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Overview
ITAM Logic Builder - Conditional Logic for Forms & Pages
Among the many advanced features available in the IT Audit Machine are the built-in conditional logic functions for forms and pages. The Logic Builder is the control window where form designers are able to define specific business rules for certain types of form/page behavior. Access to the Logic Builder is provided One of the challenges of traditional ways of collecting user data (e.g. via documents or spreadsheets) is the complicated instructions that were necessary to help users know which part of the form(s) are applicable to them depending on their situation or data. A classic example is your standard IRS form that has many instructions like “If you enter data here, skip to step X”. These are necessary since the form is unable to dynamically interact with the actual data the user is entering. The ITAM Logic Builder is the solution to avoiding complicated instructional guidance. Instead of manually telling your users how to navigate your form, you can use the Logic Builder to respond dynamically to the data the user enters and customize their interaction with a form based on their needs.
That is not all the Logic Builder does. It can allow for custom notification or data integration points during the process of filling out a form instead of waiting for submission. It can also create rules around a review and approval process for any form data.
On this page of the guide we’ll cover Form Logic and the Logic Builder, an aspect of Advanced Form Management that is useful for efficiently routing a user through a form and for managing other form related workflow needs. ITAM supports six (6) different areas for advanced Logic:
Rules to Show/Hide fields
Rules to Skip Pages
Rules to Send Notification Emails
Rules to Send Form Data to Another Website
Rules to Add approvers for a form
Approve/Deny Notification Logic
Accessing the Form Logic Builder
A form's logic configuration options can be accessed via the logic button/tab below the form entry in the Form Manager.
Using this powerful feature, form designers can dynamically show/hide fields and/or navigate to a specific page based on selections being made by the user. This is very useful if it is necessary to display different form content to various users without creating numerous forms with many redundant fields or having a single form with too many fields. Creating logic for a form might sound complex, however, ITAM makes it easy and without the form designer needing to become a programmer| Info |
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Regardless of the form with which you are working, the Logic options are the same and only applicable to that specific form which gives you a powerful feature to manage how information notification flows are controlled. |
A key feature of the Logic Builder is
its ability to adapt to the type of field being selected. For example, when selecting a field for comparison, the options it provides will adjust to be appropriate to the field. The various field-specific options are included in a table at the bottom of this page.
Logic Options
Enable Rules to Show/Hide Fields
One of the basic ways to simplify a user’s interaction with a form is to only display the necessary fields to a user based on their needs. This minimizes extraneous data and streamlines a user’s experience with a form.
ITAM can either Show or Hide a any field based on one or more conditions. The conditions are evaluated instantly, chosen by the designer. Each time a user makes a selection or enters any text into the field, the show/hide conditions are being evaluated and the associated field will be shown or hidden immediately. If no conditions are set, a field will always be displayed.
Creating the conditions for displaying or hiding a field is as simple as selecting the fields from the drop-down menu and defining the comparison valuedesired action and one or more condition(s).
Note: As can be seen in the image above, when defining a rule you can decide whether the rule pertains to hiding or showing a field and whether the logic must match any or all of the conditions set.
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When a field to Show or Hide has been selected it will appear as a title above the conditions being created to show or hide it. The dropdown for selecting what field to Show/Hide will reset, allowing additional fields to be added selected as a target for the Show/Hide functionality. |
Conditions are a set of comparisons of a field in the form with some value. The types of values available will depend on the type of field and the comparison chosen. See the section on Dynamic Comparison Options at the end of this page for more information.
When selecting a date to trigger logic with you can choose either a single date by using the Is value or you can set a date range by setting both the Is Before option, as the next illustration depicts, and the Is After.
Enable Rules to Skip Pages
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This functionality allows users to skip directly to a certain Some times whole sections of a form will not need to be filled out by certain users. ITAM allows a form to be set up to navigate a user directly to any page based on their data entry choices. This is useful when there are multi-page forms and it is necessary allows you to control which pages a user is presented based on their input choices. how a user progresses through your form and gives you the option of moving them past unnecessary pages.
Note: Page rules will only be available if you have more than one page in your form.
Creating the conditions for a controlling page skips is similar to the show/hide fields and is as simple as selecting the fields from the drop-down menu and defining the comparison valueexcept you first select the page you want a user to navigate to and then set the conditions which will send them there.
For example, the following illustration shows the logic behind a two-choice dropdown field. When the user selects choice 1“Yes” for this particular field, the page advances to the next page 5. When the user selects choice 2“No”, the page advanced instead to another page 6.
When selecting Selecting a date to trigger logic with page navigation is similar to showing and hiding a field in that you can choose either a single date or you can set a date range as the next illustration depicts.
