Application designer

• 1: Designer
• 1.1: Previewer
• 1.2: Version history
• 2: Form basics
• 2.1: Form owners
• 2.2: Form display modes
• 2.3: Form quick actions menu
• 2.4: Form responsive layout
• 3: Getting started with Kianda processes
• 3.1: Process instance
• 3.2: Process settings
• 3.3: Process properties
• 3.4: Process common fields
• 3.5: Process navigator
• 4: Component
• 5: Create from Datasource

Introduction

Creating your first process or application in Kianda starts with designing your first form. Users with the role Administrator or Design business process can create forms that can connect to any number of data sources at the same time. The form might be a simple contact form or something else more complex, and you can add more forms like “Follow-up form” or even a “Closure form”. To the form you can add predefined controls or fields, and business rules to define how the processes can behave.

These process elements, processes, forms, controls and rules are explained in the sections below:

• Creating your first process
• Forms
• Controls or form fields
• Rules

Forms, fields and rules are created and edited using Kianda Designer explained in further on this page.

How to get started

Although Kianda aims to be intuitive and easy to get started, it is never difficult to over-engineer. So at Kianda we always recommend doing some simple planning before you design your first form. It could be something as simple as a quick flow chart or a spreadsheet where you can quickly log the key components, fields or rules that are needed in the process.

In general there are three key steps to build a process in an agile manner:

1. Plan process design, forms, fields, rules, log into design spreadsheet.
2. Build forms and fields connecting to data where applicable.
3. Publish to dashboards, launch anonymous forms or publish to data sources for end-user distribution.

Platform getting started video

Creating your first process

To help you plan your process, go to Plan your process to get started. When you have planned what you want to do, it couldn’t be simpler to start creating your new process by following the steps below:

1. Using your Administrator or Design business process role, go to the left- hand side menu and click on Administration > Designer.

2. You are now in the main process view. From here, you can click on Import or Export to import or export processes once created. There is also an option to use Kianda’s predefined processes available in the App Store.

   Adding a new process

   

3. Click on the Add new button to create a process from scratch.

4. Fill out the details in the Add new process dialog box:

   Add new process dialog box

   

   • Title - the title for your process

   • ID - this is a unique Name that is autofilled from the title, however you can manually edit it.

   • Description - a short description for your process

   • Group - you can click on the fields drop-down button to browse for existing groups to add your new process to or alternatively, you can select Create new group to create a new folder group for your process to go in. If Create new group is selected, a field New group name will be displayed where you will enter the name of the new group. See below an example of creating a new group labelled ‘Training’.

     

     

   • Administrators - these are process administrators or people who will be able to change the process design. Process administrators must have the role administrator or design business process so that they can access Designer to modify the process design. Choose from Users and/or Groups in the drop-down list, or leave blank to allow all those with an administrator role, to have access to this process design.

     Users and groups must be already defined in the system by a user with an administrator role, see User management.

     Note that there is a limit of 10 names in the drop-down list, displayed alphabetically from the list of users and groups, but you can type in a user or group name to see them appear in the list, for example as shown below.

     

5. Click on OK when complete.

6. You are now in the Process Design page, that is Kianda Designer. From here, you can add forms, fields and rules, change settings and properties and manage your process design.

Kianda Designer introduction

Kianda Process Designer provides an intuitive interface where you can quickly start building forms for any use case.

The key components of the form designer are:

1. Left side panel containing both controls and rules that can be added to forms.
2. The central area is where the current form canvas is displayed.
3. The right panel is where the currently selected component properties and rules are displayed.

Form designer key components

The following headings highlight the key features of Designer that allow you to build slick, progressive, responsive and customised forms and processes.

Forms

Forms are an important component of any process. They might be used as stages of a process and could be made active individually or at the same time known as parallel forms.

The key rules related to designing forms for user interaction are:

1. Forms are assignable, this means that only a form assignee can edit a particular form in a process instance. The form assignee can be a combination of users and groups.
2. When a form is created, as a designer you can configure form owners. Only form owners can edit a given form in a process instance by default. Any other user with access to view the form will see it in read-only mode.
3. Processes that have several steps use the concept of current form, where only the current form is editable in a process instance. Forms become the current form as the process executes sequentially. Rules like Go to form can be used to make forms the current form. Other forms can be configured to activate with the current form. This means it is also possible to edit these forms at the same point in process execution and togther the forms form a form group.

The rules above work together to determine if the form is in edit mode or display mode. Form designers have at their disposal business rules such as Assign form, Go to form and Submit form to dynamically control the ability for end-users to edit a particular form or a section of a form.

