Summary

Laserfiche Forms 10 is a major release that adds a wide-ranging number of features to the product. The following sections highlight some of the biggest additions.

Teams

Teams provide a way to organize and route tasks in Laserfiche Forms. Tasks can be assigned to an entire team and be visible to all team members in a central list. From this list, team members can chose to complete tasks that interest them or managers can directly assign the tasks to team members.

Assign, reassign, and release tasks to make sure they are completed by the correct person and to balance the workload. Additionally, you can configure your process to automatically assign tasks to users, a team, or a subset of a team. You can even automatically assign tasks round-robin.

In addition, the tasks list now features a new interface that allows you to customize columns and configure sorting and filtering options. You can also save tasks as drafts to complete later.

The tasks list can now also update in real time. Newly assigned tasks will display in a user's task list without the need to manually refresh the page.

Team administrators and managers can edit team members and team roles.

Improved Workflow Integration

The Workflow service task can now retrieve values from workflows and assign those values to forms variables.

Operational Dashboard

The new operational dashboard provides a quick and easy way to view status information on a process. You can view how many instances are currently running or at a particular stage, and how many tasks are close to reaching their deadline, or are already overdue. If you organize your processes to use stages, you can easily identify exactly where in the process each instance is.

Canvas Enhancements

The canvas now features a grid system. Objects on the canvas will snap to grid cells.

Look for the Auto Space option to compact a process diagram. Forms will run a best-fit algorithm to remove excess grid whitespace.

Processes can now be organized into stages on the canvas. Managers can use the new operational dashboard to view process progress based on these stages.

Instance Monitoring

Administrators now have the option to view the status of all process instances or view all instances of a specific process. For example, if an administrator wants to see if any instances have been terminated, they can quickly do so. Make use of the new filtering and sorting options on these views to quickly see issues with running instances. There is also a search box that allows you to search by instance name. View error log entries directly from the report.

New Process Diagram Objects

• Terminate End Event: This event will end the entire process and all sub-processes, not just the process flow with this event.
• Signal Event: The signal intermediate event lets you interrupt a process flow and then jump to another process flow that starts with a corresponding signal intermediate event.

New Process Variables

The Business Process Step and Business Process ID variables correspond to the running process in the overall business process (i.e., the main process or a specific sub-process). The Current Step Name and Current Step ID variables correspond to the currently running step in the process. The Previous Submission variables refer to the user or service task that last submitted a form in the process, and the Previous User Submission variables refer only to the last user task that submitted a form in the process.

Form Fields Enhancements

• Geolocation field: Geolocation fields are a specialized field types that accept longitude and latitude coordinates for a location. If you are filling out a form from a device with location services enabled, this field can automatically get and store your current location. Adding this field to forms makes it easy to track where forms are filled out.
• Number fields now support decimals and the option to display a comma as a thousands delimiter.
• Number, text, date, and currency fields now support calculation functionality. If you want to perform a calculation such as calculating an age from a date field, or calculating a price based on several sale variables, you can now do so directly in Forms, without needing to use custom JavaScript. The Advanced tab includes a Calculation section where you can specify formulas based on the OpenFormula standard, the same standard used by Microsoft Excel and Google Sheets.

Enhancements for Tables and Collections

Lookup rules can now insert data as new rows in tables and collections.

You can now configure fields in tables and collections such that values set in a previous step in the process are read-only in the next step. When viewing the basic options for a field in a table or collection, enable the Previous data or new lookup data will be read-only, but user added sets will be editable option.

When adding columns or fields in a table or collection, you now have the option to select an existing column field variable.

Automatically Load The Next Task In The Process

If the next user task in the process is assigned to the same person as the previous user task, you can configure the user task's form to appear immediately after the user submits the previous user task's form.

Laserfiche Directory Server User Authentication Support

Laserfiche Forms 10 now supports user authentication through Laserfiche Directory Server. This includes single sign-on support across the Laserfiche 10 web products.

In the Directory Server administration site, group user accounts into Directory Server groups. Then use the Forms Configuration site to provide a Directory Server location use Directory Server groups to control which Directory Server accounts can sign in to Forms.

Changes from 9.2

• Forms no longer automatically terminates a process if the process attempts to assign the task to a invalid user. The instance status is marked as having a suspended task and authorized users can reassign the task.
• Search filter options are reset when switching between tabs. (120067)
• The Reports page no longer displays the - character as the initiator IP address for submissions submitted in a previous version of Laserfiche Forms before Forms started recording the value. (119437)
• When connecting objects in the process diagram, moving the mouse quickly over an object could leave the hotspot gray dots visible even after moving the mouse cursor off the object. This issue is now resolved. (118200)
• Drop-down lists that show a list of forms in the Message Start Event, User Task, and Save to Repository service task now sort by form name. (117510)
• Forms no longer displays a "Last saved ..." message on the form designer. (113901)