Workflow Forms

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Create a Workflow Form
• Editing a Workflow Form
• Get Started with Workflow Forms
• Managing "In-Progress" Workflow Forms
• Workflow Forms Emails
• Workflow Forms - Per Step Workflow Integrations
• Workflow Form Logic
• Workflow Form Logic Walkthrough
• Workflow Form Preview
• Formstack Forms Workspace

Create a Workflow Form

You are viewing documentation on our legacy Workflow Forms Feature. Click here for help with our Workflows Product instead.


Step 1 - Create a Workflow Form

To get started creating a workflow form,  click the "Create" button on the Forms tab. This will always appear at the top right of the Forms tab but will also appear in the middle of the page if no forms have been created yet.

Note: If you do not see this button you may not have permission to create forms. Please contact your account admin so he or she can adjust your permissions settings.

Next, you are prompted to choose the type of form you wish to create.

Continuing through the flow, on the next page you're given the option to name your workflow form, specify the URL, and designate a folder to save the workflow to upon creation. Next, you can opt to start by using a template or start using a blank form.

Continuing by using a Template will give the option to select a Category such as Sales, HR/Workflow, IT, etc. Based on the Category selected, a list of popular templates will appear. 

Before the building of your workflow form begins, there will be the option to select the Theme of the workflow form. The options will include the Default theme, Light, or Dark stocked themes. If there is another Theme that you wish to use, you can select it in the Builder.

Step 2 - Build/Add Fields

Drag a field from the Form Fields menu on the left of the form builder to add the fields you want to your form.  

When you click on a field, you'll see a window slide out from the left where you have options to edit the field you're on. See our support doc titled Add, Edit, Delete, Copy, Move Fields for more information.

Step 3 - Form Settings

Click the Settings tab to set the name of a form, the language, welcome and submission messages, emails & redirects, 3rd party integrations, and plugins. You may also enable security features and add user access to the form.

Step 4 - Share/Use Your Form

Click the Share tab to find the link to your form (the Hosted URL) and the embed code needed to place the form on your website. (When using the embed code for workflow forms only, the first step will be embedded to your site). The QuickStart menu provides the link to your Form and also the JavaScript Embed Code, which can both be quickly and easily copied by clicking the 'COPY' buttons. You can also access Lightbox and iFrame embed codes by clicking the 'Embed Form' option along the left. Click on "Social Media" to find directions on how to embed your form in Wordpress, Joomla, and TypePad.

Step 5 - Preview/publish your workflow form

From the builder (In the top left corner you) you will see the "workflow" option. Clicking this will launch the workflow form editor where you have the chance to preview and edit your workflow before publishing. The editor is also where you assign sections created in the builder to workflow form steps.

Editing a Workflow Form

You are viewing documentation on our legacy Workflow Forms Feature. Click here for help with our Workflows Product instead.


We've introduced a new way to make edits to an already published Workflow Form . You can now un-publish your Workflow form in order to make small changes. To edit your Workflow form, click the "Make edits" link from the Build page of your form.

Un-publish to Edit the Workflow Form

When you get to the editing step, you're presented with the option to either "Un-publish and Edit" or "Copy Workflow Form". Un-publishing your workflow form will halt activity on your form so that you can make edits. If you need to make large scale changes to your form, we advise copying your form rather than un-publishing.

Un-publish your workflow form if you:

• Want to make small copy changes
• Need to add a step at the end of the workflow form
• Don't have a lot of submissions

If you currently have in-progress workflow form submissions, you'll be asked what you'd like to do with those submissions on the same page. We advise marking all in-progress workflow forms as complete before continuing. This helps avoid having missing data for in-progress workflow forms if too much is altered on the form. We also conveniently export your submissions for you and make those available in the Submissions Tab. A download link is also emailed to your login address. 

Once your workflow form is unpublished, you're free to make edits. When you're finished, publish your workflow form again form the Workflow Editor. You can recap how to publish a workflow . 

Please Note:

• If you edit or delete an existing field, previously collected data will be affected.
• If you move any "in-progress" submission to complete status, we do NOT force integrations to run in this scenario. You'll have to click into the individual submissions and force run any integrations.

Get Started with Workflow Forms

You are viewing documentation on our legacy Workflow Forms Feature. 

Workflow Form Overview 



Setup Workflow Forms



Edit Workflow Forms



Add Logic to Workflow Forms

Managing "In-Progress" Workflow Forms

Re-Sending Workflow Form Assignment Emails 

To resend assignment emails, access your workflow form's submissions and select the "In-Progress Workflows" tab. From there, select multiple "In-Progress Workflows" then click the "Resend Assignment Email" button (as shown below).

Or, you can also click on the individual submission and resend the assignment email from that particular submission's page.

Note: You must be an account Admin user or have permissions to "View & Edit" the specific workflow form where you'd like to resend the assignment email from.