How to add a form

1. To get started with processes, go to the left-hand side menu > Administration > Designer. There are options to import processes, use the App Store or create a new process from scratch by clicking on the Add new button. To learn more about this, see How to get started with processes.

2. When you open a process or create a new process you are automatically brought into Kianda Designer. In new processes, by default a new form is automatically added to your process called form 1.

   

3. The form is automatically selected, and controls and rules are ready to be added using the options in the left-hand pane. You can edit the form by clicking on the edit/pen button highlighted above. This will open an Edit form dialog box, see Editing forms for more details.

4. To add another form, click on the Add form button at the top of the page.

5. A new form dialog box appears. See Editing forms for more details for example how to add form owners and enable quick actions.

As you create forms, there are some important features to note that will help you get the most out of your form design:

• Form fields
• Responsive form layout
• Input validation
• Settings
• Cloning
• Custom fields
• Advanced techniques

Click on the links above or browse through the following headings to read more.

Form fields

Kianda form usability is brought to life with the help of the various input fields or controls that are specifically adapted to work in mobile, tablet or desktop modes. Fields include textbox, date picker, numeric input, file upload and table, to name a few. Kianda offers a flexible array of controls that can be adjusted to work with a myriad of scenarios.

Example of a form in a process with a text box field

Each field comes with its own set of:

a) settings like autofill for textbox and currency format for numeric input

b) properties that determine how the field will display.

The following are some of the common properties of input fields. Field properties appear when the field is selected within a form, as shown in the image above for the text box field. The properties appear on the right:

• Title - every field comes with a title property that is usually displayed on top of the field and can serve as a prompt to a user

• Show title - check this property to show the title of a field in a form

• Required - this Boolean property allows a form designer to make a field mandatory or not

• Enabled - check this property to make the field appear in a form for a user to use

• Visible - displays the field in the form or not depending on checking the checkbox

• Layout - defines both desktop or mobile layout by selecting a size from the blue bar presented, see Responsive form layout for more details.

In addition to the field properties, each field has it’s own settings that you can change simply by selecting the field and clicking on the Edit/Pen button . This will open an Edit field dialog box where you can change settings.

In total there are 16 predefined field widgets, see Categories of fields below. In case none of these satisfies your specific needs and if you have some level of development skills you can always create your custom field widget.

Categories of fields

Currently the default fields fall into four main categories of fields:

1. Input - Input fields include the most common data fields such as textbox, user picker, date field, table, checkbox, drop-down and number fields.
2. Layout - Layout fields are the fields that serve the purpose of perfecting the layout of your form. They include responsive panels, dialog box, field groups and rich text fields.
3. Action - Action fields are fields that allow user interface actions like buttons, links or even signature components.
4. Custom - Under custom fields, you will find any custom-developed fields available under your developer section.

The following headings showcase examples of fields and how they can be used to play an important role when building a modern user interface while allowing you to achieve the pixel perfect layout you want. The examples shown are Modal dialogs and Cascading dropdown lists in the following sections.

Model dialogs

Model dialogs are a special form of layout fields. It allows a form designer to define an interface with the key intention of grabbing users’ attention to something important.

Typically dialogs are used to create alerts, for example a user confirmation or to help users make a final decision in a process.

How to use a model dialog

In the example above, we use a modal dialog to display a simple warning to the user. The following are the steps involved to create this:

1. Choose a process, or create a new process, and select a form in that process to add fields to. In the left-hand pane of Kianda Designer, click on Controls > Layout > Dialog.

2. Click on the dialog component to edit the dialog, for example give the dialog a Title and then insert other fields within it. You can add any field to your dialog, for example add Richtext by clicking on Controls > Layout > Richtext.

3. Give your Richtext field a title, and add a message in the Richtext body text and change other settings as needed. Click on OK when complete or click on Close at any time to exit the dialog box.

4. To preview how your dialog box will be displayed, you can use the Preview button, on the dialog component.

   

Cascading dropdown lists

Using the List field provides the opportunity to define an unlimited level cascading dropdown hierarchy very easily. For example in the form below, if a user chooses Denmark as a country from the drop-down list, then Danish cities are displayed, while if another country is chosen, the other cities for that country are displayed.

To achieve this effect, you can connect your list to a data source, for example a SharePoint list or table. Then use the list data source conditions options to filter content based on a parent list.

In the example above, the condition used is that a filter is applied if data from the SharePoint list column called Country is chosen as input for the form list field called Country, then data from the SharePoint list column called Cities is displayed, see video below.

