In previous versions of Laserfiche Mobile for the iPad, metadata could only be viewed and edited when associated with documents but not folders. The upcoming release of Laserfiche Mobile 9.0 for the iPad will include the ability to edit and view metadata on folders.

Example: Cabell Inc. organizes all employee documents (resumes, applications, benefit forms, etc.) into folders by employee name. When Jill Hurst applies for a job, a folder containing her resume, application and other forms is created. When the company calls Jill for an interview, the Statusfield assigned to her folder will be marked as “Being interviewed.” If the company decides to hire Jill, the HR manager uses Laserfiche Mobile on the iPad to change the Status field on her folder to “Hired.” This action will immediately archive her resume and forward her employee documents through the remainder of the company’s onboarding process.

To view/edit folder metadata on the iPad:

Navigate to the folder and tap the blue arrow to the right of the folder name.
View or edit the fields in the Metadata dialog box and tap Save.

Note: Since this is a preview, the details and appearances of certain elements may change between now and the final release.

Field values can be passed into a form by appending them to the form’s URL using the following structure:

baseURL?variable1=value

Replace baseURL with the form’s URL, variable1 with the variable associated with the field to be filled in and value with the appropriate field value. To fill in multiple fields, insert theampersand symbol (&) before any additional variables:

baseURL?variable1=value&variable2=value

For example, on a purchase order form that is only available to Laserfiche employees, the Company field can be pre-populated using the following URL: baseURL?Company=Laserfiche.

In addition to manually specifying URL parameters to pre-fill fields, organizations can also use Workflow to create these customized URLs.

Note: URL parameters can only be used with the starting form of a business process.

Laserfiche business processes add a new layer to workflows that allows organizations to put instructions, deadlines and reporting histories for business processes right at employees’ fingertips.

• Investigating Business Processes 
• Overview of Business Processes in Workflow, the Laserfiche Client and Web Access
• Overview of Business Processes in Laserfiche Forms
• Preview of Business Processes Instructions and Resolutions
• Introducing Business Process Participants
• Preview of Workflow and Business Process Reporting
• Optimize Business Processes with Collaboration
• How to Diagram Your Business Process

Laserfiche advanced search simplifies this process by supporting searches for documents that are present in a folder as well as missing documents. Users can locate missing documents using the ChildName advanced search type, which allows users to locate all folders that contain documents with a particular name. Combining this search with the NOT operator (-) allows users to find all folders that do not contain documents of a particular name. Users can combine this with any other search to return folders that meet particular criteria but that do not contain a document with the specified name.

 Example 1: Patient Records

A hospital keeps all of information about patients in a Patients folder with subfolders for each patient by name. Within each patient’s folder is a folder called “Forms.” Each patient should have a signed record that they received a Notice of Privacy Practices on file in their “Forms” folder. The notifications are titled first with the date and then with the words “Notice of Privacy Practices.”  (i.e. “2008-02-28 Notice of Privacy Practices.”) T

The following search would locate each “Forms” folder in the repository that does not contain a document with the words “Notice of Privacy Practices” in the title, allowing a user to quickly determine which patient folders are mossing the document:

{LF:Name=”Forms”, Type=”F”} – {LF:ChildName=”*Notice of Privacy Practices*”}

 Example 2: Member Information

A gym keeps all of member information in individual member folders named after the members. These folders all have the “Member Information” template.

Each member should have a document called “Liability Waiver” in their folder. The following search would locate every folder with the “Member Information” template that does not contain a document called “Liability Waiver,” so that a waiver can be obtained from those members:

{[Member Information]} – {LF:ChildName=”*Liability Waiver*”}

Note: The syntax “- {LF:ChildName=”Text”}” is not valid on its own because The NOT (-) operator is a relational operator. This syntax must be used to modify some other search type, such as the folder names or template searches.

• Laserfiche Forms: A customizable Web-based forms product that includes a drag-and-drop interface based on BPMN standards and role-based access available for both internal and public users.
• Business Processes: These new“superworkflows” that combine business process management tools with existing Laserfiche features to provide more options for task management and process reporting.
• Web Access Office Integration: Access Laserfiche features when working with Microsoft Office files in their native applications through Web Access.

Read about the updates in Laserfiche 9 prior to its launch by downloading a free copy of the white paper today!

For example, a user can add the Comment column and see all the comments associated with the annotations in the list without having to open each annotation’s properties dialog box. To add columns to the Annotation Pane, a user can right-click on any visible column and select the desired columns to display from the list that appears.