Reassigning Workflow Form Steps

It's also now possible to reassign a workflow form step if the currently assigned user is unable to complete the step or is no longer the needed user for that specific step. You can do this from the "In-Progress Workflows" section of the Submissions tab and can be done in bulk or one submission at a time. Just click the checkbox next to the submission(s) that need to have the current step reassigned and click the 'Edit Assigned Participant' option on the toolbar.

When the window that pops up, you can choose from the existing users on your account to which you'd like to reassign the current step of the workflow form.  

Workflow Forms Emails

Workflow forms are a great feature of Formstack, and they become even more powerful with the ability to control emails and submission messages. Workflow form emails can be triggered based on completed or assigned workflow form steps. Field logic rules can also still be used for another layer of control.

These new features of Workflow Form Emails stem from our Data Routing feature. You can now control Notification, Confirmation, and Workflow Form Assignment emails as well as Submission Messages. All of these emails can be set up in the Email & Actions section of Formstack.

You can use these new Workflow Form Email capabilities in many ways. One way would be to set up emails that alert the initial submitter how his/her submission is progressing through the workflow form. Providing the ability to see the submission progress through each step of the workflow form will allow them to have a better view of the workflow form process.

Note: The section containing the entry step participant's email address has to be editable (set to 'Can Edit') on all future steps that will trigger an email to the entry step participant. If the section is set to 'Can View' the data from that section is not able to be used. This is applicable on Notification Emails only.

Step Logic

With the introduction of workflow form emails, you'll now see a new routing logic option for Step Logic rules. These are logic conditions that can be based on when specific workflow form steps are finished. There are two options for Step Logic conditions: "Completed" and "Marked as Complete."

• "Completed" is for submissions that naturally get finalized by progressing through each step of the workflow form.

• "Marked as Complete" is for when you have in-progress workflow forms that are marked completed ahead of time before fully finished. This can be done to in-progress submissions by selecting them and marking as complete under the "Mark As" dropdown.

Notification Emails

Notifications can be set up to send after each step completion of a workflow form. Notification emails can also be sent to users or departments that need to be notified of a submission step, but don't have actual activities involved in the workflow form.

Confirmation Emails

Confirmation emails traditionally are triggered once the submission is fully complete. Now, with workflow forms, you can trigger confirmations after a step of a workflow form is completed.

Confirmation emails sent to the assigned user, after they've completed their step of the workflow form, gives the user assurance their step was completed successfully, and also gives them a copy of their submission for their records. These emails can be set up to send after each workflow form step is completed, or only after a specific step is done.

Notice that you can still add Field Logic Rules as well to each email. This allows you to still send a confirmation email after the first step is completed that is also restricted to send when a Field Logic Rule applies.

Note: Currently it is by design that emails sent out after a specific step is completed can only contain data from that step. This means if you have a 3 step Workflow Form and set up an email to send out after Step 2 is completed, only that data entered into the form for Step 2 can be contained in the email and all data submitted in Step 1 will not appear.

Workflow Form Assignment Emails

We have created a new type of email, Workflow Form Assignment Email, where you can customize what gets sent to participants when they are assigned to complete their step of your workflow form. You can use Logic to determine which emails get sent based on step completion for your workflow form.

This is not a requirement. The default workflow form assignment emails will be sent if you decide not to set up custom assignment emails.

Please note: You don't need to add Routing Logic for emails or messages that should be displayed after workflow form completion. This is the default for emails and messages set up on workflow forms.

You can set up Workflow Form Assignment Emails in both default and custom message format. Using a custom message allow you to control the message and the information you'd like to include in this assignment email. You have full control of both the email subject and the FROM address. (The FROM address will function in the same fashion as all other Formstack emails.) You'll also see a preview of the completion button at the bottom where you can also set the button label text.

Submission Messages

Messages and redirects after submission can also be customized based on the step of the workflow form. This is great functionality to be able to control what is presented at the end of each individual step of the workflow form. You can utilize redirects to send participants of a step to another URL.

Workflow Forms - Per Step Workflow Integrations

You have the ability to set up integration between steps of your workflow process. This makes it easy to move data into your other systems while the form progresses rather than waiting until the workflow is completed.

Note: Formstack Documents is the only integration available to be used between Workflow form steps at this time.

To set up an integration between steps of a Workflow form you will need to start in the Workflow Builder and select the step to add an integration. The integration will run after this step of the process is completed.

Select the ‘Add Connector’ icon in the top right corner of the step.
 

If this is your first time setting up Formstack Documents, you will need to navigate to the integration page under ‘Settings’ on the form and log into your respective account. Check out this article if you need help setting up your Formstack Documents integration.

You can then configure your integration inside the workflow form step. In order to avoid errors, please ensure that information being used to configure your integration will have been submitted in the current step or in a previous step. When finished, be sure to complete all required information and set your integration’s run mode to ‘On.’

A couple of things to remember about integrations between steps of your workflow form.