How to create cascading dropdowns

Easy to customise form features

Remember with Kianda Designer you don’t need any coding experience, so anyone with Administrator or Design business process access can use Kianda’s easy to use interface to add fields to forms and customise forms to create the desired effects for an optimum user experience. The Kianda interface makes it easy to create sophisticated forms that follow modern web design principles, all at the click of a button. Examples of ways to customise forms are shown in the following sections, Responsive form layout and Input validation.

Responsive form layout

When designing forms, its easy to change the layout of fields to make the field display the way you want. Form fields are made with a mobile-first approach giving you a ‘design once and deploy everywhere’ opportunity.

When you select a field, you can go to Field properties in the right-hand pane of Kianda Designer and click on the Layout option.

Clicking on Collapse or expand responsive layout button uncovers the layout mode for desktop and mobile.

Click on the blue bar for both Layout and Mobile Layout to adjust the size of the field. This allows you to specify a layout made of 1 to 12 columns and is based on Bootstrap, a popular CSS framework that allows designing web interfaces with a mobile-first approach.

Input validation

As with editing the layout of fields, it is easy to validate input, making fields mandatory for users to fill in or not. Go to Field properties in the right-hand pane of Kianda Designer and click on the Required option. If already ticked, uncheck this to make the field not required.

Simply enable the checking the Required property in this way will automatically prevent users from submitting forms with an empty field. The required flag will conveniently be ignored in case the field is not visible, this will allow you to configure conditionally mandatory fields.

Another way of validating input is to use the validate input rule which allows for greater flexibility in terms of when or what to validate. Rules are explained below, but click on Validate input for more information specifically on this rule.

In addition to changing field properties, you can configure settings to make processes perform the way you want.

Settings

In addition to changing field properties like Input validation, you can edit process, form and field settings. Having settings at each level will allow you to tweak your process design in minutes.

At the highest level, process settings are found in the right-hand side pane of Kianda Designer.

There are many options within Settings to manage for example process security and set process instance settings. One setting example is Enabling anonymous sharing of forms explained in more detail below.

Anonymous forms

Anonymous forms are a great way of allowing people outside of your organisation to interact with your processes. It could be something as simple as a feedback form or a GDPR data request but as we all know a contact form never ends with the contact submission. There is always a process or a series of steps behind each public/anonymous form that might culminate with an actionable result back to the person that started the submission, or person assigned to manage the form.

Anonymous forms can be embedded using iframes or inline frames. Inline frames are HTML elements that allow another HTML page(s) to be loaded within the document, basically allowing one webpage within another. In Kianda there are effectively two types of anonymous forms:

• New process instance anonymous form URL
• Existing process anonymous form URL

New process instance anonymous form URL

To set up a globally available link to allow external users to create a new process instance, perform the following steps within Kianda designer:

1. Within a chosen process, in the top right click on Settings.
2. Then beside Enable anonymous sharing of forms select Yes.
3. Click the button New Link to generate a new anonymous link.

The generated link can be shared to allow sharing of the form to users without the need for a Kianda account.

Existing instance anonymous form URL

To setup an existing instance anonymous form you need to use the Anonymous form link rule to generate a new anonymous link at runtime that will point to an existing process record that can then be shared with external users.

Note that for this to work steps 1 and 2 of New Instance Anonymous form are still required.

The following are some of the key options of the anonymous link rule:

• Choose a Form to share (any form within an existing process).
• Link expires settings: choose from an expiry parameter like number of uses, time-based or never expire.
• Select a Message to display on submission.

Important: There can be only one active link of each type for a given process. Once a new anonymous link is created for a process it will automatically cause an expiry of a previous link of the same type.

Rules

Kianda rules allow for dynamic actions within processes that can be used to change the workflow, send automated emails or notifications, as well as manipulate data in data sources.

There are 60 predefined rules, across 10 categories that allow you to drive your business processes in a myriad of ways. Go to the Rules section to navigate to each of the different field categories.

Rules can be driven by conditions for example based on user input, form fields will dynamically appear or hide according to how the user navigates a form, and all rules are actions which can involve for example retrieving values from a datasource, storing data in a field or automating user addition to Salesforce.

One example of rules already mentioned is the Anonymous form link rule which will dynamically generate and send a link from a form in a process to an external user, without the need for a Kianda account.

If the current suite of predefined rules do not meet your needs, you can use Kianda Developer to create your own rule widget. In a similar fashion you can use this function to create custom controls or fields, see more below.

Custom fields

In case any of the previously mentioned control types don’t suit, you can use Kianda to build your own customised control widgets. The Custom fields section provides access to fields that are built for extensibility of Kianda capabilities. It is particularly useful in those situations where existing fields or rules will not provide the required functionality.

