Service Tasks

Service tasks represent actions by a service or program in a business process. For example, sending an email notification to users involved in the process is a service task because it is performed by Laserfiche Forms.

Why use a service task?

Use a service task for starting a workflow, sending an email notification, saving a form to the repository, or posting process information via a webhook. If a user must take action as part of the task, use a user task instead.

Email Service Tasks

Email service tasks automatically send an email to one or more users at a specified point in the business process. These service tasks are useful if a user does not have to take action in a process but should still be kept informed of its progress.

To send an email during a process

1. Open the process designer of the business process.
2. Place an Email Service Task on the canvas and connect it to other objects in the process.
3. Double-click the task to open its properties.
4. In the Name and Description fields, provide a name and description for the task.
5. Fill in the From, Send to, Subject, and Body fields. Learn more about using the rich-text editor to fill the Body field.
   • You can also fill the From, CC and BCC fields. Click Show From/CC/BCC to display these fields.
   • Click the Insert Variable button to insert a placeholder for process or field information such as the name of the person who started the process, the submitter, any user task actions or comments, and field values.
   • If you want a specific name to appear next to "To" when someone receives an email from this service task, format the email addresses like this: "Friendly Name" <email@email.com>.

   Note: Variables may be used in the From field.

   Note: You can send an email to an entire team by entering the name of the team as the recipient of the email. The email will be sent all team members, but not to the team administrator or team manager. If you also want the team administrator or team manager to receive the email, you should add them separately.

   Warning: If you enter a variable in the From, CC, or BCC fields, and the variable matches both a team name and a user name, the email will only be sent to the team. To avoid this happening, ensure team names do not match any existing user names.

6. Optional: Add an additional attachment to the email.
7. Optional: Select whether a form submission should be attached to the email, and the source of the form.
8. Optional: Select Include action history to include the action history from preceding user tasks on the form.
   • Optional: Customize the Action history section title if desired.
   • Specify the Action history location. By default, the action history will be placed Before the form, or you can select to place the history After the form or As a separate document.

Workflow Service Tasks

Workflow service tasks start a workflow at a specific time in a business process. In the Service task properties window, specify the name of the workflow that should begin when the process reaches the service task. This service task also lets you retrieve values from the workflow and assign those values to form variables.

In order to use Workflow service tasks, you must configure:

• The Laserfiche Forms Server to communicate with the Workflow Server
• The Workflow Web Service to communicate with Forms.

To start a workflow during a process

1. Open the process diagram of the business process from which you want to start a workflow.
2. Place a Workflow Service Task onto the canvas and connect it to the objects that precede and follow it in the process.
3. Double-click the task to open its Properties dialog box.
4. In the Name field, enter a descriptive name for the task.
5. Select the Workflow Server to be used.
6. In the Workflow name field, select or type the name of the workflow you want to start.
7. Select Wait until the workflow finishes before proceeding to have your business process pause while the workflow runs and resume after it finishes.

Note: Workflow Servers earlier than version 9.1.1 do not support synchronous calls. If you enable this option, the process will wait indefinitely at the Workflow service task, even after the workflow completes. Upgrade your Workflow Server to version 9.1.1 or later to use synchronous calls.

8. If you chose to have the process wait for the workflow to finish, you can populate Forms variables with information from the workflow. Use the Set Business Process Variables Workflow activity to configure variable values that will be processed by Laserfiche Forms.

Example: When a sales representative submits an initial inquiry form, a workflow runs that calculates a time estimate for the project, creates custom client documents in the repository, and creates a WebLink URL to the client documents. After the workflow finishes, it passes the time estimate and URL back to Forms. Then, Laserfiche Forms sends a new form to the sales representative with the time estimate and a link to the information packet.

Save to Repository Service Tasks

Save to Repository service tasks save a copy of a particular form and its attachments to the Laserfiche repository. Save to Repository service tasks allow you to choose the template and fields that will be appended to the form submission document, as well when in the process the form submission document will be created.

Note: The Save to Repository Service Task supports process variables that can retrieve values from a specific row in a table or a set in a collection that can be used in a document name or template field. For example, design a table with a "single line" field and a "file upload" field. If the table has 2 rows of values, setting the file upload document name in the Save to Repository Service Task to {/dataset/Table_variable_name/Single_Line_variable_name[Row()]} will set the first file with the first row's value and the second file with the second row's value.

To save a form to a repository during a process

1. Open the process designer of the business process.
2. Place a Save to Repository Service Task onto the canvas and connect it to the objects that precede and follow it in the process.
3. Double-click the task to open its Properties dialog box.
4. In the Name field, enter a descriptive name for the task.
5. In the Repository profile drop-down list, select the repository profile that Laserfiche Forms will use to save the form. Create a repository profile by clicking New Profile. Learn more about configuring repository profiles.
6. In the Save field, select how you want to save the task data.
   • Save the submitted form from this process step: This option saves a specific submitted form from a process. After you select the option, choose the form you want to save. This is useful when you want to save a specific form's data with the form. If another form is submitted that changes the field values, the saved form values are not changed.
   • Save a form with current process data: This option saves a form with the most current data. This is useful when you want to save the most recent data in a form.

