PerfectForms Forums » General

1. tmrhymer
   Member

   At what point in a form's life cycle is the Special value - Form Instance Name available to use? I have a helper field that i had planned on using to hold that value so i could use it in notifications. I'm having trouble finding when to place the set field command that sets that helper field to the form instance name. It seems like that Form Instance Name is generated sometime after the first submit data behavior runs. So, my thought was to add a set field command to the workflow path leaving the submitter stage, but thats not working either. I guess my question is, is there a way to set a field to the Form Instance Name at the first stage of the form so that it can be used in notifications.

   Posted 2 years ago #

2. ijobling
   Member

   The instance name (and instance number) are created when the form is first submitted.
   see here: http://www.perfectforms.com/Documentation/manual/html/form_instance_name.htm

   but if you want to use this in all notifications including from the first submission there are a couple of ways you could do this.
   1: use the 'submit and reopen same instance' such that the form maybe opens and automatically submits and reopens through a new 'first stage'. In other words before the users are able to actually start to use the form it has already been submitted and of course any existing actions (connections etc) that you are running on the current 'first stage' you don't run, but run them on the new 'second stage'
   2: set up a set field action on the form that runs before you submit, that is replicating how you want to define your form instance name (see step 5 in the above page in the user guide) to a hidden field on your form and then link to that field in the email notification

   Assuming you have set up your form already, check these methods out on a simple test form so you can see how they work to see which is more suitable for your overall process

   Posted 2 years ago #

3. tmrhymer
   Member

   I did check that page first actually, and the only thing that I caught was "Once the form is in use". So, it might be helpful to others if they added what you stated - "The instance name (and instance number) are created when the form is first submitted."
   I like your second option, the first makes sense, but i think it could result in extra forms being created. Example, a user starts a form, doesn't get very far and just closes it. Later when they decided to try filling out the form again I could see users starting a new one and not realizing there was one already started.
   The only problem with the second option is the format we decided on for our instance names is like this - <FormTitle>_<CustomerName>_<InstanceNumber>. So, I dont know how we would generate the correct Instance Number. Any ideas?

   Posted 2 years ago #

4. ijobling
   Member

   Have you looked at the notify action and the 'message' tab
   http://www.perfectforms.com/Documentation/manual/html/notify_command___message_tab.htm

   You can insert the instance number into the email itself, so use that in conjunction with other form fields to compile your 'reference' field in the email notification to match how you set the form instance name

   Posted 2 years ago #

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