I was suppose to post easy techniques on how to pre-populate forms via LiveCycle’s Render service but unfortunately it is taking longer than what I expected. This is the story so far… Please comment if you are aware of this and enlighten me around the changed behavior.

Background:

I used the customized render service till LC 8.0.1 SP2 and what we get in dataDoc variable of the Render service is xdp data which had the whole form specific XML structure. But I’m finding that in LiveCycle 8.2 SP2 the dataDoc contains the xdp data but ONLY the Root element of form data is present.

The issue: This results in stalled operations (exception) as the elements that I want to populate does not exist.

The strange thing:

The most strange thing that I have seen is related to where the ‘caller’ orchestration was developed. So if your orchestration which has xfaForm variable was created on LC 8.0.1 then the dataDoc variable will have the xdp data with the whole and empty form data section in it. BUT….. if you touch that variable or re-create that xfaForm variable on LC 8.2 then you’ll start getting the blank form xml section in xdp data (of dataDoc) variable of render service.

Please let me know if anyone has seen this before and knows if this was intentional in LC 8.2 or it is a reported/unreported bug.

stay tuned for the pre-population.. I’ve decided to post a series of two articles to discuss the strategy that I think can work nicely.

What it is?

I found out that we can add styling to the Task Instructions that apear in Workspace. This means that we can have Red font, Bold statuses/instructions based on the task description that we put in Assign Task step of the orchestration.

Why you need it?

Let’s say for example, A Task is deadlined and you wish to put task status/something else in Instructions field which can stand out form the rest of the text. Having something like ‘Deadlined’ status in red with other instructions can be a BIG step forward for someone who works on workspace interface everyday.

I’ve also noticed that the Task Instructions field on TaskManagerEndpoint also ‘likes’ the styling. This means that the Cards or Grid view of Start Process section will also show pretty colors and styling if needed.

Let me show you what I could do with styling in Task Instructions.

Snapshots 1: To-Do list view of a user with styling on Task Instructions (configured in Task Instructions of Assign Task operation)

ToDo Screen with Styling

Snapshot 2: Card view with styling on Task Instructions (configured at Task Manager Endpoint page in adminui)

StartProcess view with Styling

Styling examples:

Style used in Snapshot 1:

<font color=”#FF0000″><b>Deadlined.</b></font> {$/process_data/@taskInstructionsString$}

Style used in Snapshot 2:

<font color=”#FF0000″><b>Leave Application</b></font> <font color=”#9932CC”><b><i>Test</i></b></font> Desc

Tip:

1. As the Workspace is a flex application I decided to try the Hex code for the font colors and it did work nicely.
2. It is a good idea to show some metadata in task instructions, so user can find out the Task without opening it. Imaging what would happen if you have to find John Smith’s application by opening Task’s one after another. I would put applicant name and/or some other identifier in Task Instruction so it is easy to find!!
3. I have a Status variable in my process and I’m applying style to that only so the remaining text in Task Instruction is kept in black. I think this is ‘good enough’ to indicate what’s the status rather than having too much red/orange colors in that view.

Misc: This is just a small example of styling. I don’t know what else will work or will not work but I think we can do really cool things with this much to help out the user who work on Workspace everyday. I’m pretty sure that I’ll see few smiling faces in my next Demo & Deployment of what I’m currently working on.