frevvoblog

Grid (Table) Control

ashishdeshpande — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:26:42 +0000

One of the most common things we have heard from our customers is the need for a data-entry Grid /Table. It’s possible to create this today using a repeat control and some fancy layouts but it’s cumbersome. We’ve been working on that and it’s close to complete.

Using it is simple: there’s a new control in the palette called Table. Drag and drop a Table into your form. By default, it has three columns. You can edit the table name, column names, drag and drop new controls from the palette, and set the widths of the columns. You can control the min/max number of rows in the table – Add/Remove icons will automatically appear to the left. You can also use business rules as usual for computed values, enabling/disabling fields, showing/hiding fields etc.

The image below shows an Expense Report created using the Table. Users pick the date and specify their expenses by category with a description. Additional rows can be easily added by clicking the + button. The form contains rules to compute the mileage expense based on the miles traveled and the Total expenses. In this example, the Table is placed in a Section which the user can digitally sign and lock so that it cannot be modified.

Expense Report using Table Control

The Table control can also be used for static grids where the number of rows is fixed. The image below shows a time sheet with one row for each day of the week. Obviously, the user cannot add more rows or remove existing rows but simply fills in data into the grid according to the number of hours worked in a given week.

Time sheet using Table Control

The Table control provides an easy way for customers to create data-entry grids that are common in forms. As with all frevvo controls, it is fully internationalized and supports input in all languages worldwide including right-to-left languages such as Hebrew and Arabic.

Development on the Table is almost complete and we expect to release it soon.

Merging workflow data with your existing PDF documents

ashishdeshpande — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 19:13:58 +0000

With frevvo, you can already generate a PDF when your workflow is submitted. The PDF looks like the form on the screen. But customers want to use the data to fill in their own PDFs or government PDFs like the US W-4 form. We’re working on this and it’ll be available in the next release. Together with electronic wet signatures, it’ll be easy to fully automate workflows like Employee On-boarding where you can collect employee information and a signature electronically and generate all the required documents.

We’re still working out a detailed design but one possibility is to drop a PDF activity into your workflow at the end. After you upload your PDF, frevvo will send you back a modified PDF as shown below for a US W-4 form.

Notice that all the fields on the PDF have been replaced by pick lists. Each pick list contains the currently defined fields in your workflow and you can map the fields from the workflow to the PDF. Once you are done, upload the mapped PDF back to frevvo and it will take care of the rest.

Now, when your workflow is submitted, the document set will contain the original PDF that you uploaded with the fields filled in from the workflow. You can save it to your back end system, send it via email or use any of the standard actions available with a frevvo workflow. Coming soon …

Electronic wet signatures

ashishdeshpande — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:47:19 +0000

frevvo Live Forms already supports digital signatures so any authenticated user can digitally sign a section, lock it down and prevent tampering with the data. That’s an incredibly powerful feature but many customers still want the ability to add a wet signature via signature pads like Topaz devices, touchscreen computers and mobile devices. We’re working on that and expect that it’ll be available in the next release.

As usual with frevvo, we’ll make sure this is extremely easy to use. How will it work? You’ll be able to drag and drop a new Signature control from the palette anywhere into the form. You can make it required, add a tool tip, style it etc. like any other control. To sign, simply click or touch a signature control, and frevvo will present an entry dialog. Sign using a touchscreen, track pad, stylus or just using your mouse.

Signature Entry Dialog

Click Done and the signature is displayed in the form scaled down into the signature control as shown below.

Signed Form

Easy as that. This signature functionality will require no special hardware; all you need is a smartphone or a computer with a relatively modern browser that supports HTML5. Coming soon …

frevvo plugin for Confluence 4

ashishdeshpande — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 10:32:31 +0000

Confluence 4 has been out for 6+ months now and we have been slow to release an updated plugin. We’re finally almost there. The plugin has been updated and is now in final QA and we expect to release it very shortly.

The good news [for us] is that the delay is due to some large customer wins. We’ve signed a large OEM deal with one of the biggest software companies in the world, and we’re also almost at the end of a production deployment at one of a global telecoms company. Together with normal customer activity, these projects have literally overwhelmed us with work.

Look for the Confluence 4 plugin coming soon.

Web forms gallery

frevvoblog — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 22:15:40 +0000

frevvo customers have created so many interesting, useful and just cool forms. We thought it’d be great to showcase some of them especially since our partners have asked about them. Check out some of the cool examples in our new Web Forms Gallery.

Let us know if there are any that you particularly like or if there are any features you’d like to see demonstrated there.

