'Value must be provided' question

tford

I am developing a questionnaire application & need to have the Answer attribute of the QandA BO as 'Value must be provided'.

The issue is that I need to create all of the QandA instances in advance and have the Answer attribute blank initially, then when each instance is edited by the person answering the questionnaire, the Answer attribute would be required.

So, using 'Value must be provided' will not work during the initial creation of the QandA instances.

Suggestions?

kklosson

I do this with questionnaires also, but I have a submit process in which I check for form completion. Is that an option?

Powerm

You can use a Rule : If BO.Attribute is UNDEFINED Then Report Error ' Answer must be Provided '

kklosson

Yes, but this will trigger when you create the object through a process. Right?

Rennur

What about:
If BO.Attribute is UNDEFINED AND NOT(BO IS NEW) Then
REPORT ERROR ' Answer must be Provided '

This should let you create the QandA BO without triggering the REPORT ERROR

tford

I think I finally worked it out.

Scenario:

BO attribute that is required: TestRequired.Required

Process: FindThem (3 rules)

FIND TestRequired WHERE TestRequired.Required IS UNDEFINED IN BATCHES OF 1

If LoggedInRegularUser.NbrUndefined>0 Then
EditThem
ELSE
DISPLAY MESSAGE 'None to edit'

DISPLAY PERSPECTIVE Administrator

Process: EditThem (2 rules)

EDIT TestRequired USING Main

If TestRequired.Required IS UNDEFINED Then
DISPLAY MESSAGE 'Must provide an answer'
FindThem

Note that I have a rule in the TestRequired BO:

LoggedInRegularUser.NbrDefined=COUNT TestRequired WHERE (TestRequired.Required IS DEFINED)
LoggedInRegularUser.NbrUndefined=COUNT TestRequired WHERE (TestRequired.Required IS UNDEFINED)

I have not decided is the FindThem process will have "Allow user to cancel the process" or not. This could be a way of forcing users to answer ALL of the questions without cancelling. Not sure I want to do that because it might cause users to enter garbage just to get done.

tford

It sure would be helpful to have a capability within AwareIM to require input of certain attributes at the form level.

pbrad

Hi Tom
One suggestion would be to create one or more Yes/No attributes (flags) that could be triggered on whatever basis you desire and include the flag in the rule condition for each, any or all questions.

If BO.Attribute is UNDEFINED AND BO.Flag1='Yes' Then 
REPORT ERROR ' Answer must be Provided '

This is a very simple method to deploy and gives you the most flexibility right down to the individual question level.
Cheers,
Pete

tford

Thanks Pete. The challenge with REPORT ERROR is that I have a user cycling through all of the questions using a process that invokes the EDIT action. When REPORT ERROR is triggered, the process stops after the REPORT ERROR message is displayed.

Am I missing something?

pbrad

Hi Tom,
Long time, no talk. What I had in mind is where you would initially use REPORT ERROR, set the trigger the flag to yes for that question instead and then next time that question is edited and left unanswered the REPORT ERROR will trigger because the flag condition is met and also the answer is undefined.

Because you have total control over when you set the question flag to yes, you can determine when you want the report error rule to become active.
Pete

pbrad

Hey Tom,
A variation of this approach would be to have a single flag attribute named something like Confirm and Submit. The questionnaire wouldn't be submitted unless this checkbox was checked and if this checkbox was checked the form still wouldn't be submitted if there were any unanswered questions (The report error would trigger). You could show a questionnaire status as either unsubmitted or submitted depending on the success of the submission.
Cheers,
Pete