I see plenty of posts explaining how to send a stored form. But, I don’t see any explaining how to deal with the form once it’s filled out.
I’ve never used stored forms, but I have a customer that would like to use them for their executives that travel. The executives need to be able to approve/reject documents directly from their in-boxes while disconnected from the network. (they use Notes mail)
I understand using a stored form will allow them to see and act on the document. But, how do I then incorporate that mail doc back into my workflow db? Do I just set flags for their actions and then process the doc with a mail-in agent? - and what if someone else has acted on the doc in the db while in the office?
Subject: How do I process a reply with a stored workflow form?
Bob,
What you can do is create buttons in your stored form that will allow your users to take actions on the documents and route them back to the workflow DB. By storing the form, you are storing any form actions that may be there as well. Just be sure that your buttons are coded to point at your workflow db, and not your the mailfile receiving the message itself.
Subject: RE: How do I process a reply with a stored workflow form?
I’m not sure I understand… the executive replicates his mail before he leaves the office. He’s now on a plane - completely disconnected - and “approves” a stored form document in his inbox. I assume the “approve” action must use a “replywithhistory” in order to send the doc back to the originating db. So, when he lands at his destination and connects to the network from the hotel, his mail will replicate and the originating db will then receive the msg. I then need to process that incoming msg and update the actual active doc in the originating db.
I’ll have to create special buttons for the stored form, because the current actions call LS code to process the doc. The LS code is in a script library and not accessible by the stored form. So, my new actions will just have to set flags to indicate whether the doc was approved or rejected.
The mail-in agent will look for the flags and call the LS code accordingly.
Does this sound right? - or, am I missing something?
Subject: How do I process a reply with a stored workflow form?
I’m not sure this is the way that I would do this. Now I am prejudiced in this because we have a workflow application that we have developed that does all of the routing stuff. It involves sending a link to the person to a document that they approve. The document stays in the central DB (or replica).
If this process will work for you you might want to check out out full function demo at:
Otherwise I believe they would have to reply with history so that the form would be returned, then you would need an agent that would take the results from the email and update the appropriate document. If you require an audit trail then this is not a solid solution.
My requirement is to provide a “disconnected” form with which the executives can use to act on a document. So, I guess I will need to build something to interpret the returned document.
The idea sounded pretty creative when they presented it to me, so I figured some people must already be doing this. Apparently not.
My approach will be as follows:
Create a scaled down form to send with the email notice (no subforms)
Use simple formula behind the action buttons to set flags for approve/reject; and automatically reply-with-history
Use a table to provide a cell for comments
Set my source db as a mail-in db
Check incoming mail for flags and comments
Update the active doc in the source db accordingly
Let me know if I’ve missed anything.
Thanks again for your prompt and courteous replies,
That should work as you describe it. I had a client that was using our product for internal processing where the user would authenticate against the server, but had situations where they needed disconnected users (customers in this case) that responded to an email and when the email was returned an agent ran that updated the source document. It ended up being a mixed system of direct and indirect connections. This was several years ago and I can’t remember who the client was right off the top of my head. If I run across it I will let you know.The email solution would have trouble passing a rigorous audit requirements particularly if the information is confidential.
wfNote is a simple, yet flexible, workflow plug-in for Lotus Notes, written entirely in LotusScript. This version allows for sequential approval only, although it does allow for conditional branching, approval delegation, and multiple approvers.
Subject: How do I process a reply with a stored workflow form?
It might be a misunderstanding about what a stored form is used for.
When you e-mail a document that has a Stored Form, the recipient can open that document from their inbox, and see the same layout of data as they would have if they had accessed the database document.
Thus, you can send documents/data to users who cannot, or will not, access your database.
This is just a one-way process. Notes does not have any built-in capability for that e-mailed document to then feed information back to the source. If that’s what you need, then you’ll have to build it.
What you could do is make your source database a mail-in database, and have buttons on your stored from that would compose formatted e-mails that can be sent in, and them processes by logic you write.