RELATED IDEAS
Pre-populating Answers and Repeating Sections
In my organisation, forms need be signed-off by several levels of management before they are complete. If they're unsatisfied with anything, this can be passed back to the previous stage. This means I need to save and recover the current answers, then pre-populate them in the form at each stage.
Currently I do this by saving answers to a SQL database, then recalling them as a comma delimited string and using a substring to 'cut up' the answers. I did try extracting each answer as a row in a Collection (by using a Pivot table in SQL), but this required a separate variable for each element and in larger forms, lead to the workflow being too large to save.
There doesn't appear to be a way to do this with Repeating Sections. I can't find any way of specifying which index you would like to refer to within a Repeating Section, and this also makes saving answers very difficult (though I found a method of doing this).
To pre-populate answers, you'd need to consider JSON, comma delimited lists as an input, or at least allow users to specify an index. Specifying index 4 for example would allow the user to per-populate the 4th instance, and create instances 1-3 if they don't already exist, to ensure it's in the correct place.
A general 'repopulate using previous answers' option would be ideal - similar to what Survey123 does, but integrated into the workflow. In my mind, it would bring back the form in the same state it was submitted earlier in the workflow, with all the answers pre-populated.
Ideally it would also work within loops, to allow the user to create a workflow which loops through different levels of authority, while keeping the current answer set.
Currently I do this by saving answers to a SQL database, then recalling them as a comma delimited string and using a substring to 'cut up' the answers. I did try extracting each answer as a row in a Collection (by using a Pivot table in SQL), but this required a separate variable for each element and in larger forms, lead to the workflow being too large to save.
There doesn't appear to be a way to do this with Repeating Sections. I can't find any way of specifying which index you would like to refer to within a Repeating Section, and this also makes saving answers very difficult (though I found a method of doing this).
To pre-populate answers, you'd need to consider JSON, comma delimited lists as an input, or at least allow users to specify an index. Specifying index 4 for example would allow the user to per-populate the 4th instance, and create instances 1-3 if they don't already exist, to ensure it's in the correct place.
A general 'repopulate using previous answers' option would be ideal - similar to what Survey123 does, but integrated into the workflow. In my mind, it would bring back the form in the same state it was submitted earlier in the workflow, with all the answers pre-populated.
Ideally it would also work within loops, to allow the user to create a workflow which loops through different levels of authority, while keeping the current answer set.
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ADMIN RESPONSESep 7, 2022Thanks for your suggestion.
I will update the ticket if we have anything to share on this idea.
Cheers,
Euan
We also need this to migrate our SharePoint/Nintex OnPremise Workflows. Currently there ist no way to have Start Data in a Repeating Section and also not ot modify this data in following Forms.
Hi, any update on this?
Hello,
Thank you for your valuable contribution to our ideas portal. Your suggestion has sparked significant interest within our team, and I'm delighted to inform you that it is currently under active consideration.
We understand the importance of timely updates and want to assure you that progress is underway. While we cannot provide specific details at this moment, please rest assured that we are diligently working on implementing your idea.
We will loop back once we have a concrete timeframe.
I agree with previous comments that this needs to be added. It is a major limitation to moving some of our workflow processes from O365 to NAC and if the functionality continues to miss for a longer time period we may be forced into looking into alternate platforms to implement those existing processes.
This needs to be added. Not having the ability to populate a repeating section from data, then take additional data on each row, on a form is very limiting. There's so much functionality that repeating section could answer, but this lack of capability severely limits it's usefulness. We were able to do this in 0365 - why aren't we able to do it in NWC???
I've found that you can recover answers from previous Repeating Sections (and other question-types) by using the new(ish) [Start event variables] option in the form-builder. Unfortunately this makes the field [Read-only], meaning you can't alter previously entered answers.
I should have stated that as well as recovering previous answers, I'd like to be able to edit these answers and send the updated answers onto the next stage.
Hello, Repeating section data that is filled in Start/ Task Form is now available in subsequent Task Forms. In the original question, the ask is to have a way to extract a specific row data and only display that in the subsequent 'Task Forms'. Is that correct?