• If a step of a workflow form is skipped due to Workflow Logic, any integration dedicated to that step will also be skipped.
• You are not able to set up the same integration twice on a step, but you may set up multiple instances of the same integration on different steps. 
• Integrations cannot be configured on the last step of the workflow form process. If you would like integrations to run when the workflow form is completed, please set them up in the integration section of the form under ‘Settings.’
• Formstack Documents is the only integration available to be used between Workflow form steps at this time. 
• All other Formstack integration can be set up to run after the workflow form is completed in the integration section of the form under ‘Settings.’

Workflow Form Logic

Workflow Form Logic allows you to route your form forward or backward in your workflow form process based on how the form is filled out and completed.

For example if you have a workflow form for employee reviews. If the employee is granted a pay raise by their manager the form needs to go to the HR team for approval. If the employee is not granted a pay raise, the form can skip the HR approval process because of Workflow Form Logic.

Add Logic to Your Workflow Form

To add logic to your workflow form you will first need to navigate to the Workflow Form Editor. You can get to the Workflow Form Editor by clicking on the "Workflow" tab in the upper left-hand corner of the builder on a Workflow Form.

When in the Workflow Form Editor select the step of the form where you want to add Workflow Form Logic. Logic will run after this step of the workflow form is completed. Once you've selected a step you can select the Logic tab of the step.

In the Logic tab you will see that there are two types of Workflow Form Logic that you can set up here.

Send a workflow form backwards

When in the Workflows Form Logic tab of a Workflow form step, you can select the "Allow participant to 'send step back' to the previous step" option. This will give the participant who is completing this step of the workflow form that ability to route the form back to the previous participant.

When a participant has the ability to send a form back to the previous participant they will see a link at the bottom of their step of the workflow form. If the user wants to send the form to previous user they can select this link and will have the ability to enter in a comment on why they are sending to form back to them.

When a form is sent back to a previous participant, that participant will receive an assignment email that contains the comments from the participant who initiated sending the form backwards. The previous participant will then see the workflow form, with the previously submitted information populated, in their Workspace to be completed again. The workflow process will be then routed forward based as normal.

Sending a workflow form forwards or completing a workflow

When in the Workflow Form Logic tab of a Workflow form step, you can also route a form to skip future steps of the workflow form process or mark the workflow form as completed based on how fields are submitted. Use the bottom section of the Logic tab to select the field you want the logic to be based on. Then select the rule the logic should be based on and finally select the future step you want the form to route to if this rule is met. You can also select that you want this form to be marked as completed if the field mets the rule you have set. 

Please note the following limitations:

• Workflow Form Logic will only route forms to future steps of the workflow form based on how a form is submitted.
• You are not able to route a form backward to Step 1 of a workflow form process.
• Forms can only be routed by one rule at a time. You are not able to combine rules with AND or OR statements. 
• Rules are listed in priority order. For example, if form submission meets two rules the top rule will dictate the routing.
• In order to use Step Logic, your form must have one of the following fields: radio, checkbox, dropdown, number, date/time, or event/product.

Workflow Form Logic Walkthrough

Workflow Form Preview

Our team has developed a useful, new preview mode for workflows. You can now preview the steps of your newly created workflow form before you decide to publish.

View Workflow Form

To see your workflow form, click on the "View Workflow" button at the top of the Build page.

While previewing your workflow form, you can switch between steps using the Next and Previous buttons at the top of the preview. You'll also notice a box that includes the details of that step in the workflow form.

These details include:

• Who the step is assigned to
• The number of sections
• Whether or not authentication is required for the step
• The particular sections included for the step

You also have the option to see a diagram view of the workflow form steps. Click "Workflow Diagram" in the upper right corner to view this. You'll see the same information box when viewing the diagram.

The workflow form preview provides no submitting capability and no integration detail. We also remove any SSL or password authentication since they are not needed for the preview. Conditional Logic and calculations will work just fine on the preview like with the live form.

Formstack Forms Workspace

Looking for a place to see all of your assigned workflow form tasks? Look no further than your Formstack Forms Workspace. Workspace shows you all of your assigned tasks from workflow forms and easily let's you complete them in one place.

Accessing Your Workspace

If you have the workflow forms add-on enabled in your account, you can access your Workspace by clicking on the "Workspace" tab in the top navigation of your Formstack account. You can also enter your Workspace by clicking on the "Visit Workspace" button in your workflow form assignment email.

Once inside your Workspace you'll see any assigned tasks on the left-hand side. These tasks are sorted under their workflow form and are named by their workflow form number and Custom Identifier field.

Completing Your Assigned Tasks

To complete an Assigned Task, first click on it. The Workflow form will populate on the right-hand side. You can enter your information in your form here and then click submit. You can also select the blue "Open Form" button to complete the task outside of Workspace in your internet browser. Once your task is complete, the next assigned task will automatically appear on your screen.