I know that annoyance well Lisa, what comes to mind from my personal life is inconsistent storage boxes, and then inconsistent labels on them, inconsistent syntax on file folders and it goes on and on...... never ending frustration that I am only starting to be able to ignore :D
Having inconsistent Unique IDs across forms would definitely bug me too but is it worth the effort to go back? Probably hard to justify as you are saying AND potentially dangerous since data destinations are stored on the server and not versioned, while form versions are versioned. I'll explain why that's an issue:
If you change the Unique ID on the form and then update the data destination to use the updated Unique ID, all users regardless of form version will be pointing to the updated data destination expecting the updated Unique ID, but if their form isn't also up to date, the changed Unique IDs won't line up. You could get around this by creating a new data destination when you change the label, but that's even more work.
I think your idea of standardizing going forward make sense.
I don't see us building an Update All feature anytime soon, but we have a few requests for Data Destination reports, so I'll keep what you said in mind.
Original Message:
Sent: 09-28-2023 13:38
From: Lisa Zido
Subject: Let's talk about DREL
I'm going to second this idea from Cecily! I would love to have a custom DREL library that I could reference to keep form question labels consistent. She's right – there can be a lot of work copying a form, deleting questions, just because you want to keep the labels consistent. I know we have several forms that have this issue today. Example: One a common form question is Customer, but the label on one form might be Customer, and on another it might be Facility. We have these inconsistencies scattered throughout our forms and it bugs me 😊 It would be sweet if there was a little pop up in the form builder showing your library if you click on an option for it when typing out the question label. Then you could just click a library item and the form builder adds the text for you to the label.<o:p></o:p>
However, I think in our case the library would be used mostly for new forms going forward, and less to go back and update labels. This is because we have integrations and destinations relying on those labels staying the same. Without a quick way of seeing every destination that a label is referenced in, it wouldn't be worth updating any labels because of the potential headache it could cause un-knotting the subsequent errors. Although, I do love the idea of an Update All button that would go through every form and/or destination and change anywhere that references a specific DREL label, like Facility to switch to Customer. Kind of like a find/replace feature to make this cleanup much more efficient.<o:p></o:p>
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Lisa Zido
Technical Systems Analyst
GOJO Industries Inc.
OH
Original Message:
Sent: 09-27-2023 17:50
From: Cecily Stelly
Subject: Let's talk about DREL
Hi Natalie,
I think I potentially see this more as a new type of section where the user can access organization wide templates of x number of predefined questions and labels (without having to copy a form and remove all of the unneeded questions, resetting the form to default settings, removing conditional logic etc.)
- Example: "Customer Information" Section would include Customer Name, Site Address, Primary Technician...
- Once I select the Customer Information section, I can remove or add questions (at my own discretion) but the starting IDs will be standardized and map correctly, but would be a quick way to start with frequently used questions.
- I think the big thing here is that I could use this feature at any point in a form, not just initially creation, and could use multiple org templates in a single form.
Not sure about automatically pushing changes down once the template has already been used in a form - that is something I would have to think through more in terms of our specific use cases. I do think in that case, there would be a need to prevent users from using a question ID in a form if that question ID is already part of a template (Question IDs in templates would be "off-limits" to add manually in forms without using a template to prevent unwanted changes).
Let me know if that makes any sense!
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Cecily Stelly
Analyst
Johnson Controls
Original Message:
Sent: 09-26-2023 13:31
From: Natalie Tallon
Subject: Let's talk about DREL
Thanks Cecily, I appreciate your insight here.
The real-time simulation of the output when building statements with DREL *is* a great feature. Glad it is helpful.
As for the rest, having a library like that would be ideal. If we did build something like that I'm sure we would want to reach out to you and get many more details, but in the meantime, how do you see this working? Would forms 'share' the same section, so if a change is made, it is made everywhere? or would these templates just be used for the initial copy? No future changes flow down to where it was copied into a form? There are pros and cons for each way. Curious to know your thoughts on this.
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Natalie Tallon
Product Manager
ProntoForms
ntallon@prontoforms.com
Original Message:
Sent: 09-25-2023 17:17
From: Cecily Stelly
Subject: Let's talk about DREL
Hi Natalie,
Overall I think DREL is super easy to use - I was actually training on data destinations earlier today and we briefly covered this topic. In particular, the DREL "preview" that populates under Email Header line in the destination builder makes it super easy to use and learn.
I definitely try to use similar question IDs across forms to standardize DREL references. This has allowed us to use a single destination across multiple different forms by pulling additional emails from different questions and customizing the email body and subject line.
With that being said it would be great if we could have some sort of "global variable" library when building forms, configuring destination, etc, in the platform. Currently if we need to match a large number of Question IDs, we will copy the form and use it as a template, but this can create a lot of rework that is very time consuming. However if there was a way to search a library of standards that the admin has set up, it would be easier to build new forms that align with the previous forms.
OR if there was a way to edit Questions IDs (or even question text, but maybe I'm getting greedy) in a table format, so you do not have to click into each question that would be incredibly helpful.
Thanks,
CC
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Cecily Stelly
Analyst
Johnson Controls
Original Message:
Sent: 09-18-2023 11:28
From: Natalie Tallon
Subject: Let's talk about DREL
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:
- How comfortable are you using DREL?
- Is there data you wish you could get through DREL that you can't at the moment?
- Is there anything you find difficult to do using DREL?
- Are you using DREL in any non-obvious ways?
- Do you have any tips on using DREL?
- 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:
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Natalie Tallon
Product Manager
ProntoForms
ntallon@prontoforms.com
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