Custom fields have the purpose of providing a user interface for end-users. These custom fields can be built by developers. It allows a developer to build a reusable component that would then be used by process designers in real processes. Check-out the development section for more details on how to build custom widgets in Kianda.

Advanced techniques

Like the cascading drop-down list discussed above, several other advanced scenarios can be easily configured in Kianda. Here is a short-list to give you an idea what is possible:

• Repeating section - A repeating section can be created by adding a panel to a table field. This table can be configured to include a single column made of the panel that itself will include the repeating fields of your repeating section.

• The capture of media - Kianda enables mobile users to directly capture pictures, video or audio just like a native application.

• Background save - By making use of PWA principles (Progressive Web Application), Kianda allows the ability to perform background operations. This is useful when, for example, a mobile user picks-up their phone to perform a quick action and places it back in his pocket. Operations will continue in the background allowing all data to be captured.

• Image annotation - Kianda allows for image annotation online or offline.

• Multi-column / row layout - Making multi-column responsive interfaces is quite easy. Simply add two panels into a form that only use half of the screen (6 columns) then add fields inside panels and you have multiple column layouts. Adding a panel using 12 columns gives you a row.

• Form tab colour and icon - Form tabs can be quickly customised to display their icons or tab colours, it is also possible to define custom colours for selected and completed form tabs.

• Hide form tab and left nav - This is self-explanatory, yes you can hide the default navigation elements.

Once you have started creating elements in Kianda forms it is easy to replicate elements and make process design happen even faster, see Cloning below.

Cloning

In Kianda Designer, almost any of the components can be cloned. This will increase your productivity considerably and will make creating multi-step processes a breeze.

To clone either a field, a panel or even a form, simply select the component then click the clone button in the properties panel in the right-hand side of the panel.

If cloning a field, the cloning dialog box will prompt for the destination of the new cloned field, once your choice is made, simply click ok.

Cloning a form

What’s next

To read more about process and forms, go to the link below:

1 - Designer

Kianda Designer provides an intuitive interface where you can quickly start building forms for any business use case. Forms are an important component of any process. They might be used as a stage of a process and can be made active individually or at the same time (parallel forms).

How Designer works

This video introduces Kianda Designer and demonstrates how to start creating a form and add fields.

There are 3 key principles to consider when working with forms:

1. Form design - what a form looks like, what elements it contains, for example controls and rules
2. Form interaction - how users can use forms depending on certain sequences happening
3. Form management - who can edit and access forms

This page presents the information you need related to form design, that is what a form looks like, and what it contains. By default, Administrators and those with the Design business process role can edit forms, but they can also set how other people interact with forms, for example to make forms viewable as read-only. Go to Form owners to find out more about how form ownership works, and Form display modes to find out out more about how forms display.

Designer layout

To access processes, go to the left-hand pane and Administration > Designer and click on a process that you have created or imported, see Create your first process.

From the main process view, click on any process to add forms.

The Designer window opens and is made up of 3 main parts.

The key components of the designer are:

1. Left-hand pane contains both controls and rules that can be added to forms. Go to Controls and Rules to find out more. The left-hand pane also houses the Exit button to go back to the process list, the Save button to save your work, the Preview button to preview what you have created and the Publish button to publish your work.

   Note that clicking on Save saves a draft of a process design. Click on Publish to publish the design and update changes to existing process instances.

   If you click on the Exit button to go back to the process list without clicking on the Save button you will be prompted with a dialog box detecting Unsaved changes prompting you to Abandon changes if desired. Click on Yes to exit Designer without saving, or No to exit and save.

   

2. The central area is where the current form canvas is displayed. The canvas also houses 3 buttons by default: Submit, Save and Close. Go to Adding form elements to find out more about editing these buttons and adding elements to the canvas.

3. The right-hand pane is where the properties and rules are displayed for the selected item, see Properties for more information. From this pane you can also Import forms, see the Version history for a process and set process Settings. Click on the links to find out more.

Note: The name of the process you are working on is shown in the top menu bar, for example Quarterly Training Request.

Note: Multiple users can view and design a process synchronously, allowing for seamless collaboration on your processess. The below error message is displayed in the bottom right corner when another user(s) is/are viewing/editing the current process.

When another user saves a change to the process design that you are currently viewing, the below error message is displayed in the bottom right corner.

