Table of questions in capture

[Sophie Springett]

Hello,

We are in the process of expanding our use of self-service to new areas and I am currently creating the intelligent capture for this.

The information we need to capture from users currently comes in to us on a form we've created on a word document; we would like to explore phasing this out as we move forward with self-service. On the form we are currently using we have a table that users fill in. I can't see any way of doing anything like this within the progressive capture at the moment, all I have been able to do is put in a multi line free text box, with the hope users will continue to input the information in here the way they are used to on the form.

Is there any way that we could incorporate a table or is there something else that would work better for this sort of thing than just using a free text box?

Thank you! 

[Miro]

Hi @Sophie Springett

At the moment there is no such input field that could be used to catch tabular data.
As this is "dynamic input" probably the best would be like you said to use multi line text input.
I will add your request to feature requests for Intelligent Capture and once it will be evaluated and added to work log I will let you know.

Thank you,
Miro

[Kelvin]

+1 we have several requirements where we would like to capture tabular data, this could be from a shopping list, lists of requirements for multiple lines of questions, capturing this in some sort of array may be more beneficial that lots of individual field of blank data.

 

[Sam P]

+1 we could eliminate many, many attachments by having this kind of input field

[Adrian Simpkins]

+100 from me - would love to have a table configuration available to capture data in ICs !

[Sandip Bhogal]

Hi I got the tables below which i want to create on a form in this format/structure:

On Hornbill employee portal i only know how to make it look like the below through using dynamic checkbox group, is there a better way to make it look like what's shown above? 

I would appreciate if someone could walk me through small steps how to make this, would appreciate your help. 

Thanks

Sandip

 

 

 

[Steve Giller]

I'm afraid that Intelligent Capture does not offer the option to display checklists in a table of data.

[Alisha]

Good morning,

We've had another request to use tables in captures. It would be set out something like the below. However, we potentially have a number of uses for tables, so the ability to add extra rows and columns would be really beneficial.

Please could we request this as an enhancement?

Many thanks,
Alisha

[Steve Giller]

I've merged this with the existing thread, however there are currently no plans to implement this.

Miro will update the thread should this change.

[HGrigsby]

+ 1 for us too.  Would have many uses for being able to have the ability to put in a table.

Helen 

[Alisha]

Hi @Miro,

I was wondering if this could be considered again please?

Instead of having so many questions and tick boxes, a table format is sometimes a cleaner way of capturing the information we need.

At the moment we are having to input several questions with the same check box options for each question.

Many thanks,
Alisha

[Gerry]

@Alisha

There is no reason in principle why this could not be created, but, the devil is in the details here.  I can look at that screenshot and deduce certain things, but I would need to understand a lot more about how you might use tihs? for what type of data? how you would expect to configure this? where/how would the resultant data the user enters in be stored? how would you expect to use that stored data? are the rows and columns static (i.e. defined an configurion time) or are they to be pre-populated dynamically from a data source.... etc etc... there are many more questions than answers.  

So what I would say is, the clearer the requirement/use case is, the more likely we are to consider it for inclusion.  Many things are obvious and we get generally figure these things out ourselves, but in this case, there are *a lot* of potential interpretation of whats required. 

Can you expand on your use case?

Gerry

[Sam P]

In an acute hospital setting, one example of where we would find this useful would be for all our outpatient clinic administration, this is a screenshot of part of the excel spreadsheet that we are currently uploading to Hornbill for every new clinic that is requested, it could be populated with anywhere between 1 and 30 rows each time.  As it stands, we wouldn't want to do anything with this data (although the potential for this could be significant) however the ability to present it and read it back in this format would save a lot of attachments and would make it easier for the customer and our team to action.  Genuinely looking forward to seeing other examples as I think this would be a great addition, even though I have no doubt its not an easy one to implement.  

[Gerry]

@Sam P

Why does it need to be tabular data format? Can it not be implemented in IC as it stands? is it that you need the user to be able to add more than one row in tabular form before moving forwards?

Might an alternative be you present that as a form (so 8 fields representing a row) and as well as a finish button you could have an add another record and it prompts the same form again to get the user input?

Or does it have to be tabular form presentation when your end user is entering the data?

Gerry

[Gerry]

@Sam P

Also, in terms of entering data, what would you expect when you are typing for example the Name of Resource, would you expect that to be able to resolve from a known database of names, or are these fields all just free-form text input?

Gerry

[Sam P]

@Gerry  This is definitely a 'want' not 'need' scenario  It doesn't need to be in tabular form and yes an IC could do it today, but personally I feel its a better user experience (both end user and Service Manager user) if the tabular input view was available.  For one, I imagine 30 rows would take up something like 20 pages of questions once the request is logged and if set, the summary panel would be very long. 

In this example the Resource would be a Data Query of basic users, appointment type would be a static drop down select box, slot name would be single line text field, slot duration could probably be removed if we're asking for start and end time using a picker as it would be obvious from the answer how long the slot would be for.

I do already have a different IC where it gives up to 6 'log more' options so I know its possible to do it that way, the IC is already heavily 'daisy chained' to cater for this.

