General Discussion

Hi Everyone

I'm a Product Manager here at ProntoForms (soon to be TrueContext) and wanted to ask for some targeted feedback on one of our features: DREL.

I'm interested in any sort of feedback really, but here are some prompts to get you thinking:

1. How comfortable are you using DREL? 
2. Is there data you wish you could get through DREL that you can't at the moment?
3. Is there anything you find difficult to do using DREL?
4. Are you using DREL in any non-obvious ways?
5. Do you have any tips on using DREL?
6. Do you try to use the same unique IDs in different forms so that the same DREL expression will work for multiple forms?

Looking forward to hearing from the community!

Here's one tip to get us started:

Say you have two fields in your form, but only 1 is ever populated at a time. You don't need any fancy logic on which one to show in your outputs because you can simply reference both and since one will be empty and the other populated, only one will show.

For example, my installation form takes either an asset number or a serial number. If I want this number in the filename I can simply do:

and since the empty field doesn't return anything, not even a space, you will get a nice consistent filename without any obvious gaps of missing data (as long as you don't put a space between the two answers).

This works especially well for our Custom Excel Document if you need 1 of a set of mutually exclusive values, but in the same cell:

Hi Natalie,

I use DREL quite a bit in Excel docs and in document names, data destinations, etc.

One feature that I would love to see is some text transformation functions - even simple things like the ability to convert the answer to uppercase would be very useful.

Something like %a[Building Name][@upper], etc.

Another minor thing, I don't believe there is a way to get the owner of a submission with DREL. %u gets you the submitter, but if you transfer a form via Teamwork, the owner and the submitter are two different users and there's no way to get the owner until they submit the form. At some point I tried to use destinations to track who was transferring forms between users, but there didn't seem to be a way to figure out who the form was getting transferred to (e.g. the new owner.) The Submission/Teamwork API was also missing this functionality last I checked. That was fairly early on in the Teamwork release so it's possible those have been added and I missed them though.

Hi Everyone

I'm a Product Manager here at ProntoForms (soon to be TrueContext) and wanted to ask for some targeted feedback on one of our features: DREL.

I'm interested in any sort of feedback really, but here are some prompts to get you thinking:

1. How comfortable are you using DREL? 
2. Is there data you wish you could get through DREL that you can't at the moment?
3. Is there anything you find difficult to do using DREL?
4. Are you using DREL in any non-obvious ways?
5. Do you have any tips on using DREL?
6. Do you try to use the same unique IDs in different forms so that the same DREL expression will work for multiple forms?

Looking forward to hearing from the community!

Here's one tip to get us started:

Say you have two fields in your form, but only 1 is ever populated at a time. You don't need any fancy logic on which one to show in your outputs because you can simply reference both and since one will be empty and the other populated, only one will show.

For example, my installation form takes either an asset number or a serial number. If I want this number in the filename I can simply do:

and since the empty field doesn't return anything, not even a space, you will get a nice consistent filename without any obvious gaps of missing data (as long as you don't put a space between the two answers).

This works especially well for our Custom Excel Document if you need 1 of a set of mutually exclusive values, but in the same cell:

Hi Natalie,

I use DREL quite a bit in Excel docs and in document names, data destinations, etc.

One feature that I would love to see is some text transformation functions - even simple things like the ability to convert the answer to uppercase would be very useful.

Something like %a[Building Name][@upper], etc.

Another minor thing, I don't believe there is a way to get the owner of a submission with DREL. %u gets you the submitter, but if you transfer a form via Teamwork, the owner and the submitter are two different users and there's no way to get the owner until they submit the form. At some point I tried to use destinations to track who was transferring forms between users, but there didn't seem to be a way to figure out who the form was getting transferred to (e.g. the new owner.) The Submission/Teamwork API was also missing this functionality last I checked. That was fairly early on in the Teamwork release so it's possible those have been added and I missed them though.

Hi Everyone

I'm a Product Manager here at ProntoForms (soon to be TrueContext) and wanted to ask for some targeted feedback on one of our features: DREL.

