This section describes how your team can configure Form Rules within Satuit to address common issues such as making long lists of values more manageable or making a field required based on another field value. System Administrators can configure Form Rules to define choices to ensure data is properly selected within Satuit, as well as to ensure reporting metrics remain consistent.
Preface
Technically workflow and form rules are not difficult to implement. However, the main challenge has nothing to do with technology. It is all about thinking through and defining your business processes.
We recommend that you write down your requirements for workflow and form rules, that you share them with others, and that you get sign-off before implementing workflow. If the workflow is constantly being tweaked, then you need to consider stepping back and doing a thorough job of requirements gathering. Your users may have little understanding of just how much work it is to implement and then constantly edit workflows.
Turning on Form Rules
Enabling Form Rules in Satuit requires a user is added to the ADMIN_RULES role.
Hosted Clients:
Form Rules must be enabled on your site by Satuit Technologies. At the time of set up, permissions will be granted to the appropriate users.
On-Premise Clients:
System Configuration values for Form Rules need to be set to ('form rules’, ‘yes') and users will need to be assigned to the ADMIN_RULES role.
Tips
- Rules are specific to Satuit tabs/tables. For example, a user cannot create a rule on the Accounts table that is intended to create an action on the Activity table
- There can only be ONE Trigger per Action. (e.g. If you want to make “Target Assets” Required for when a sales opportunity reaches a specific “Sales Phase” OR if “Status” has a particular value, you will need to create the Action twice - once for each Trigger)
- While Form Rules can be applied to Picklists, Check-boxes, Numeric and Text fields:
- Numeric and Text fields can only be used as Actions
- Check-boxes can only be used as Triggers
- Form rules must be set up in a specific order: triggers, actions, mapping
- IMPORTANT: Form rules cannot be set up for multi-pickers
- You WILL need to maintain your form rules. When a new value is added to a pick list, the Form Rule must be edited in order for users to see the new value. The new value will not automatically be added to a form rule
Note
Remember to document Form Rules, as this will help ensure they do not overlap, as well as provide insight as to how rules will be affected if field values are changed.
Accessing and Setting up Form Rules
After the Form Rules function has been enabled in Satuit, the Form Rules Integration sub-menu will be visible within the System Administrator Tools menu. Form Rules must be set up in the following order:
- Rules Triggers
- Rules Actions
- Rules Mapping
Setting up a Rules Trigger
- Click on “Configure Rules Triggers”.
- Select “Add” from the top of the screen and choose the table (tab) that you are looking to create the Trigger for. For example, to make a rule that forces the “Relationship Rating” field to be required when “Relationship Type” is “Client”, you would select the Business Table.
- Important: A Trigger and an Action must be of the same Type.
- Once the Rules Trigger designer opens, Enter a descriptive name for the trigger.
Tips
Use a naming convention that is descriptive of the activity the Form Rule is associated with (e.g. “Relationship Type – Client – Trigger”).
- Now you need to create the trigger conditions. Similar to the Custom Search feature in Satuit, Workflow Integration allows for the creation of complex combinations of fields to create a trigger. Compound triggers can be built to cover a number of different possible field values by adding groups. Further, you can click the Edit button next to the field to select as many values from that Picklist as you like.
- Add criteria for the trigger by clicking Add Row, choosing a field from the list on the left, and setting the conditions for that field.
- Once the trigger is configured, click Save.
- Once the trigger has been saved, use the "X" in the upper right corner of the Rules Trigger designer window to close it.
Create a Rule Action
- Click on Configure Rules Actions.
- Select “Add” from the top of the screen and choose the table and field where an Action is to be created. Once Rules Action designer opens, enter in a descriptive name for the action.
Tip
Use a naming convention that is descriptive of the activity the Form Rule is associated with (e.g. If we wanted to make ‘Rating’ required, we would name the Action ‘Rating Required Action’).
- Next, select the desired field from the left-hand side of the screen by clicking on the (+) plus sign next to the table name, then double-clicking on the desired field.
- Once the field has been selected, make the field “Read-only” or “Required”, and enter the values that should be made available.
- Once the rule has been saved, use the "X" in the upper right corner of the Rules Action designer window to close it.
Rules Mapping - joins a “trigger” to an “action”
- Click on Create A Rules Mapping.
- Select Add from the top of the screen and select the table and field the Form Rule will be mapped to.
- Once the designer opens give the mapping a descriptive name, select the trigger, and select the Action to map it to.
Tip
Use a naming convention that is descriptive of the activity the Form Rule is associated with.
To create the mapping:
- Enter a descriptive name for the mapping
- Select the Trigger to map to
- Choose the Action from the list of available actions
- Click Add to move the action to the mapping
- Click Save to save the mapping
Once the Mapping has been saved, use the "X" in the upper right corner of the designer window to close it.
Examples of Rules
Making “Reason for Loss” required if the “Sales Status” is ‘Loss’.
Limiting a long “Product” Picklist to only values based on a “Product Type” field or the “Team” responsible for selling that product.
Limit the “REP 2” field down to only show the Client Service team members.