]]> http://quarksoft.com/2013/02/28/tech-tip-annotation-pane-columns/feed/ 0 http://quarksoft.com/2013/02/28/tech-tip-linking-to-entries-in-web-access/ http://quarksoft.com/2013/02/28/tech-tip-linking-to-entries-in-web-access/#comments Thu, 28 Feb 2013 17:18:06 +0000 ejones http://quarksoft.usefulnotes.com/?p=843 With the release of the latest version of Laserfiche Web Access 9.0.1, the users can now right-click a specific entry and select Copy Link to have the URL automatically saved on to the clipboard. In earlier versions, users had to navigate to an entry, copy and paste the URL in the address bar and then needed to send the link to another user. In the current version, there is an option of selecting multiple entries and then their URL links can be saved and copied to the clipboard at once thereby saving time in navigating to and copying all the URL’s for these entries one by one.
For instance, Chris is required to send to his colleague named Blair, direct links to a handful of invoices to be processed. Chris by using this version can navigate to the folder containing the invoices and then select one or more invoices for which he is intending to collect URL’s for and then right click and select Copy Link. The links will then be automatically get copied to his (Chris) clipboard and he can then paste these links into an instant message to be sent to Blair. In case, Chris wants to send a link to a specific page of one of the invoices, then he has an additional facility of right clicking on the thumbnail of that page to copy its link and then send it to Blair.

The current version is very useful for electronic documents. In the earlier versions, users are required to search for the electronic document’s entry ID number and manually construct the URL using the ID. With the present version, users can right click on an electronic document and then automatically copy its links, thereby removing the extra steps needed for customizing the URL.

Note: In case, the users are using Internet Explorer for their web access, then the link would be automatically copied to the clipboard. Whereas, for other browsers such as (Firefox, Chrome etc) the Copy Link dialog box will appear. The user is then required to select the link and copy it either by right clicking and selecting copy command or by pressing CTRL+C. More information can be had by seeing the Web Access help files.

To demonstrate how to create a Laserfiche template, I will use the fictional example of Laser University.

Example: Laser University

As part of Laser University’s admissions process, prospective students have to submit an application along with the following supplemental documents:

• Personal statement.
• Candidate recommendation.
• Transcript.

All of these documents are scanned into Laserfiche with Laserfiche Scanning or printed into Laserfiche with Laserfiche Snapshot and stored in the applicant’s folder in the Laserfiche repository.

Laser University’s admission officers agreed on the following parameters to organize submitted applications and documents. The officers based this list on the information that they would need when searching for applications and related documents.

• First and last name.
• Date of birth.
• Proposed major of study.
• Phone number.
• E-mail address.
• GPA.
• SAT score.
• Type of degree.
• State of residency.
• Type of student (new student or transfer student).
• Type of document.

Here is how Laser University converted these items into a template that is applied to every application and related document in the Laserfiche repository.

Types of fields

Different field types can contain a different type of information. Some examples of field types include:

• Text fields.
• Number fields.
• Date fields.
• List fields.

Each field type can be used for a separate purpose. Here is a list of all of the fields in the Laser University “Admissions Application” template and their field types.

Multi-value fields

Sometimes, it would make sense if one field was able to contain more than one value. For example, prospective students can have more than one phone number such as a home phone and a cell phone. To account for this, Laser University can create two different fields: one for cell phone and one for home phone. Two fields would make searching by phone number very inefficient, though, since the admissions officer would not know which of the fields to search because one of them could be null.

A better option would be to create a multi-value phone number field to store either one or both phone numbers. Most fields can be set to contain multiple values and the number of values assigned to such a field varies from entry to entry, depending on user input.

Therefore, Laser University can make one field for “Phone Number” and then set it to allow multiple values. An admissions clerk can then add as many phone numbers as necessary into the field. When searching for an applicant’s document by phone number, an admissions officer can simply perform a single search using whichever phone number he has in front of him.

Field constraints

Using a multi-value field for the phone number can make searching for prospective applicants by phone number simpler, but if phone numbers aren’t entered in a consistent format (xxx-xxx-xxxx vs (xxx)xxx-xxxx), this searching will still be difficult. This is where field constraints fit in.

Field constraints restrict users to enter data that fits a particular pattern or is of a particular type. To make it easier for admissions officers to locate documents related to a particular applicant, the administrator can set field constraints on the phone number field. All phone numbers will have to follow this format: xxx-xxx-xxxx. This field constraint can be set with regular expressions.

When a user opens the “Admissions – Application” template, he will now see that the phone number field contains two dashes. These dashes signify that a user will not be allowed to enter a phone number in any other format (such as adding parenthesis).

