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Workflows

A workflow is an advanced feature that allows different people to be responsible for reviewing and/or completing different sections of a single form.

This guide shows you how to turn your online forms into efficient digital workflows for:

  • Approvals

  • Multiple signatories

  • Multi-department processes

  • Submission reviews

You do not need advanced workflows for pre-filling a form before sending it to your users or sending simple email notifications.

Before you start

This guide assumes you have a basic understanding of creating online forms in Advanced Forms.

Before proceeding with the workflow setup, you should build your form with all the required fields.

We will use a simple employee leave request process to demonstrate how to configure a workflow.

Organise form fields into groups

Our leave management example starts with an already-built Employee Leave Request form.

Before setting up the workflow, you must group the fields in your form to create distinct sections linked to the appropriate workflow steps.

  1. Drag a Field Group design element onto the form.

  2. Enter a name for internal purposes only. For example, Employee Leave Details.

  3. Click Save & Close.

  4. Drag the relevant form fields into the field group.

  5. Repeat these steps for all new group/workflow steps. For example, Manager Approval or HR Notes.

  6. Save your form.

Field groups and their dividing lines are not visible to form users. If you want to break up your form visually, use the Heading design element.

Configure the workflow steps

Now you are ready to configure the workflow steps for this form.

To turn on workflows, go to Form Settings  Workflows and select Enable workflows.

Initial workflow step

This is the first step everyone will see when they visit your form URL.

Workflow email notifications invite people to complete the workflow’s next step automatically. Email notifications are not required for the first step of a workflow, as the initial workflow step can be completed by visiting the form URL link directly.

For this example, employees should be able to enter their leave details into the fields within the Employee Information field group.

  1. On the Step Settings tab, enter a name for the first workflow step (used for internal purposes only). For example, Employee Request.

  2. Go to the Field Groups tab and select View and Edit on the field group displayed to all form users in this workflow step. For example, Employee Information.

Subsequent workflow steps

For this example, an approving manager will complete step two of the workflow.

  1. Click Add another workflow step.

  2. On the Step Settings tab, enter a name for the next workflow step (used for internal purposes only). For example, Manager Response. We will also need to add a third and final workflow step for HR notes that the HR team will complete.

Set up workflow email notifications

Subsequent workflow steps require assigned participants to be notified of a pending action. Participants are given a unique link to view the in-progress form submission.

For example, we want to notify the relevant manager(s) when an employee submits a leave request form (Workflow Step 2). We must also notify the HR team when managers mark leave requests as Approved (Workflow Step 3).

  1. On the appropriate workflow step, under Workflow recipients, click Add recipient.

  2. Enter the email address of the person who needs to complete this workflow step. If there are multiple people, enter all email addresses separated by a comma. The email address can be dynamically populated from your form’s Email field. To do this

    1. Click the Insert form answers link.

    2. Enter the short-code for the Email field.

      Short-codes can also personalize content in the email subject and body.

  3. Enter the email subject you want to appear as the Subject: on the email notification. For example, Leave Request Submitted - {{first name}} {{last name}}

  4. In the email body, customize the message using the rich-text editor toolbar. In most cases, the Workflow Link should be included to enable recipients to view the form and complete the workflow step.

  5. (Optional) Enable response attachment options and/or email delivery options if required.

  6. If your workflow step requires multiple emails, such as a sequence of reminder emails, click Add another recipient to add another email for the same workflow step.

Conditional logic can trigger emails based on form responses. You can also delay email delivery for a specified period. See Email delivery options for details.

Response attachment options

Option Description

Attach a PDF document containing form responses

Attaches a PDF copy of the form responses to the email. Read the Generate PDFs section for more information.

Add file uploads as attachments to email (max 30MB)

Includes any uploaded files as attachments to the auto-reply email. By default, secure links to the uploaded files are automatically included in the body of the email.

Email delivery options

Option Description

Delay sending email after form completion instead of sending immediately

Delay sending the email for a specified period. This is useful for sending Workflow reminder emails. You also have the option to send the email even if the workflow step has already been completed at the scheduled time.

Enable conditional logic for this email

Only send the email when certain conditions (responses) are met in other fields on the form. This is useful for sending different emails/recipients for the same workflow step based on form responses. Read the Conditional logic section for more information.

Apply field group permissions

The Field Groups tab configure what the workflow recipients (participants) can see and/or do in this workflow step.

Choose the applicable setting for all of your field groups:

Not visible in this step

This field group will not be displayed in this workflow step.

View only

This field group will be visible to the person in this workflow step along with any answers previously entered.

View and edit

This field group will be visible and editable.

For this example, in Step 2, we want the approving manager to:

  • View the Employee Request field group on the form, but not edit it.

  • View and edit the Manager Response field group on the form.

  • Skip the HR notes section in this workflow step.

In Step 3, we want the HR team to:

  • View the Employee Request field group on the form, but not edit it.

  • View the Manager Response field group on the form, but not edit it.

  • View and edit the HR notes section.

Apply logic rules (optional)

If you want to execute workflow steps in order, you can skip this and scroll down to add another workflow step. Repeat this process for as many workflow steps as you need.

Alternatively, you can apply logic rules that trigger the next workflow step based on conditions/responses met in specific fields within the form.

To add a rule:

  1. Select a field question/name from the form.

  2. Select the operator. For example is, contains.

  3. Enter the required response/condition.

  4. Select the workflow step to be shown for this condition. If you need to include a step, scroll down to add another workflow step.

  5. Click Add another rule for all required conditions.

Further actions

Once all the workflow steps have been configured, scroll up to save and view the form to try it out.

You can see an overview of our leave management workflow from the participants' perspective in Workflow example: Employee leave request.

If a workflow participant is unavailable, an Administrator can view and complete the workflow step on their behalf. Read the Managing workflows as an administrator section for more information.