How to get started with forms

1. How you get started with forms depends on if you:

   • have created a process using the App Store, see Predefined forms

   • have created a process from scratch or want to create a form from scratch, see New forms

   • import forms that have already been created, see Import forms

2. Once your form is created, you are ready to start adding elements to your form, see Adding form elements.

3. In addition there are a number of settings you can change, see Properties and Settings.

Predefined forms

1. If you have created a process using the App Store, then a number of forms will already be part of the process. For example the process Security Incident Management has 5 forms attached: Incident detail, Data breach, Malware outbreak, Root cause remedy and Caller review.

2. To edit form details, simply click on a form and click on the Pen button to edit the form. You can also click on the Add form button to add a new form. Edit options are shown under New forms.

New forms

How to add new form

If you have created a process from scratch, an empty form is added to your process by default, called “form 1”. This is the first form. Click on this form and the Edit/Pen button to customise it. You can also click on the Add form button to add a new form.

Editing forms

When you click on a chosen form, then click on the Edit/Pen button to edit the form.

The Edit form dialog box opens where you can edit the fields. There are a number of edit options below.

Note: as you change any of the options in the dialog box, the impact will be shown in real-time on the form in the background, for example a title, or colour form theme.

1. Title - the form title, for example Employee Request Form

2. Name - this is a unique name for the form

3. Default owner(s) - by default the form creator is an owner. You can remove this owner by clicking on and add other owners by clicking on the arrow and choose from Users, Groups or Partners.

   • Users - allows you to choose individual owners
   • Groups - allows you to choose from defined groups for example HR Team or Management Team
   • Partners - allows you to choose predefined partner organisations that you want to share with or provide permissions

4. Activate with - will decide when the form will be active. If you have several forms attached to a process, then select from a dropdown list the form you want to activate with the current form. If you leave the field blank, the new form will be activated sequentially after the first form is submitted.

5. Submit mode - options are a) Only this form (the current form) or b) All forms in edit mode.

6. Form icon - click on the arrow to choose from hundreds of icons to attach to your form.

7. Form theme - choose from Navy, Green, Blue, Amber, Red or White Colours for your form.

8. Enable quick actions - if you tick the checkbox, you can select from the options a) Enable re-assign b) Enable edit and c) Enable custom action. Click on Ellipsis button to further modify the action settings.

   • If you click on Enable re-assign, you can reassign action settings to particular Users, Groups or Partners. Click on Allow form owners if you want form owners to be able to reassign actions.

   • If you click on Enable edit, you can allow certain Users, Groups or Partners to edit the form, along with form owners by clicking on Allow form owners.

     Other options include a checkbox for When editing auto hide form footer buttons and Trigger rules on save.

     • If you check Trigger rules on save then click into the Save action field, you can choose an action trigger from the drop-down list as to when the form is saved, for example on execution of the Submit, Save or Close buttons. These can be other actions depending on what you have defined.

     

   • If you click on Enable custom action, you can allow certain Users, Groups or Partners to edit the form, along with form owners by clicking on Allow form owners.

     Other options include Action label, Target action field and Action display mode, for example Read-only mode, Edit mode or Both.

     

   • As a form designer, you can set up actions dependent on certain conditions, for example an Action label that targets a certain button appearing for example Close button, only when a certain display mode is chosen, for example Read-only mode. If Edit mode is chosen, then the button will only appear when the form is being edited. In this way you can create dynamic forms that suit user interactions.

9. Click on the OK button when you are finished editing to save your changes or click on Close to exit the dialog box without saving.

10. To save your changes to the form, click on the Save button .

You are now ready to start adding Controls and Rules to your form. To implement additional settings, see Process Settings.

Import forms

1. You can import a previously designed form by clicking on the Import button .

2. Click on the arrow to select from the drop-down list to Select a process design.

3. Click on a process of interest and then click on the forms to import under Select fields or forms to import. Forms are indicated by a + symbol and can be expanded to show elements within a form for example a panel containing different fields such as lists and text boxes. This means you can import a whole form, or just elements of a form. In this way you can very quickly reuse some or all parts of an existing form.

   

4. Click on the OK button when you are finished editing to save your changes or click on Close to exit the dialog box without saving.

Adding form elements

If you have added a new form during the form creation process, then a blank canvas with three default buttons are available to you: Submit, Save and Close.

Within a form like the one shown above you can:

1. Add elements to this canvas by clicking on Controls and Rules in the left-hand pane. Click on each link to find out more about the 16 control fields and 60 rule types.
2. Move elements by clicking on the Drag Handle beside the item and dragging it to where you want to place it.
3. Edit elements by clicking on each item and clicking on the Edit/Pen button , for example if you click on the Close button, there are a number of options to choose from when editing, see Button control for more information.

Properties

In addition to adding fields/controls and rules, there are a number of ways to create the form and process design you want. You can set properties at property, form and field level. Properties represent how an element presents itself, for example the title and layout of the element.