Enable Rules to Send Notification Emails
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Again, the In the Form Notifications section of the guide we covered how to set up notifications when a form is submitted. ITAM also allows notifications to be sent during the process of filling out a form. This is accomplished by setting rules to send notification emails. The operation for defining additional logic for sending email notifications to specified email accounts is similar to SHOW/HIDE and Skip Pages. In addition to choosing the conditions, you must also set to whom the email is sent and what email template is used.
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You can enter in as many email recipient addresses as necessary separated by a comma or semicolon |
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If the option for a Custom email template is chosen, the form will display an additional set of fields allowing you to create the template for the email.
Enable Rules to Send Form Data to Another Website
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In the Form Notifications section of the guide we covered how to set up sending data to another web page when a form is submitted. ITAM also allows a set of data to be sent to another web page based on rules around the data being entered. The top of the configuration section allows you to define one or more rules which trigger the data being sent and the bottom of the form allows you to configure how the connection to the other web site is sent and what data will be sent. See the Send Form Data to Another Website section of the Form Notifications page for more information on the options for configuring the ability to send form data.
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This is an advanced ITAM feature and requires an external web page configured correctly to receive the data. |
Enable
this feature to define additional logic for sending webhooks to other URLs based on user entries.
Rules to Add approvers for a form
Some forms require approval upon submission. The Rules to Add approvers for a form allows configuration of how a form will be approved.
By default, approval is disabled, however ITAM allows for two other options; Single-Step approval or Multi-Step Approval.
Single-Step Approval
Single-Step approval allows one or more approvers to be involved in a single round of approvals. ITAM allows for three (3) options for Single-Step approval. If Any user can approve is chosen, any administrative user can approve the form. Conversely if Allow only selected users to approve/deny form the option to approve is only available to the identified users and any of those users may approve the form. Finally if Require unanimous approval from ALL approvers is selected all users must approve a form for it to be approved.
Multi-Step Approval
Multi-Step Approval is used to set up a series of approval gates through which a form must pass to be fully approved. The tool will allow the order to be rearranged as needed. ITAM will request approval from the each user in order. If any user denies the approval, the form will be denied and will not move on to the step in the approval chain.
Approve/Deny Notification Logic
Instead of one or more manual approval steps it is possible to set automatic logic for approving or denying a form. ITAM does this using the Approve/Deny Notification Logic section.
The Approve/Deny Notification Logic can be used in conjunction with the Add approvers for this form section. If users have been selected in the Add approvers for this form the user selection in the Approve/Deny Notification Logic dropdown will be restricted to those users. If no users have been selected in that section, all users will be available in this section.
To set a rule for approval or denial, first select the approver with whom this logic will be associated. Think of this as the rule(s) that user has for approving or denying the form. Once a user is selected a configuration section will be displayed allowing the rule(s) to be configured.
At the bottom of the configuration section is the option to set whether this will generate an approval or denial notification.
Dynamic Comparison Options
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The options presented for comparison change depending on the type of field being compared. Below are the options for the various field types
Field | Description |
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Text (all text-based fields) | |
Is | An exact match to the value entered |
Is Not | Does not exactly match the value entered |
Begins With | The field begins with the value entered |
Ends With | The field ends with the value entered |
Contains | The field contains the value entered somewhere within it |
Does Not Contain | The field does not contain the value entered somewhere within it. |
Number | |
Is | An exact match to the value of the number entered |
Less Than | Is less than the value of the number entered |
Greater Than | Is greater than the value of the number entered |
Date | |
Is | The date field is the exact date entered |
Is Before | The date field is before the date entered |
Is After | The date field is after the date entered |
Selection (all selection-type fields) | |
Is | Allows for a comparison to the possible values presented in the Selection field |
Is Not | Does not match one of the possible values presented in the Selection field |
Begins With | The selected option begins with the value entered |
Ends With | The selected option ends with the value entered |
Contains | The selected option contains the value entered somewhere within it |
Does Not Contain | The selected option does not contain the value entered somewhere within it. |
Checkbox | |
Is Checked | The checkbox is checked |
Is Empty | The checkbox is not checked. |
The various options that are made available in the Logic Builder are a powerful way to transform your form from a static collection mechanism to a dynamic tools which guides your user as they fill out the form. Time spent configuring these options can help minimize the questions your user needs to ask in order to navigate the form and correctly fill it out and can simply any approval or denial reviews necessary and in some cases eliminate any manual approve / deny step altogether.
Next we will explore Form Integration and the options for linking to your form from other web sites.
[Previous Topic → Form Notifications] | [Next Topic → Form Integration]
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