I'm interested in any sort of feedback really, but here are some prompts to get you thinking:

1. How comfortable are you using DREL? 
2. Is there data you wish you could get through DREL that you can't at the moment?
3. Is there anything you find difficult to do using DREL?
4. Are you using DREL in any non-obvious ways?
5. Do you have any tips on using DREL?
6. Do you try to use the same unique IDs in different forms so that the same DREL expression will work for multiple forms?

Looking forward to hearing from the community!

Here's one tip to get us started:

Say you have two fields in your form, but only 1 is ever populated at a time. You don't need any fancy logic on which one to show in your outputs because you can simply reference both and since one will be empty and the other populated, only one will show.

For example, my installation form takes either an asset number or a serial number. If I want this number in the filename I can simply do:

and since the empty field doesn't return anything, not even a space, you will get a nice consistent filename without any obvious gaps of missing data (as long as you don't put a space between the two answers).

This works especially well for our Custom Excel Document if you need 1 of a set of mutually exclusive values, but in the same cell:

Hi Natalie,

In my case, it's text inputs, and users generally enter lower case when using a phone. This is only an issue when using DREL in data destinations or as document filenames, etc.

e.g., user enters a building address in varying case, and we'd prefer it be converted it to uppercase for the filename when the document is generated. 

In Excel docs I do some transformations myself using the reference method you mentioned, that works fine. 

You can of course restrict text input to forbid lowercase letters with regex, but that's a really frustrating experience for the user, especially on a mobile device.

Hi Natalie,

I use DREL quite a bit in Excel docs and in document names, data destinations, etc.

One feature that I would love to see is some text transformation functions - even simple things like the ability to convert the answer to uppercase would be very useful.

Something like %a[Building Name][@upper], etc.

Another minor thing, I don't believe there is a way to get the owner of a submission with DREL. %u gets you the submitter, but if you transfer a form via Teamwork, the owner and the submitter are two different users and there's no way to get the owner until they submit the form. At some point I tried to use destinations to track who was transferring forms between users, but there didn't seem to be a way to figure out who the form was getting transferred to (e.g. the new owner.) The Submission/Teamwork API was also missing this functionality last I checked. That was fairly early on in the Teamwork release so it's possible those have been added and I missed them though.

Hi Everyone

I'm a Product Manager here at ProntoForms (soon to be TrueContext) and wanted to ask for some targeted feedback on one of our features: DREL.

I'm interested in any sort of feedback really, but here are some prompts to get you thinking:

1. How comfortable are you using DREL? 
2. Is there data you wish you could get through DREL that you can't at the moment?
3. Is there anything you find difficult to do using DREL?
4. Are you using DREL in any non-obvious ways?
5. Do you have any tips on using DREL?
6. Do you try to use the same unique IDs in different forms so that the same DREL expression will work for multiple forms?

Looking forward to hearing from the community!

Here's one tip to get us started:

Say you have two fields in your form, but only 1 is ever populated at a time. You don't need any fancy logic on which one to show in your outputs because you can simply reference both and since one will be empty and the other populated, only one will show.

For example, my installation form takes either an asset number or a serial number. If I want this number in the filename I can simply do:

and since the empty field doesn't return anything, not even a space, you will get a nice consistent filename without any obvious gaps of missing data (as long as you don't put a space between the two answers).

This works especially well for our Custom Excel Document if you need 1 of a set of mutually exclusive values, but in the same cell:

Text formatting is something we also discussed perhaps including within the form builder. In this way text is re-formatted automatically on the device to the desired case. 

Hi Natalie,

In my case, it's text inputs, and users generally enter lower case when using a phone. This is only an issue when using DREL in data destinations or as document filenames, etc.

e.g., user enters a building address in varying case, and we'd prefer it be converted it to uppercase for the filename when the document is generated. 

In Excel docs I do some transformations myself using the reference method you mentioned, that works fine. 

You can of course restrict text input to forbid lowercase letters with regex, but that's a really frustrating experience for the user, especially on a mobile device.

Hi Natalie,

I use DREL quite a bit in Excel docs and in document names, data destinations, etc.

One feature that I would love to see is some text transformation functions - even simple things like the ability to convert the answer to uppercase would be very useful.