Properties at all levels are visible in the right-hand pane of Kianda designer, along with the:

• Import button to allow you to import forms and form elements like fields

• Version history button to allow you to manage version of the process design

• Settings button to allow you to apply process security settings amongst other options

Process level properties

When you click on a process from the main process view, straight away you will see the Process properties in the right-hand pane as shown in the image above. To find out more about process go to the Process properties page.

When you click on a form within a process, then the properties view changes to show Form properties, as shown in the image in Form level properties.

If you want to return to Process properties, click on the process name beside the Designer and chevron symbol, that is:

Form level properties

When you click on a form in Kianda Designer, the properties for that form appear.

To find out more about form properties go to the Form properties page.

Note that at form level, additional buttons appear above Form properties namely:

• Edit/Pen button where clicking on this button opens the Edit dialog box for the chosen item, for example a form.

• Clone button that allows you to make a duplicate form. Click on OK to make a copy or Close to close the dialog box and cancel the copy.

• Bin/trash button where clicking on this button opens a popup asking you to confirm that you want to delete the selected form. Click on OK to make a copy or Close to close the dialog box and cancel the deletion.

Field level properties

When you add controls to forms Kianda Designer, and select a field/control, the properties for that field appear in the right-hand pane.

The type of field/control is listed in the properties pane, for example ‘Text box’ as shown in the image above. How the field appears is easy to control simply by checking/unchecking a number of boxes. To find out more about field/control properties go to the Control properties page.

Change field button

Note that at field level, in addition to the buttons visible at Form level, a Change field button is visible. To change field type:

1. Select a field in a form by clicking on it.

2. Click on the Change field button.

3. A pop-up box appears allowing you to choose from the full range of field types, including customised field widgets created in Kianda Developer.

   

4. Click on the radio button beside the field type of choice and click on OK to make the change, or Close to close the dialog box and cancel the change.

5. An Edit field dialog box appears allowing you to change settings for that new field type.

Settings

In addition to Properties, you can use Settings at process, form and field level to give you the type of processes and forms you want.

Process settings

Basic process information, such as deciding who the process administrators are is available at the main process level, by exiting Designer clicking on the Exit button to go the main process view, and then click on the process name to bring up the Edit process dialog box.

More detailed process settings are available within Kianda Designer in the right-hand pane by clicking on the Settings button and from here use the parameters available in the Process settings dialog box to enable process security, anonymous sharing of forms and custom process ID, amongst other options. Go to Process settings to find out more.

Form and field settings

Form and field settings are available when you select an item in the form canvas so that the Edit/Pen icon is available. An Edit dialog box appears allowing you to make the necessary changes to that item. Edit form dialog box is shown in Editing forms. Field settings will be described within the information page for each field, go to Controls to start navigating to individual control pages.

What’s next

Click on the links to find out more about aspects of Kianda Designer, namely Processes and Forms.

To read about managing versions of forms, go to the link below:

1.1 - Previewer

Introduction

As an Administrator or someone with the role Design business process, you can preview your process designs at any time using the Run and preview process button . This is a useful Kianda feature that allows you to trial out your process, and visualise the logical flow of your design without publishing it yet for your organisation to view/use. Within the preview window, you can also troubleshoot your fields, rules and conditions by utilising the Rule debugger feature.

Prerequisites

Before getting started, you must open a process design of your choice that you would like to perform a trial run on before publishing it to your organisation.

How to get started

To access the previewer feature:

1. Navigate to the left-hand pane of the designer screen and click on the Run and preview process button . From here, your process will display in a preview window only to you or to other Process/workspace security users that have access to the design. For more on this, see Security.

   

2. Within the process preview window, you can enter information as expected and the rules will execute on fields/buttons - the window displaying as a process instance, similar to when it will when published.

3. You can utilise the Rule debugger feature for troubleshooting purposes by clicking on the Enable / Disable Rule debugging button in the top right corner of the window.

   

4. You can preview the process design from the perspective of different devices by clicking on the Device preview buttons to the right of the Rule debugger button. This feature will visualise how your process design is dynamic and responsive on a myriad of devices.

   

   The buttons are as follows:

   • Desktop preview - displays the process instance as it would look on a desktop device.

   • Tablet preview - displays the process instance as it would look on a tablet device.

     

   • Mobile preview - displays the process instance as it would look on a mobile device.

     

   Note: If you select Tablet preview or Mobile preview, a Rotate device button will appear in the top right-hand corner. Clicking on this button will rotate the device screen from portrait to landscape and vice versa in the preview window.

