How To: Make a Form Available to External Users

It is possible to make a form accessible for a user that does not have an account in Process Automation, such as a supplier or a customer. 

To make your form accessible to external users, you need to model your process in two steps.

Model your process

1. Start by adding two intermediate events to your process. 
   
   
   
2. Add a message event to the first intermediate event (the configuration of the message will be done in Create an External link and add it to your intermediate events).
   
   
3. Add a new form template to the second intermediate event.   
   
   
4. You need to add a new form template here. You can not use an already existing data object.  
   
   
   
5. (Optional) If you want to fill in the External form with data from another form in the process, you can use the defaultValue attribute in the fields in the External Form and set them to $startFormID.fIeldName$.
   
   
6. (Optional) If you want data from the external form sent back to the form used earlier in the process (Start form in this example), add the script component Copy all fields to the process after the intermediate event where the external form is created. As long as the fields in both forms have the same name, data from the external form can be sent back to the first form (Start form in the example).
   
   
   
7. Publish and deploy the process. 

Create an External link and add it to your intermediate events

1. Navigate to the Application configuration of your process.
   
   
2. Go to the External users tab.
   
   
   
3. Select the events that you wish to make external. 
   
   
   
4. (Optional) After you select an event, a URL and a button to edit the start message appear. The Start Message is the message that appears once the user has submitted the form. Select Edit Start Message to update this page. You can add variables from your process to create an appropriate message for the user.
   
   
   
5. Copy the URL (1) and Save the changes (2).
   
   
6. Go back to your process model and create a new version.
   
   
7. Configure your Message event and add the copied URL to the body of the email. The recipients of this email will be able to fill out the external form by clicking on the link.
   
   
8. Publish and deploy your process.

You now have a process that is accessible by external users.

Embed Forms as iFrames

It is possible to iFrame links to external events. To learn how to configure URLs for this purpose, check out the article, How To: Embed Forms as iFrames

Make your external forms accessible

Read our Best Practice Guide to learn how to make your external forms accessible. For details about InRule’s WCAG conformance surrounding External Forms, read the InRule Process Automation External Forms Accessibility Conformance Report.