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ContactsLaw Interactive form activity

A form activity is an entry point for an interactive form in ContactsLaw. (Other than this mechanism, forms can only be started from other forms.)

The Interactive Forms Framework adds a new activity type to ContactsLaw for the purpose of starting forms, but you must create a separate activity for each form that you wish to allow users to start from the Activities ribbon or Task composer. You can include form activities in document workflows and process models just as you can with other activities.

The Manage Form Activites window (accessible from the main forms management screen) lists the activities that have been created for forms, and the forms to which they pertain. You can control whether individual activities can be started from the ribbon or appear in the task composer. This screen also includes a short-hand command that creates and configures an activity for a new form.

Once created, you can configure permissions for the activity from within ContactsLaw as you would for any other type of activity. Deleting the activity in ContactsLaw will cause it to no longer be available, but will not delete the form design itself. Some changes to form activities may require a restart of ContactsLaw in order to take effect.

Run-time experience

Depending on the design of the form, it may appear in a conventional window or occupy the entire screen. The header and footer of the form will always occupy the top and bottom of the window, respectively. If the content on the current page of the form exceeds the available space, a scroll bar will be displayed.

Menu bar

Pressing the Alt key will bring up a menu bar with options to Save, Print, Register and Send the form in its current state. You can elect to keep the menu bar on screen at all times if desired.

Zoom

The menu contains options for magnification. Your preferences are stored on a per-form, per-machine basis (making it convenient for different devices and displays). You can also set the zoom level by using Ctrl-plus (zoom in), Ctrl-minus (zoom out) and Ctrl-zero (100%) on the keyboard.

Keyboard navigation

The activity will automatically determine the tab order according to the position of each control on the screen. Focus moves left-to-right, top-to-bottom. You can select radio button options by typing the first letter of the option.

Unless input focus is on a control which accepts the Enter key, pressing Enter is akin to clicking the Next button on the form (or, if on the last page, the Finish button). You can follow hyperlinks by pressing the Spacebar.

Crash recovery

In the unlikely event of a fault that causes a form to close unexpectedly, ContactsLaw will attempt to save a file containing the current state of the form. These auto-save files are placed in the user's My Documents folder.

Upon restarting ContactsLaw, you will be able to resume from where you left off by selecting the 'Crash recovery' task in the Interactive Forms Manager. If the session is successfully restored, the auto-save file will be deleted automatically. Note that this process only restores the form state, not the workflow state. If the activity is part of a multi-step workflow, subsequent steps will not be completed. Related tasks will not be marked as completed.

To load previously-entered values directly into a form activity, select the Open command from the menu and browse to the auto-save file. This is useful if the form is part of a broader workflow. You can also manually save the current state of a form by selecting the Save As command and changing the file type to 'Interactive Form State'.

Directives

Information can be passed between forms and other activities in ContactsLaw, in the same way that information can be passed between activities in document workflows and process models. Depending on the value of the Directive type property on the form's records and controls, these components can be shared with other activities using the name assigned to them at design-time.

At the start of a form activity, the values for any controls or records with the directive type 'input' or 'both' will be read from the previous activity (according to the mapping configured between the two).
When the user clicks the 'Finish' button on the form, the values for controls and records with the directive type 'output' or 'both' will be sent to the next activity.

All of the information output by a form activity is saved to the task.