Creating Rules

You can create rules quite easily. When you click on the Edit Rule button (or similarly named button), the rule panel will drop into view.

To create a rule, follow these steps:

1. When you first open the rule editor, you'll encounter a small drop-down window that has a single, unconfigured filter (having the label "Filter1"). This filter is a test for the existence of a particular condition. You can add more than one filter, but let's start with the very first one.

2. The first drop-down (Select Field) list contains all of the elements on all pages of the form. Choose the field/element to which the rule will apply.

   • If you've enabled Lookup Data for the current document and configured one or more alternate Data Sources, this drop-down also includes elements from these Data Sources.

   • Elements from alternate Data Sources are prefixed with the name you gave the Data Source.

3. In the next drop-down, choose the matching condition.

4. The third box from the right is the value box, in which you can enter or set the matching value. You can enter a value, or click the drop-down icon to choose from a list of values. To toggle the value box, see Managing Filters section below.

5. Commit the rule by clicking the Save button. (You can also Cancel or Delete an existing rule.)

Special Filter Options

When creating a rule there may be some additional options available for the rule creation beyond just the selection of fields. Below are some of the extra options available under certain circumstances:
 
Form View
When creating an Autoresponder or Notification rule and your form uses FormViews, the option to create a rule based on the FormView will be shown. This allows you to, for example, send a locale specific autoresponder based on the FormView used.
 
Form Display / Access Mode
The Form Display / Access Mode option is shown when creating Dependencies, Form & Field Actions, and Multi-Page Form Conditional branching rules. This option allows you to configure rules based on how the form is being accessed.  The following options are available:

Managing Filters

There are several options for managing the filters in a rule.

To change the values box (third box from the right) to a drop-down list containing all the fields/elements in the form, click this button. (Note: This option is only available when creating rules that execute during the form filling process)
Instead of inspecting values that the user enters / selects, you might want to have the filter always check for a specific alphanumeric value.  To change the values box (third box from the right) to a simple text box, click this button.
To add a rule, click this button.
To delete a rule, click this button.
To save all filters as part of the rule, click the Save button.
To delete any filters since the last time you saved the rule, click the Cancel button.
To edit the rule using Advanced Mode, click this button.
To delete the rule entirely, click the Delete button.

Next, you might want to learn about rule matching options.