Frequently Asked Questions

A: If you think about it, a form usually exists as part of a larger process. For example, submitting a job application form is only the first part of the hiring process. When you create this form, you also need to create the process--the routing and events that occur once the form is submitted--in order to do everything you want to do with the form.

A: For users to see your process from the Start page, they must be assigned the Submitter role for it from the Access Rights page, and the process must be published.

A: In general, they are both containers for values that you do not have. Much like tokens, variables store a value so that it can be referenced later on another form or page within Laserfiche Forms. Tokens have more advanced formatting and editing options that are not yet available for variables.

A: Yes, you can make any business process into a template that users will be able to select when creating a new business process. Simply download the business process as an .XML file and then copy the XML file to the following folder on the machine where Laserfiche Forms is installed: install directory\Laserfiche\Laserfiche Forms\Forms\Template.

A: Forms are created within business processes. From the Manage page, select or create the business process you want the form to be associated with, click the Forms tab, and then click the New Form button. Learn more about creating a form.

A: Yes, it is! You can add variable parameters onto the URL to a form. In order to do so, you will need to know the variable name associated with the field you want to fill in, and have the link to that form. Once you have this information, build the URL with the following structure:

base URL?variable1=value&variable2=value

Replace variable1 and variable2 with the variable names of the fields you want to populate on the form, and replace value with the value you want to appear in those fields. Append other variables to the URL by inserting an & symbol followed by the variable name, as shown above.

Note: Only fields outside of collections and tables can be populated via parameters. Address, file upload, and signature fields cannot be populated in this way.

A: Laserfiche Forms stores everything in the Forms database you specified on the Laserfiche Forms Configuration page, so backing up this database effectively means that Laserfiche Forms is backed up.

A: Users can fill out forms from mobile devices either via the web or with the Laserfiche Mobile app. When you are designing a form, it will have a responsive layout by default -- meaning it will optimize its layout to fit the browser width of a tablet or phone. Learn more about responsive layouts. Forms accessed from the app will be optimized to fit in app.

The Forms inbox, your reports, the data sources, and the security settings can all be easily accessed and navigated on a phone or tablet. The main navigation toolbar will collapse into a hamburger button from which you can access the menu items. Additionally, different page components will collapse into drop-down menus accessed by tapping the arrow next to the currently selected component.

The Manage page, process designer, and form designer have not been optimized for the browser width of a tablet or phone, but you can navigate the full page from your device by scrolling. If you are editing a process or form, you can return to the Manage page by clicking the hamburger button and then clicking the back button next to the process' name. Show me what this looks like.

A: Sometimes if you accidentally scroll too far in any direction it can be difficult to find your process. If you cannot locate it, click the Zoom to Fit button on the toolbar. This will center the canvas on your process and adjust the zoom level so the entire process is visible.

A: In both cases, Forms will send an email to the specified users. The biggest difference is that an email service task will only send the email notification, while a user task will send the email as a notification to users informing them that they have a task assigned to them. If you want to assign a task to users and notify them, choose a user task. For notifying users without assigning them a task, choose an email service task.

A: 250 MB.

A: Yes! You can easily make a read-only, scrollable text box. You will use the Custom HTML field type for this. In the content of the field, enter:

<div style="overflow:auto; height:100px; width:600px"> whatever your content is </div>

You can adjust the height and width specified in the <div> to match your needs.

A: You can make changes to your variables from the Variables tab of the palette in the form designer. In the Variables tab, click the cog icon that appears to the right of the variable to open the Variable settings dialog box. Here you can change the variables name, delete it, and select whether the variable will be included on the instances page.

A: Yes, you can specify regular expressions for single line fields to specify their accepted values. You can supply text above the field to explain the format to users, or use JavaScript to show a warning message when input is not properly formatted.

A: You can accomplish this with JavaScript. On the Script page for the appropriate form, find the ID associated with the field you want to hide. Then, in the JavaScript section, enter the following code, substituting ID for the field's ID.

$(document).ready( function() {
if($('input[name="routingResumeId"]').val() =="") {
$("#ID").addClass('hidden');
}
});

Note: The hidden field cannot be required.

A: Yes, enter the current user variable {/_currentuser} as the default value for that field.

A: At this time, Laserfiche Forms is only compatible with Microsoft SQL database servers. In the future, we hope to add support for Oracle servers.

A: Laserfiche Forms does not follow the session timeout settings in IIS. Instead, it relies on the timeout period set in the web.config file. The default timeout period is 14 days (20160 minutes). To change this default, open the Web.config file located at C:\Program Files\Laserfiche\Laserfiche Forms\Forms. Search for the "forms" element, and edit the "timeout" value (in minutes).

Note: When the timeout period expires, Laserfiche Forms is redirected to the login page and incomplete form data will be lost.

A: SQL Express does not run maintenance tasks that keep your database running smoothly. In the SQL Server Management Studio Express, refresh the indexes by running the following sections in order:

To check the database integrity including indexes

To rebuild the database indexes

To update database statistics

A: Yes. If something happened in the process of submitting the form, you will be offered a chance to recover, correct any issues, and resubmit the form. Once you click the Recover form button, you will be redirected to the previous form with all data recovered. You may first see a sign-in page if your session was disconnected.

Note:File uploads will not be available when recovering the form after a session timeout occurs.

A: This error can occur when an administrator makes changes to the way your Forms Server is configured. Some changes will require that the Laserfiche Forms Routing Service be restarted. If the service is not restarted, it will not function properly and errors like this may occur. To fix the issue, a system administrator will need to restart the service.

A: This error message will appear when Laserfiche Forms is unable to establish a connection with the Laserfiche Server. Because this is a configuration issue, a system administrator will need to go to the Forms Configuration page and adjust the settings for the Laserfiche Server.

A: This issue can occur when users access Laserfiche Forms via a URL different from the one used locally by the machine hosting the Forms Server. To fix this issue, the machine hosting the Forms Server must have access to the URL where users access Laserfiche Forms. See this KB article for more information.

A: This is an error with the .NET Framework and IIS. See this article for more information.

A: If the Forms configuration page doesn't load, the Forms application pool identity may not have permissions to access your SQL Server. Try changing the application pool identity to a different account that has permissions to access SQL Server.

A: Yes! With Save to Repository service tasks, you can specify a repository profile that Forms will use when it saves the form. When you create a repository profile, you can specify any Laserfiche Server and repository to use. Learn more.