   

5. When you are finished previewing your process design, click on the Exit preview mode button in the top right-hand corner of the previewer window.

You can then choose to make further changes to your process, or continue to save and publish your design for your organisation to view/use.

What’s next

Now that you’ve learned about the Previewer, find out more about other designer features:

• Designer
• Version history

1.2 - Version history

Introduction

As an Administrator or someone with the role Design business process, you can update process designs as often as you need. The Version number of a process will be updated every time a process design is saved by clicking on Save .

The current or active version of a process is always visible in the right-hand pane, for example V0.34 for the ‘Inspection Process’ as shown below.

The first version of a process is 0.1 and will increment to 0.2 and so on, each time a process is saved. Once the process is published the version changes to 1.0 and increments with each publication.

So for example a first click on the Publish button for the process above will make the version V1.0.

If the process is subsequently saved, then the next version will be V1.1 and the next published version will be V2.0.

Using versioning makes it is easy to keep track of changes and to restore the design to an older version if needed.

How to get started with Version history

1. To view the version history click on the Design version history button which may look like V0.1 or whatever is the current version for your process, for example or .

2. A pop-up shows the version history details including when the version was created and who created it.

   In the example below, there are 8 versions of the process, all are drafts indicated by the 0 in front, such as 0.8.

   

3. Click on a particular version to see the version information, for example forms, fields and rules that were added, modified or removed.

   

4. Click on OK or Close to exit the dialog box, or click on the arrow button to go back to the full list of versions.

5. Click on the Restore button beside a particular version and then click on Ok to confirm that you want to restore to that version.

   Note: the new version of the process will increment following a ‘restore’ in this example to V0.9, however the Version history details dialog box will denote that the version is a restored version.

   

6. When you are ready to exit the Version history details dialog box, click on OK or Close.

What’s next

Click on the links to find out more about aspects of Kianda Designer, namely Processes and Forms.

2 - Form basics

Introduction

Processes in Kianda are made up of forms. Forms contain all the buttons, fields, and rule triggers needed to execute your process.

Using your Administrator or Design business process role, you will use Kianda Designer to design forms for end users who will use the platform to submit, save and review information, either as named users in the platform, users who receive a link to an anonymous form, or partners who can access shared processes. These end users will create new process instances or records in the system, or access existing process instances which shows information that has either been saved or submitted in a form.

When discussing forms we’ll talk about form design that is creating and updating forms within a process using Kianda Designer as well form use which refers to end users who will edit or read forms in a process instance/record in the system, built using the Designer.

Form design principles

As you work with Kianda Designer you are designing the ‘user interface’ for users to interact with a particular process. Keeping the end user in mind, there are three design principles:

1. Reading modes: Form users can either use/access forms in edit mode or read mode. Edit mode means that users can submit information, while read mode means that users can only view forms. The latter may be useful for example for certain staff to review customer feedback in a form, but not be able to change/edit the feedback form.

2. Current form: Typically there are several forms in a process, and by default the first form in a process is the current form.

   

   For example in the Training Attendance Process above, the process flow is as follows:

   • Training Request - an employee initiates a process instance by filling out this form

   • Training Approval - the manager approves the request using this form

   • Training Attendance - when training approval occurs, a trainer invites the employee to attend training and once complete, the trainer completes a this form to evaluate the employee’s participation.

     Therefore when a process instance is initiated upon submission of the Training Request form, then the next form in the process becomes the current form, in this case the Training Approval form.

     Only the form that has the status ‘current form’ is editable by a form owner (see point 3 below). In a complex multi-step process, several forms can be configured to activate with the current form, meaning they are also editable at the same time, creating a form group, see section 2 of New form creation. Rules can also be used to change the workflow and make other forms the ‘current form’.

     Also note that all first forms in a process flow add the current user as a ‘form owner’ therefore allowing all users to edit the first form, as clicking on ‘submit’ or ‘save’ in the first form results in a new process instance.

3. Form owner: The default owner is the person or group that the form is assigned to, this means they can edit the current form(s) in a process instance. Default owners are typically set when a form is created, see section 1 of New form creation below. By default, only this person or group can edit the current form in a process instance. All other users can only view forms in read mode. The default owner however can reassign forms to other individuals and/or groups. Form ownership can also be assigned dynamically using the Assign form rule.

These three considerations are established when the form is created, as seen in the dialog box below, and these parameters can be updated at any time by editing the form design. These properties can also change dynamically as a result of implementing rules, for example the Go to form rule can change the workflow in a process.

