How to Create Dual-Language Forms
By Katie Fries
Presales Engineer
If you’re building online forms for a diverse audience, you may find yourself needing to make those forms available in more than one language.
For basic Laserfiche Forms processes, all you need are:
- Two different Sections
- A Radio Button field
- Two field rules
In one Section, you’ll place all of the fields you’d like to have on the form in English. In the other section, you’ll create an exact copy of the first section, but with new fields labeled in the second language (Spanish, for example). Above both of those sections, you’ll place your radio button (let’s call it “Language Selection”) and make the options “English” and “Spanish”. Afterward, all you have to do is create a simple field rule with the logic:
Show English Section when all of the following is true:
Language Selection is English
And another rule with the logic:
Show Spanish Section when all of the following is true:
Language Selection is Spanish
When using the Save to Repository activity in the Forms Process Modeler, you can use both field variables to determine the file path. For example, if you want to create a new folder in the “Employees” directory based on the last name of the respondent, your path might look like this:
Employees{/dataset/Surname}{/dataset/Apellido}
Because only one version of the form will be filled out, only one of those variables will have a value. The other will be completely blank and will not affect the final path. As a result, whether they complete the English or Spanish version of the form, it will be filed in the correct location.
If you need to pass field values to Laserfiche Workflow, there’s one last wrinkle to iron out. Because you’ve got two different versions of the form, you’ll need to have two different versions of the workflow: one that processes the Spanish fields, and another that processes the English fields. It may be easiest to create two separate workflows, and use an Exclusive Gateway in the Forms Process Modeler to launch one or the other workflow based on the language selection. Alternatively, you can create a single workflow with a Conditional Decision activity that routes down one branch or the other based on the language selection. In the second scenario, you’d obviously need to use a Retrieve Laserfiche Forms Content activity above the Conditional Decision to pull back their language choice.
While there are other methods of creating dual-language forms, this is probably the most convenient method for both administrators and users. If you’ve found a better way, or have any cool ideas for improving on this method, be sure to tell us about it in the comments!
