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ATLAS FormBuilder - Introduction to Conditional Statements
This tutorial explains conditional statements, also called Boolean statements, and their use in different stages of the form-building process.
Conditional statements are used in multiple places throughout FormBuilder, allowing users to control when/how form functions work.
Use the examples below to explore the different ways conditional statements are used.
1.) Routing Triggers
This is likely where you will first encounter conditional statements. While building your form, it is important to define your routing triggers in a way that make sense to perform specific actions - like moving the phases along to the next. Conditional statements can be a simple way to condense these and make them clearer.
Routing triggers perform specific actions within your form - (changing phase, setting an answer value, sending emails) Conditional statements designate when these routing actions are triggered. The form submission must meet all the relevant criteria before it moves onto the next step in the workflow process.
For example, you may want the routing trigger to send an email to the administrator of the form when the form's submit state is submitted and the current phase of the form is data collection. Using the conditional statements makes this scenario possible.
2.) Phase Permissions
In this situation, conditional statements act as barriers; the parameters you define as the conditions must be met before the form responder has access to other aspects of your form.
Conditional statements can be useful in phase permissions when you want to narrow down the form responders further than a single piece of information.
The example above lists two responses, both of which must be reflected in a form response for the permission parameters to be satisfied.
3.) Aggregate Form Views
Conditional statements are optional in form views because they are used as a way to filter responses. They can help narrow down especially large quantities of form responses and are good for finding specific forms.
To get to the conditional statements, check the 'Additional Filtering' box beneath the 'Filter Responses By' heading in the Aggregate Form View editor. The example below illustrates this.
NOTE: Make sure your statements are consistent. For example, a routing trigger will never take effect if the conditional statement requires the form be "Submitted" and "Not submitted" at the same time. In the same way, the form will work every time if the condition is "Submitted" or "Not submitted," rendering the conditional statement useless.
See the example below, where the conditional statement is used to define a phase permission when the selected presentation topic is both Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf, which is not a possible result within the form itself.
