.

   

   Rules are created based on typical ‘If Then’ statements, so if a specific condition is met, then a defined action is performed. The If condition is dependent on the field you have selected and the name of the field is shown next to If on the page. The options for the rules will vary depending on the specific field type. For example, for a text field, the conditions for the If are:

   

3. Configure the If statement:

   1. Condition – Select the validation to perform on the field, for example:

      • contains
      • does not contain
      • equals
      • does not equal

      The options that are available depend on the type of field for which you are setting the rule.

   2. Value – Enter or select the value that the condition is looking for within the field.
4. Configure the Then statement:
   1. Element group – Select the required option. This defines the level at which the result of the rule is applied, for example, whether it affects a particular field, page or the default elements. The following fields will change depending on your selection.
   2. Field, Page or Default element – Select the object that is impacted by the If statement being true.
   3. Condition – Select the action to take on the Then clause, for example, set value to, state is, and so on. The options that are available depend on the option you selected under Element group.
   4. State or Value – Enter the new value or select the state of the object in the Then statement, for example, the state could be set to hidden or visible.

5. Click Create rule to add the rule.

   If Create another is selected, a message displays to say the rule has been created. You can then edit all the fields in the rule to create a new rule.

   Otherwise, the Edit form page displays with the rules displaying under the associated fields. A numerical indicator is shown along the bottom of the field tile to indicate the number of rules below it. From here, rules can be deleted and edited.

   

Save the form

Once you have added the pages, fields, and rules, you need to save the form. Until this point, the information in the form is saved as draft and not committed to a version.

If you have just created a new form, or edited an existing form, and you still have the Edit form page open, go to step 2.

1. On the Interact Forms page, click Options next to the required form and click Edit form.

   The Edit form page displays.

2. Click Save.

   The Increase minor panel displays.

3. Enter a description about the update to the form and click Save.

   The changes to the form are saved and the version number is incremented by 0.1.