Since all phone numbers are now formatted uniformly, searching by phone number will now be easy.

In addition to field constraints, fields in a template can be designated as “required.” Required fields prevent a user from saving the document without filling them out first. Laser University designated the following fields to be required because they are all used in naming the final documents:

• Admissions document type.
• Last name.
• First name.

Required fields are configured in the Laserfiche Administration Console by simply checking a box.

Dynamic fields

Sometimes, list fields may contain so many different values that it is difficult for the admissions clerk to select the one he needs. For example, since there are over 100 different majors at Laser University, it is time consuming to select just one from a list field that contains them all.

Selecting a particular item from a list field can be simplified by using dynamic fields. Dynamic fields allow a user to be presented with options to select in one field, based on what he had previously selected in another field. Dynamic fields look up information in an external SQL database table and use this to filter the results.

Laser University has set up a series of dynamic fields to help with populating the “School Applied To” and “Major Applied For” fields. For this purpose, the university used an existing database table. This article shows how to create a new database table quickly if an existing database table is not available.

Laser University’s existing external database table looks like this:

In the table pictured above each degree type has associated schools and majors. These relationships have been used to set up the dynamic fields.

When configuring these fields in the Administration Console, the “School Applied To” field is assigned one parent field – the “Degree Type”, and the “Major Applied For” is assigned two parent fields – “Degree Type” and “School Applied To.”

When filling out this template, the admissions clerk will first select a degree type from the “Degree Type” list field. This field will contain a list of all the degree types that are specified in the external database table. Next, the admissions clerk will select the correct school from the “School Applied To” field. The choices in this field are limited to those schools that accept the degree just specified. Once the admissions clerk selects a school, the “Major Applied For” field will be restricted to only those majors that satisfy the degree type and particular school.

For example, if the admissions clerk selects the undergraduate degree type, then the schools listed in the “School Applied To” field are only schools that provide an undergraduate degree (the law school will not be listed since that school only provides graduate degrees). Once the clerk selects the Letters, Arts and Sciences school, the majors listed in “Major Applied For” will only be those that are offered at the school, and for which a student can get an undergraduate degree (mechanical engineering will not be listed, as that major is located in the School of Engineering).

Final template

Here is what the final, populated template looks like:

Best practices for using templates and fields

Administrators should keep the following best practices in mind, when setting up fields and templates.

• Reuse fields across templates. If many templates should have a “Last Name” field, then create one field and apply it to the multiple templates. This simplifies searching by allowing a user to find all student records for a person with the last name of “Smith” without having to worry about which template to search in.
• List fields, dynamic fields and field constraints can help reduce errors due to data entry or spelling mistakes. This will also make documents easier to search for in the repository.
• When creating templates, think of all the different things that an end- user would want to search on and include those as template fields.

In Laserfiche, documents and folders are secured by inheriting entry access rights from their parent folders. However, entry access rights on folders only protect the documents they contain. Entry access rights do not “stick” to a document if it is relocated. This is where VERS Classification Levels come in handy—these levels are considered a property of the document itself and will “stay” with a document as it is moved through a repository. Thus, these levels safeguard Laserfiche entries from being accidentally moved into less secure areas of the repository.

Users can assign numeric VERS Classification Levels on documents and folders in the Desktop Laserfiche Client or Web Access. Once an entry is assigned a classification level, it cannot be moved into a folder with a lower numeric level.

For example, a document assigned a VERS Classification Level of 5 cannot be moved into a folder with a VERS Classification Level of 3. This prevents entries from being moved into folders that have been assigned less restrictive security. For added simplicity, when VERS Classification Levels are assigned to folders, they are automatically propagated to that folder’s subfolders and documents.

Note: If a classification level is not set on an entry, it is considered to have the lowest possible classification level (a VERS Classification Level of 0).

Example: Hospital Records

Most of a hospital’smedical records require high security and are private to the hospital and its patients. However, certain information needs to be released internally or to outside organizations. This means documents are often transferred between folders that have different entry access rights.

To prevent an employee from accidentally leaking information, the administrator creates three VERS Classification Levels: “Doctors” (numeric value 10), “Nurses” (numeric value 7), and “Civic” (numeric value 3).

Documents given the “Doctors” classification level can only be moved into folders assigned the same “Doctors” classification level. Documents given the lowest classification level, “Civic,” can be moved into folders with any other classification level, but not to folders without a set classification level (since they are considered to have a classification level of 0).

Learn more about creating and assigning VERS Classification Levels on Laserfiche online help. For more information on VERs standards and certification, please visit the Laserfiche Press Center.