Thanks 

[Gerry]

@Sam P

 

The difficulty with tabular data in the context of IC is the tabular data has the potential to be very "wide" and as you know in the Employee portal for example, there is very limitied horizontal space in the current UI design.   From a user experience that would be displaying a data tabular form, but presenting a horizontal scroll bar, which would be a horrible user experience.  The advantage of a form in a collection loop is the fields are vertically placed and you would get one form per row, which means one click per row more than you would get in tabular form. Of course, even in tabular form you need some way for the user to indicate they need to add a new row anyway, so for me, I cannot see the advanatged of a tabular input form in your expample, I am sure a repeating 8-field single form would present a far better user experience for your end users?

Being able to see the entered data afterwards is a different matter I guess, that would be neater in a tabular form

Gerry

[Sam P]

I think it would make it far harder for them to compare one form to the next form, or the form 20 pages back (also, where do you stop?!) but yes the horizontal scroll bar could be prohibitive.  Its just a shame we are using Hornbill storage for the attachment.  Lets see what other interested team scenarios are  Have a good evening

[Gerry]

@Sam P

The general principle I understand and the more scenarios we can support the better for us because the more value our customers get out of Hornbill.   However, I do not want to add stuff without having a clear path to something that is generally useful.  Trying to cram what is essentially a wide UI element into a narrow spot on the UI would seem like a recipie for a very poor user experience. I understand the point about Excel, its very very easy to enter data into, but its essentially unstrectured and unvalidated data being entered (generally speaking) which is much harder to make use of from a workflow or automation perspective, so there is value in both options.  

I think what you are saying is, the user may well need to enter multiple rows where they would need to see the whole data set in front of them at one time in order to validate (for themselves) they are submitting the right data? to make sure they have not missed a record etc... hence the tabular layout - is that right?

If the tabular layout for data entry/preview is the essence of the requirement, then, thats quite a lot harder to deal with because of the wide date/narrow UI area we present in IC currently, and to work around that we would need to either provide some kind of click to open much wider popup here type function (very unappealing in a portal thats supposed to be easy to use), or we would need to redesign the portal layout completely in order to accommodate such  potentially wide data presentations.

So I do understand what you and others here are asking for, but its not really clear I we could implement it without significant changes to the current portal, unless we do the popup thing I suggested, thats quite possibly the only way. 

Make semse?

Gerry

[Sam P]

Thanks @Gerry

12 hours ago, Gerry said:

I think what you are saying is, the user may well need to enter multiple rows where they would need to see the whole data set in front of them at one time in order to validate (for themselves) they are submitting the right data? to make sure they have not missed a record etc... hence the tabular layout - is that right?

In my single scenario, yes, that's right

[samwoo]

@Gerry

Would it be possible to implement "Question Groups" in ICF?

These groups would be subject to the same rules as existing questions as they are now (with conditions, label text, validation etc), but when editing a question group, you could specify the questions within the group. The questions in the group would then be subject to the same rules as other fields (with conditions, label text, validation etc), but only within that group.

This would allow progressive capture to display add/remove/next/previous buttons at the bottom of the group (plus a count of questions answered in the group) if users need to add another answer to the same question.

So you could have your main set of questions above and below the question group (or multiple question groups) and everything gets stored in the JSON.

In the Business Process, similar to the parallel process nodes, we could have a foreach start and foreach end node that works just for the questions in the question groups. This is because the questions in the question groups will be the same all the time (although the ability to show/hide questions based on the answers to others should still be possible).

The only issue I can see is validation on existing answers, so maybe in the question groups configuration, we could define a question to be "unique" meaning if the value supplied was already used, then we can either display a warning (but allow to continue) or an error (and prevent continuing).

* EDIT: Or similar to the Conditional Questions, we could have a tab in the question group that allows us to define Unique Conditions (for lack of better terminology) where the user can define which fields determines the uniqueness and whether each uniqueness displays and error (and prevent continue), a warning or allow to continue, and this could be defined multiple times.

Just a thought!

Thanks,
Samuel

[samwoo]

I hope there wasn't a feeling that I hijacked this thread... my message above was a potential solution that I thought of to @Sam P's query, before I saw the latest message about having to see all the data in the same screen - though if users could present the data within question groups, then maybe having them displayed tabular could still work?

Maybe if we extend the idea to allow users to specify the format/display of the question groups and choosing tabular could allow the addition of a plus and minus button at the end of each row, and when one adds a new row, it appears underneath, like you would see in a table. Again, users could define the "Unique Conditions".

The storage of these questions would still be the same regardless of how the questions are presented (as tabular or as standard), so in the BPM, in a foreach start and foreach end node, you and still act on the answers.

Not sure if it's possible or not but hopefully it is.

Thanks,

Samuel 

[samwoo]

Ah I got it!

"Unique Conditions" is the wrong term. It should be "Question Constraints" - similar to how it works in SQL.

[Sam P]

 @samwoo

1 minute ago, samwoo said:

I hope there wasn't a feeling that I hijacked your thread

Absolutely not, I'm always on the look out for other/better ways to do things and well aware I'm no pro compared to some on here, I learn a lot by reading how others work  

[Gerry]

@samwoo

I think thats part of the problem, there are 100 ways to approach it, its a simple requirement on the face of it, but very complicated in practice to find the right approach to implement it.  Along similar lines I was thinking, a custom form (so has all the usual form validation bits) with a navigation option that allows you to repeat the form multiple times, once for each row of informaiton of the same shape, that would fit into the way IC works from a user persepctive, but does not really address the main objctive, which is to have/present a full data view. 

Gerry