Two-step form input

[schrocri]

Hi all,

relatively new to the “development-side” of SeaTable. Formerly I was only on the data input side.

I have an excel sheet that is used as the basis to create new accounts in an ERP system. There are several regulations and rules to be considered and it was very possible so make sure this happens in excel. Basically a user (the requestor) fills out the form. While he does this, field colors change, indicating what needs to be filled out based on what was already filled out. Also some data is being enriched automatically through basic logic. This form is then exported as pdf and signed digitally by several workflow participants, which have been determined through the user input.

What I want to do with SeaTable now is create an app (or several) to have better transparency and more flexibility in gereral. To do this I replicated the fields from the excel in my base and mostly I was able to implement the rules and logics of the excel sheet. However, there is one key difference between excel and SeaTable. When I use a form as an input, only at the end the record is created, so it is not available for logic during the input process. In Excel this is field by field.

After discovering this, I tried going to a two-step solution, namely the input form that grabs 95% of the data necessary, then a single record page to give the user the chance to look over the input and add what was missing before, before finalising this with a click on a button that changes the status to the beginning of the workflow (which I could not get to work).

It seems to me that I can make pretty sure but can not guarantee that the user is directed to that record though, especially if that user were to be anonymous, depending on how many people are actively using this app at the same moment. By far the easiest way, at least from a process perspective, would be a multi page form that writes to the record and than stays in that exact record. Is that possible at all?

The end-game of this project would be to have a kind of cockpit for each user, different in regards to their role, where they can see their open and completed workflows so they can have a better overview of their tasks. And for the requestors a way to track how far the workflow they initiated has progressed. Would also appreciate a general answer, if this is feasible in SeaTable.

Due to the nature of the industry I work in, I guess this is an on-prem version of SeaTable, but I don’t know which version. Hope this rather vague information helps anyway

Thanks and BR

[daniel.pan]

Thanks for the detailed description — this is very helpful.

From what you described, there are really two separate goals here:

1. A guided form flow where the record exists early

   • collect most of the data in a first step

   • create the record immediately so logic can already react to it

   • then continue with review/finalization on the same record

   • finally move it into the workflow

   For this use case, a custom HTML page is probably the most natural solution. Standard SeaTable forms only create the record at the end of submission, so they are not ideal for a record-first, multi-step workflow like this.

2. A cockpit/dashboard per role

   • show open and completed workflows

   • filter the view by the current user or role

   • display tables and charts relevant to that user

   This also sounds very feasible with a custom page. You can build a page with tables/charts and apply filters so each user only sees the data relevant to them.

So in short: yes, the overall idea seems feasible in SeaTable, but the first part is better implemented as a custom HTML/page-based solution rather than a standard form.

[Rafael]

Works but some complicated.

[Rafael]

Another example that work great