Once you select a form from the Form drop-down list, options and tabs for configuring the form and any of its attachments will appear at the bottom of the page.

1. If you don't want to save any files attached to the form, click the checkbox for Do not include any attachments. If checked, the attachment options tabs will be hidden.
2. In the tab named after the form:
   1. In the Document name field, enter a name for the form submission document in the repository. Click the Insert Variable button to insert the value from form or process variables into the name.
   2. In the Path field, enter the path in the repository where the document will be created. Click the Browse ... button to browse to a path.
   3. In the Volume field, select a volume for the document to be saved in.
   4. In the Location field, set the location property to be saved to the repository.
   5. Under Save Options, select to save the document as a PDF or TIF. Alternatively, select No form to save a document that has metadata but no actual image or electronic document component. If you clear this option, the folder path you specified above will be created. (You can apply metadata to this folder with the Parent folder template option below.) You may want to clear this option if you're only using a form to gather the metadata that you will apply to a folder where the form's attachments will be saved.
   6. Select Include action history to include the action history from preceding user tasks on the form.
      • Optional: Customize the Action history section title if desired.
      • Specify the Action history location. By default, the action history will be placed Before the form, or you can select to place the history After the form or As a separate document.
   7. Select Save business process data as XML if you would like to save an XML copy of the business process with the document.
   8. Optional: Check the Ignore errors when generating pages for PDFs, including attachments to allow the process to continue if the repository reports any errors..
   9. Under Fields, click Configure fields to select a template and fields to apply to the document. In the Configure fields dialog box, choose a template from the drop-down menu and/or click Add/remove fields to choose the fields you want applied to the form. You can specify a value for each template field and any added fields. Click the Insert Variable button to populate the field with form or process variables. Click Done when you have finished configuring the fields.
   10. Under Parent folder template, click Configure fields to select a template and fields to apply to the folder the form submission document is saved in. In the Configure fields dialog box, choose a template from the drop-down menu and/or click Add/remove fields to choose the fields you want applied to the form. You can specify a value for each template field and any added fields. Click the Insert Variable button to populate the field with form or process variables. Click Done when you have finished configuring the fields.
3. If your form has file uploads, a tab will appear for each upload. Configure these tabs as follows:
   1. To exclude the attachment when saving, click the checkbox for Do not save attachments from this file upload variable. If checked, the remaining options will be hidden.
   2. In the Document name field, enter a name for the file upload document in the repository. Click the Insert variable button to insert the value from form or process variables into the name.
   3. Next to Path, select whether the file upload document should be saved in the Parent form location or an Other location. If you select Other location, click the Browse ... button to browse to a path.
   4. In the Volume field select a volume for the document to be saved in.
   5. In the Location field, set the location property to be saved to the repository.
   6. In the Document relationships field, choose the relationship you want to apply between the uploaded file and the submitted form. Learn more about document relationships.
   7. Select Add this attachment to a Link Group with its associated form to create a Link Group that includes the uploaded file and the form submission. Learn more about Link Groups.
   8. Under Fields, select whether the upload should use the Parent form field settings or Other field settings. If you select Other field settings, click Configure fields to select a template and fields to apply to the uploaded file. In the Configure fields dialog box, choose a template from the drop-down menu and/or click Add/remove fields to choose the fields you want applied to the uploaded file. You can specify a value for each template field and any added fields. Click the Insert Variable button to populate the field with form or process variables.

Webhook Service Tasks

Webhook service tasks send process information via an HTTP post request to the specified web service. For webhook service tasks to work, you must properly configure the web service to receive these requests from Laserfiche Forms.

Outflow Tab

All tasks have an Outflow tab which lets you specify which pathway the process should take after the task has completed. Learn more.

Configuring Repository Profiles

Repository profiles are used in Save to Repository service tasks and contain the Laserfiche Server, repository, and credentials that Laserfiche Forms will use when performing the service task.

To create or edit a repository profile

1. In the settings window for the Save to Repository service task, click New Profile or Edit next to Repository profile.
2. In the Profile name field, specify a name for the profile.
3. In the Laserfiche Server field, enter the name of the Laserfiche Server associated with the desired repository.
4. After selecting a Laserfiche Server, click in the Repository text box and then click the drop-down arrow to see the available repositories. Select one.
5. In the User name and Password fields, specify the credentials that Laserfiche Forms should use to authenticate to the specified repository.
6. To configure the Forms Server to secure network communications when connecting to Laserfiche, select the Use TLS connection checkbox.
7. When you are finished, click Verify and save.