Something like %a[Building Name][@upper], etc.

Another minor thing, I don't believe there is a way to get the owner of a submission with DREL. %u gets you the submitter, but if you transfer a form via Teamwork, the owner and the submitter are two different users and there's no way to get the owner until they submit the form. At some point I tried to use destinations to track who was transferring forms between users, but there didn't seem to be a way to figure out who the form was getting transferred to (e.g. the new owner.) The Submission/Teamwork API was also missing this functionality last I checked. That was fairly early on in the Teamwork release so it's possible those have been added and I missed them though.

Hi Everyone

I'm a Product Manager here at ProntoForms (soon to be TrueContext) and wanted to ask for some targeted feedback on one of our features: DREL.

I'm interested in any sort of feedback really, but here are some prompts to get you thinking:

1. How comfortable are you using DREL? 
2. Is there data you wish you could get through DREL that you can't at the moment?
3. Is there anything you find difficult to do using DREL?
4. Are you using DREL in any non-obvious ways?
5. Do you have any tips on using DREL?
6. Do you try to use the same unique IDs in different forms so that the same DREL expression will work for multiple forms?

Looking forward to hearing from the community!

Here's one tip to get us started:

Say you have two fields in your form, but only 1 is ever populated at a time. You don't need any fancy logic on which one to show in your outputs because you can simply reference both and since one will be empty and the other populated, only one will show.

For example, my installation form takes either an asset number or a serial number. If I want this number in the filename I can simply do:

and since the empty field doesn't return anything, not even a space, you will get a nice consistent filename without any obvious gaps of missing data (as long as you don't put a space between the two answers).

This works especially well for our Custom Excel Document if you need 1 of a set of mutually exclusive values, but in the same cell:

Hi Natalie,

In my case, it's text inputs, and users generally enter lower case when using a phone. This is only an issue when using DREL in data destinations or as document filenames, etc.

e.g., user enters a building address in varying case, and we'd prefer it be converted it to uppercase for the filename when the document is generated. 

In Excel docs I do some transformations myself using the reference method you mentioned, that works fine. 

You can of course restrict text input to forbid lowercase letters with regex, but that's a really frustrating experience for the user, especially on a mobile device.

Hi Natalie,

I use DREL quite a bit in Excel docs and in document names, data destinations, etc.

One feature that I would love to see is some text transformation functions - even simple things like the ability to convert the answer to uppercase would be very useful.

Something like %a[Building Name][@upper], etc.

Another minor thing, I don't believe there is a way to get the owner of a submission with DREL. %u gets you the submitter, but if you transfer a form via Teamwork, the owner and the submitter are two different users and there's no way to get the owner until they submit the form. At some point I tried to use destinations to track who was transferring forms between users, but there didn't seem to be a way to figure out who the form was getting transferred to (e.g. the new owner.) The Submission/Teamwork API was also missing this functionality last I checked. That was fairly early on in the Teamwork release so it's possible those have been added and I missed them though.

Hi Everyone

I'm a Product Manager here at ProntoForms (soon to be TrueContext) and wanted to ask for some targeted feedback on one of our features: DREL.

I'm interested in any sort of feedback really, but here are some prompts to get you thinking:

1. How comfortable are you using DREL? 
2. Is there data you wish you could get through DREL that you can't at the moment?
3. Is there anything you find difficult to do using DREL?
4. Are you using DREL in any non-obvious ways?
5. Do you have any tips on using DREL?
6. Do you try to use the same unique IDs in different forms so that the same DREL expression will work for multiple forms?

Looking forward to hearing from the community!

Here's one tip to get us started:

Say you have two fields in your form, but only 1 is ever populated at a time. You don't need any fancy logic on which one to show in your outputs because you can simply reference both and since one will be empty and the other populated, only one will show.

For example, my installation form takes either an asset number or a serial number. If I want this number in the filename I can simply do:

and since the empty field doesn't return anything, not even a space, you will get a nice consistent filename without any obvious gaps of missing data (as long as you don't put a space between the two answers).

This works especially well for our Custom Excel Document if you need 1 of a set of mutually exclusive values, but in the same cell: