Dispatch Data Destination

A Dispatch The term "dispatch" refers to the act of sending a form to a mobile user or customer. Typically, a dispatched form includes some information pre-filled to give the recipient context for the work to be done. Dispatch can be manual or automated (using a Dispatch Data Destination or the TrueContext REST API). Data Destination A Data Destination specifies where to send data from a submitted form. You can use Data Destinations to automate data sharing and storage, routing data to a specific service (such as email or cloud storage) in several different formats. is a way to automatically send out follow-up work that’s based on the information in a submitted record. When a field user submits their work, the destination creates a new record and sends it out to users. This topic describes how to set up Dispatch Data Destinations A Data Destination specifies where to send data from a submitted form. You can use Data Destinations to automate data sharing and storage, routing data to a specific service (such as email or cloud storage) in several different formats. and provides some examples of how to use them.

Info:If your business requires an approval process for submitted work, use our Approval Workflows feature.

Available on the Advanced and Enterprise tiers:

Contents

• Dispatch Data Destination
  • Video demo
  • How a Dispatch Data Destination Works
  • Why you should a User Data Source in the original form
  • Basic Setup
  • Dispatch Data
    • Target Form
    • Target User
    • Target Form Language
    • Dispatch Metadata
    • Dispatch Data
    • Dispatch Files
    • Dispatch Barcode Scanner values
    • Dispatch Geo Locations
  • Response Configuration
  • Use Case: Dispatch a Link to the Form Submission Document
  • Use Case: Dispatching to Different Forms Based on an Answer

Video demo

How a Dispatch Data Destination Works

A Dispatch Data Destination is triggered when a field user submits a record. The destination dispatches a new record that contains some or all of the information from the submitted record. The new record can use either the source (original) form or a different form.

For example, after a building inspector submits their work, three different Dispatch Data Destinations can automatically create three new records:

1. One for electricians, which only includes information about the electrical work to be done.
2. Another for building contractors, which only includes details about the structural repairs to be done.
3. A third for HVAC technicians, which only includes information about the heating and cooling issues identified during the inspection.

Use a Dispatch Data Destination to ensure that:

• Each field user gets the information they need to do their job.
• Field users save time, because they don’t have to search for or enter information that's already available.
• Follow-up work gets sent automatically and efficiently.

Why you should a User Data Source in the original form

If your source form prompts users to choose who should receive follow-on work, add a User Data Source to the form. This ensures that:

• Usernames are formatted correctly.
• Users are in a group that has Can Submit FormSpace permissions FormSpace Permissions control the permissions that a user group has in a particular FormSpace. These are primarily used to control the forms (and the state of form) users can access on their mobile devices. Less commonly, FormSpace permissions give non-admin Users some administrative access to a particular FormSpace without giving them full Admin access to all FormSpaces.. This ensures that they can receive and submit the dispatched record.

Basic Setup

Create the Data Destination, selecting Dispatch Data Destination as the type.

1. Name the destination.
2. Optionally configure Filtering.
3. Configure Dispatch Data.
4. Save the destination.
5. In the Form Builder, link forms to the destination.

Dispatch Data

Target Form

When the data destination executes, the Target Form will be dispatched to the selected user. Ensure the target form is set up to allow dispatching in the Form Properties tab of the form builder.

Target User

In the Send To section, select a user to receive the target form with dispatched data.

Info:If you're on the Enterprise tier, you can dispatch a record to a user, a group, or to all groups in a FormSpace FormSpaces are where forms are stored and organized in the TrueContext Web Portal. A TrueContext Team may have multiple FormSpaces, depending on their needs. Admins can set FormSpace permissions to control which users have access to the forms in that FormSpace.. The topic Dispatch Records to a Group describes this process in detail.

• Type in a username to always send to the same user
• Use a DREL expression to extract usernames from submitted forms. For example, a question labeled "Dispatch To" could contain a list of possible users populated by a User Data Source. To send to the users selected in the form, enter %a[Dispatch To].
• Dispatch to multiple users by separating usernames and DREL Data Reference Expression Language (DREL) is used to get form data and metadata and add it to a string, such as dates, usernames, or answers to questions in forms. expressions with a comma or semi-colon: %a[Dispatch To]; john@abc.com

Target Form Language

Info: The Multi-Language feature is available as an add-on to the Advanced and Enterprise tiers. With the Multi-Language feature, you can create a single form and provide it to your field users in multiple languages. You can also set up some types of Documents and files to translate content based on the form’s selected language.

Do you want the target form to open in the same language as the source form?

• If yes, select Same as source form language.

  Tip:If the target form doesn’t have that language set up, the user selects a language when the form opens.

• If no, select User selects when target form opens. The user can select any language that’s set up for the form.

Info:This setting only takes effect when both the source and target forms are Multi-Language enabled.

Dispatch Metadata

Dispatch metadata gives your users key information about their assigned jobs, including notes, priority, due dates, and locations. If a submitted form was initially dispatched with metadata, the Dispatch Destination can forward that metadata to the target form.

For information on what dispatch metadata is and how to use it, please read: Dispatch Metadata and Inbox Views

Options:

• Automatically carry forward metadata…: This will ensure that any notes, priority, due date, or location information from the original form submission will be copied to the subsequent dispatch.
• Manually defining metadata to dispatch will overwrite that field's contents from the original form submission.
  • You can either define static values (High priority, as in the following example), or
  • Use DREL to extract answers from the submitted form to fill out any of the dispatch metadata fields. The field's value must be formatted correctly for the metadata field:
    • For example: %a[Customer Name] - %a[ProblemDescription] in the Notes would place the answers to those questions into the dispatched form. 
    • Using a Due Date from the originating form submission requires any Date/Time question and would be referenced using %a[Unique ID A Unique ID refers to the specific identifier of a question, form page, form section, or Data Destination. Unique IDs are used as reference points when pulling data for conditional logic, Analytics projects, Data Destinations, and Documents.].
    • Using Location data from the originating form submission requires the use of %a[Unique ID][coordinates] from an appropriate Geostamp or Geo Location question.

Dispatch Data

Choose which data to send through the target form.

Info:The topic Supported Question and Data Types for Dispatching describes the fields that you can prefill.

• Select Automatically carry forward answers… to ensure that the destination maps answers from the submitted form to answers in the target form. The system only carries answers forward if a question’s Unique ID and data type exactly match a question in the target form.

• Select questions in the Target Form to populate with data from the submitted form.
• Target Question is the Unique ID in the target form that should be filled. Read more about Unique IDs here.
• The Answers to Dispatch can reference question answers and metadata from the submitted form using DREL. Static text can also be included.

Note:If you are using Conditional Logic to "Set" an answer on a question, we highly recommend that you don’t dispatch to this question. The Conditional Logic and dispatched data may conflict and produce inconsistent results.

Dispatch Files

Files can be dispatched between questions of the following question types: File Upload, Image, Signature, and Sketch Pad. This can be useful for images that are specific to a job, like a site-specific floor plan, a chart for the mobile user to reference, or a sketch produced in a form from an earlier site visit or job estimate. A photo collected from an Image question can be dispatched to a Sketch Pad question, and vice versa.

As with all control types, checking Automatically carry forward answers… takes data from the dispatching form and automatically routes it to fields in the Target Form with corresponding Unique IDs. Read more about Unique IDs here.

To manually define files to dispatch from the submitted form to the Target Form, you can use a DREL expression in the Answers to Dispatch field. The field must be formatted as:

%a[QuestionUniqueID][contentType]|%a[QuestionUniqueID][bytes]

where QuestionUniqueID is the unique ID for the File Upload, Image, Signature, or Sketch Pad question.

Unlike dispatching to simple text data types, static text cannot be included in the Answers to Dispatch when dispatching files. For more information, see Supported Question Types for Dispatching: Attachment Format.

The following example shows a photo collected by a question with the unique ID "Photo" that is configured to dispatch to a field with the unique ID "Image1" in the Target Form. In this example, the DREL expression extracts the answer from the question “Photo” and formats the answer as contentType|bytes.

There is no difference in the DREL expression formatting between Image, File Upload, Sketch Pad, or Signature questions, simply use the correct unique ID.

Dispatch Barcode Scanner values

Barcode data requires specific formatting, including both type and value.

We support the following barcode types:

• UpcA

• UpcE

• Ean8

• Ean13

• Code39

• Code128

• Itf

• QrCode

The following types of barcodes are supported but might be difficult to scan on older devices:

• DataMatrix

• Pdf417

To prefill Barcode Scanner questions, you can:

• Configure your destination to Automatically carry forward answers…. The dispatched form includes any Barcode Scanner answers from the submitted form if the question Unique IDs match.

• Specify the barcode type and value using the following DREL expression format:

  %a[UniqueID][barcodeType]|%a[UniqueID][barcodeValue]

  where [UniqueID] identifies the Barcode Scanner question and [barcodeType] and [barcodeValue] are additional properties.

Dispatch Geo Locations

Specify the geo location to dispatch using the following DREL expression format:

%a[UniqueID][coordinates]

where [UniqueID] identifies the Geo Location question and [coordinates] returns the latitude, longitude, and altitude of the geo location.

The following example shows a Dispatch Destination configuration. The geo location from the question NewSite prepopulates the question SiteLocation in the dispatched form.

Response Configuration

When a Dispatch Data Destination executes, it creates a Data Record in the TrueContext system and generates response outputs. Do you want the system to store the Form Submission ID and Reference Number of the forms that the Data Destination dispatches?

• If yes, select the option to Store all response outputs for use in later destinations.

• If no, keep the default Don’t store response outputs.

Info:The topic Store Response Outputs for Dispatch and Customer Feedback Data Destinations describes the Data Destinations response outputs in more detail.

Use Case: Dispatch a Link to the Form Submission Document

In cases where the recipient of a dispatch needs to view the document for the submitted form, the URL can be dispatched to them along with other data. This URL can then be launched directly within the form using the “Data Type Launcher” Functionality. In this example, we will dispatch a Web Portal link to the PDF document so that the user can open it in an external browser.

In the Form Builder:

1. Open the Target Form in the Form Builder.
2. Add a Text question with a URL data type (Text-> URL-> Textbox).
   
3. Mouse over the question and Edit Properties.
4. On the Properties tab, select Allow mobile users to launch a web browser… and Open the link in an external web browser.
5. Save and close.

Data Destination Configuration: 

1. Edit the Data Destination. Select the Dispatch Configuration tab.

2. In the Form Answers section, in the Target Question field, Enter the Unique ID of the URL question.

3. In the Answers to Dispatch field, enter the URL:

   https://live.truecontext.com/data/%r[id].pdf

   

   This extracts the reference ID of the submitted form and inserts it into the link.

When configured as above, the recipient of the dispatch will receive a link to the form submission document, which they can tap to launch in their browser.

Use Case: Dispatching to Different Forms Based on an Answer

You can use one submitted (source) form to dispatch data to a number of different forms. The source form can be simple, with a few questions containing customer contact information, or it can be complex, making use of Conditional Logic to hide questions not applicable to what the user has selected as a target form. In either case, a separate Dispatch Data Destination is required for each Target Form.

1. In the Form Builder The Form Builder is the tool that form designers use to create forms. In the Form Builder, accessed from the TrueContext Web Portal, form designers can add and edit pages, sections, and questions, as well as attach data destinations and configure the form's settings., create a dropdown question where a user can select a form name (from a data source or otherwise). For the purposes of this example, the unique ID is "TargetForm", and one of the answers is "Work Order."

2. Create a Dispatch Data Destination and select "Work Order" as the Target Form.

3. In the Data Destination Filtering tab, configure as shown below. The data destination for the "Work Order" form will only execute and dispatch to a user if "Work Order" is selected. Configure other data destinations for the other target forms similarly.