Creating rules in your application

Rules help you gather the correct information from users and organize your information after data is entered in a form. You can create composite rules that govern how your form, and the data in your form behaves.

With the Rules feature, you can create a dynamic user experience that ensures accurate data capture, and enforcement of business rules. Rules allow you to guide the user through the form by hiding questions, or pages, that are not relevant. Rules also allow you to enforce your business validation rules within the form to ensure that data is valid before the form is submitted. The following steps describe how to set rules that require users to enter more information depending on how the first question is answered.

Rule Dialog

Image of the rules dialog and its parts

The rule may be given a custom name by entering it into the Rule Name field.
Each Rule can perform multiple actions; hide/show, enable/disable, required/not required, valid/not valid. When you define an action, the inverse is also true. For example in the above screenshot, if marital status equals “Married” of "Common-law" then name of spouse will be shown which also means if marital status is “Single” or not selected then name of spouse will be hidden.
The action action to perform, see Rule Actions.
The field that is part of the condition.
The operator, see Rule Operators.
The field value that is part of the condition.
Apply will create the rule but leave the dialog open, Apply and Close will create the rule and close the dialog, and Cancel will close the dialog and it will not keep any changes made since the last time “Apply” was clicked or the dialog was opened. If you navigate to a different rule, before applying your changes you will see a dialog warning of unsaved changes. If you click “Apply Changes” then your rule modifications will be saved. If you click “Discard Changes” then any changes made will be thrown away. If you click “Cancel” then the attempt to navigate away from the current rule will be canceled.
Add or remove additional actions.
Edit a condition.
Change the relationship of the conditions. If there are multiple conditions they will either be evaluated where all must be true ("AND") or where only one must be true ("OR").
The vertical separator can be dragged left or right to change the size of the panes.
Filters the rules shown on the left based on the field selected.
A saved rule. Clicking on the 'X' will prompt the user about deleting the rule; clicking 'yes' will delete the rule.
Click 'Add Rule' to add a new rule.

Note: As you create rules it is important to remember that rules can affect each other and in some cases completely counteract what you have defined. You should never refer to the same item in the “Perform this action” section for multiple rules. The general rule here is that if there are conflicts then the “last” rule wins.

Rule Operators

The operator defines how the operands will be evaluated. The available operators will change based on the items referenced within the rule.

Operator	Description
After	Returns true if the date specified is “after” the exact value or the value of the other form item specified.
Before	Returns true if the date specified is “before” the exact value or the value of the other form item specified.
Between	Checks if the value of the selected field falls alphabetically between either two fixed values or other form items. i.e. “Red” is between “Green” and “Yellow” because “R” is between “G” and “Y” in the alphabet. Case matters here, as the string is evaluated against the alphabet by first scanning the uppercase letters (A-Z) and then the lowercase (a-z). For example if you specified between “Green” and “brown”, then “Red” would be valid but “red” would not, because the alphabet range would be A-Z + a-b.
Contains	Does the specified string contain the fixed value or other field value. This function recognizes case.
Day is	Compares the day of the date specified with an exact value or the value of another item.
Does not equal
Does not include
Ends With	Does the specified string end with the fixed value or other field value. This function recognizes case.
Equals	Does the specified string equal the fixed value or other field value. Case matters, “c” does not equal “C”.
Follows	Does the specified string come after the fixed value or other field value in the alphabet. i.e. “Red” follows “Green”. This function recognizes case.
Includes
Matches	Does the specified string match after the fixed value or other field value. Similar to contains, it is true if the specified string can be found anywhere in the value. This function recognizes case.
Month is	Compares the month of the date specified with an exact value or the value of another item.
Precedes	Does the specified string come before the fixed value or other field value in the alphabet. i.e. “Red” precedes “Yellow”. This function recognizes case.
Starts with	Does the specified string start with the fixed value or other field value. This function recognizes case.
Has value
Has no value
Year is	Compares the year of the date specified with an exact value or the value of another item.

Number/Currency Operators

These are the operators for number and currency fields.

Operator
Between
Does not equal
Equals
Greater than
Greater than or equals
Less than
Less than or equals

Single Line / Multi-Line Operators

These are the operators for single-line and multi-line fields.

Operator
Between
Contains
Ends with
Equals
Follows
Matches
Precedes
Starts with
Has value
Has no value

These are the operators for select one, checkbox and dropdown fields.

Operator
Equals
Does not equal
Has value
Has no value

Select Many Operators

These are the operators for select many fields.

Operator
Matches
Does not match
Includes
Does not include
Has value
Has no value

Time / Timestamp Operators

These are the operators for time and timestamp fields.

Operator
After
Before
Between
Has value
Has no value

Date Operators

These are the operators for date fields.

Operator
After
Before
Between
Day is
Equals
Has value
Has no value
Month is
Year is

Rule Actions / Behaviors

Rules can be set for the following actions/behaviors:

Show or Hide

You can set data entry items, buttons, and containers to be hidden, or visible.

Enable or Disable

You can set buttons and data entry items as enabled or disabled.

Valid or Not Valid

In a data entry item, such as a Single Line Entry field, you can set conditions on what type of information is acceptable. For example, in a timesheet application, you can set a rule that the check-out time cannot occur before a check in time.

Required or Not required

You can choose whether you want data entry items to be mandatory, or optional.

Additional general information on Rules

You can add multiple Boolean operators, such as AND, and OR, for each rule. However, you cannot mix the two conditions in a rule.
You can name and rename rules. It is useful to give each rule a unique and descriptive name. If you have several rules with similar operations, a descriptive name lets you quickly find the specific rule without having to open each one to view the details.
You can search rules based on form item.
To set a new rule, use the Edit rules icon in each form item. You can also create rules for pages and buttons. You can use the icon to open a rule and edit it.
After a rule is set, a checkmark appears on the Rule icon for the form item, as well as any form item involved in the rule. This makes it easy to see which form items are used in rules.
If you attempt to delete a form item that is used in a rule. If you agree, you delete the rule. If you duplicate a field, the rule is duplicated with it.
A field's value is not cleared if its behavior changes because of a rule. You may need to explicitly clear the value if you do not want the previously entered value to be saved.

Note: When you set rules for Number or Currency form items, you must set the default value of the form item to zero in the Properties side panel. In the Properties side panel, set the minimum value to zero. If the Number or Currency form item is blank, it does not default to zero, and any rule you set does not work properly.

Setting rules on form items
You can set rules that govern how form items appear in a form.
Setting rules on pages in an application
You can set rules that govern how pages are shown or hidden in a form.
Setting rules on Stages
You can direct the workflow of an application by setting rules on buttons within Stages.

Examples

Rule with an 'and' condition

This example demonstrates a rule using an 'and' condition. The field will be visible and required if both questions are 'Yes'.

Rule dialog showing 'and' condition

The next image shows the rule in action.

The 'and' rule behavior in the launched form

Rule with an 'or' condition

This example demonstrates a rule using an 'or' condition. The field will be visible and required if either of the questions are 'Yes'.

Rule dialog showing 'or' condition