Why do you allow role assignment on both the Form and Flow in the first place?

ashishdeshpande — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 18:18:10 +0000

One of our customers asked the question above. Roles are available both in forms (for Sections and Tabs) and in flows (for any activity). What’s the difference and when would you use one vs the other?

Roles in a Form

As the image shows, you can select one or more roles in the Security Tab in the Properties panel for a Section or a Tab. When a role is assigned to a Section/Tab, the controls therein are only visible to logged in users who have that role. This allows you to create forms that look different depending on who is using them. For example, I’m sure you’ve come across a paper form with an “Office Use Only” or “To be filled by HR” section. On a Leave Approval form, there’s probably a Section for manager approval. Why show it if you’re not a manager?

Roles in a Flow

In a workflow, roles play a different part. They control who performs a step (activity) in the workflow. In the Leave Approval workflow above, if you are logged in as a user with role ‘Employee’, you will see the first step in the workflow. When you click to continue, frevvo notices that the second step has roles ‘HR’ and ‘Manager’. If you do not belong to one of those roles, the workflow will be forwarded to users in those roles and you will not be able to continue. It’s like an employee filling out a Leave Application either on paper or a Word document and then walking it over or e-mailing the Word doc to the manager.

Combine the two

Take a look at the Leave Approval workflow tutorial. As explained above the steps in the workflow have roles which control who performs the step. But the form used in the workflow also uses the same roles for a different purpose. In the first step (logged in as Employee), I will only see the Employee section. In the second step (logged in as a Manager), I will also see the Manager Approval section even though it’s the same form and the same workflow.

So, put the two together and you have something that’s flexible and powerful enough to provide the functionality you need yet easy to maintain since there’s just one form (used multiple times) and one workflow.

Try a Leave Approval Workflow

ashishdeshpande — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 20:05:40 +0000

We’ve noticed that many customers are using frevvo for HR-related workflows. Using frevvo’s brand new Spaces, I’ve created a short demo of a simple Leave Approval workflow so you can easily try it out and get a flavor for using frevvo workflows.

Want to learn more:

Check out this Tutorial on creating a Leave Approval workflow.
Evaluate Live forms for free.
Contact frevvo.

EZ web sites with frevvo Live Forms Spaces

ashishdeshpande — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 23:06:38 +0000

It’s always been easy to embed frevvo forms and workflows in your web pages. But some customers, especially SaaS customers don’t have a web site or don’t want to go through the hassle of creating one. Now, with frevvo’s brand new Spaces feature, you can create a professional looking web site in minutes with just a few clicks and add your forms and workflows to it.

See how easy it is: watch this 3 min video.

You can learn more in the documentation or, of course, sign up for a free account to try it out.

Pick Two

ashishdeshpande — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 14:18:16 +0000

Sometimes we run into prospects who want us to do demos for them, provide customer support on the phone to help with POCs or answer questions, keep improving the product etc. all for $30/month, which is what some other products cost. Of course we can’t. Why not? As usual, Sheldon says it most eloquently.

Attaining all three is simply impossible. Our local coffee shop Willoughby’s sells a great product and has great service but the prices are high. It’s worth it to us. WalMart has decent products and great prices but I’m sure you’d agree that their service is terrible.

Which two did we choose? You guessed it: a fantastic product and great customer service … at a reasonable price. Thankfully for us, many many customers agree! I hope you will too.

Task List Improvements

ashishdeshpande — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 17:39:09 +0000

As customers use workflows, they’ve been telling us about some improvements they’d like to see. We’ve made a few changes with more on the way soon.

Task List Improvements

We’ve added some shortcuts to the top for the most common searches.
Click on “Recent” and you’ll now see a list of items that are pending for you to take action, forms/workflows that you have saved as well as workflows that you have recently participated in so that you can quickly check the status of, say, a pending Leave Approval request. This is the most commonly requested item.
Click on “Saved” and you’ll see a list of forms & workflows that you have saved and are waiting for completion.
With one click, you can now discard saved forms that you are no longer interested in.
Tasks on your task list are also color-coded so it’s easy to see the status of a task: red ones are aborted, green ones are submitted and amber ones are pending.

You’ll see these changes in v4.1.5 (later this month). Going forward, we’re working on several other improvements:

Saved searches. You’ll be able to search for tasks using certain criteria and save a shortcut that you can reuse in the future.
View other people’s tasks. Today, you can only view a task if it is pending for you or if you have participated in the corresponding workflow. But, that’s usually not enough. Maybe there are a dozen Leave Approval processes pending throughout the company and HR wants to view the status of all of them.
Read-only view of the current state. It’s like a paper form moving through the organization. I know it’s waiting for someone else to take action but I’d like to view the current state.

Any more ideas? We’d love to hear them.