New form creation

As mentioned in the Introduction there are certain considerations to keep in mind when working with forms. The image below shows a New form dialog box that is created when the Add form button is clicked in Kianda Designer. At any time if you click on a form and then the Edit/pen button an Edit form dialog box appears which has the same parameters as the one shown in the image below.

New form dialog box

New form considerations

1. The Default owner(s) field is where you can set individuals and groups as the default form owners who can edit the form.
2. Activate with means that the form can be activated with other forms within the process, so they can be edited at the same time. This means several forms become the current form in a form group.
3. Submit mode means that when a process instance is running you can choose only this form to be submitted, or you can choose all forms in edit mode meaning that several forms could have their details submitted or saved.
4. Enable quick actions allows you to statically enable a) reassignment, b) edit, and c) custom actions on any form. For a) and b) you can choose individuals and/or groups who can reassign or edit forms. In the case of b) edit there are options to hide form footer buttons when editing, and to trigger rules on save against a set field when saving edits. For c) custom actions, you can set your own custom action and create an action label against a particular form field. This means that the user(s) assigning the custom action will see the labelled action designated for them. As a designer you can choose the action display mode as read-only, edit or both, so you can decide what type of access the user(s) will have.

What’s next

We have briefly introduced the principles of working with forms. To read more about working with forms, click on the links below:

2.1 - Form owners

Introduction

When creating forms, it is important to consider form access during the design phase, that is who can access and edit forms in a process instance. For example if an employee submits a performance review form, a line manager may wish to access that submitted process instance/record and edit the form, adding in comments and performance grades.

There are two key principles to keep in mind in terms of form access:

1. Forms are assignable - this means that forms can be assigned to individuals and/or groups, and then only they can edit the form, when it is the current form, in a process instance. The ‘assignee’ can be a combination of users and groups. There are various ways a form can be assigned to a user:

   ​ a) Using Rules, in particular the Workflow rule Assign form, see Assign form for details

   ​ b) Using Quick actions, see Form Quick action for details

   ​ c) Creating form owners when creating or updating a process design, see Creating form owners for details

2. Only form owners can edit a given form when it is a current form in a process flow by default. Any other user with access to view the form will see it in read-only mode.

So what is form owner? A form owner is assigned when a form is created in Kianda Designer. Form owners can also be added to a form design at a later stage by editing the form. Only the form owner will be able to edit current forms in process instances (records), see below.

Getting started with Form owners

Creating form owners

1. Click on a process by going to Administration > Designer and click on an existing process or create a new process by clicking on Add new and complete the Add new process dialog box.
2. Then within Kianda Designer click on a form of interest and then click on the Edit/(Pen) button for that form.
3. In the New form/Edit form dialog box you can add form owners in the Default owner(s) field.

​ Using the dropdown list choose from:

• Users - Users must already be in the system, see Users & Groups
• Groups - Groups must be defined in advance, see Users & Groups
• Partners - Partners must be already in the system and active, see B2B portals

4. If you make a mistake, or form owners need to be changed in an existing process, click on the x beside the name of the Users, Groups or Partners to remove them and choose from the dropdown list again.
5. Add to or edit the remaining parameters in the dialog box as desired, see Editing forms and click on OK when complete, or Close to exit the dialog box at any time.

Changing form access

The default owner is the person or group that the form is assigned to using the default owner field in the new form dialog box as shown above. By default, only this person or group can edit the current form in a process instance. All other users can only view forms in read mode. The next section details how to Change default owners.

It is also possible to allow other users to have edit access to forms using the Assign rule and Quick actions.

Changing default owners

1. Using your Administration or Design business process role, go to Administration > Designer > select a process > select a form in the process.

2. Click on the form so the Edit/Pen button appears in the form name.

   

3. Then click on the Edit/Pen button itself to edit the form.

4. An Edit form dialog box opens which has the same layout as the New form dialog box seen in Creating form owners above.

   

5. Here you can change the default owner choosing from Users, Groups and Partners as before.

What’s next

To learn more about rules including Assign rule go to Rules.

To find out how forms work within processes go to Process.

2.2 - Form display modes

Introduction

Remember there are three principles to consider when working with forms:

• Reading modes: Form users can either use forms in edit mode or read mode. Edit mode means that users can submit information, while read mode means that users can only view forms. The latter may be useful for example for certain staff to review feedback in a form, but not be able to edit/update it.
• Form owner: The default owner is the person or group that the form is assigned to when the the form is created. By default, only this person or group can edit the current form. All other users can only view forms in read mode. The default owner however can reassign forms to other individuals and/or groups.
• Current form: Typically there are several forms in a process, and only the form that has the status ‘current form’ is editable. However, in a complex multi-step process, other forms can be configured to activate with the current form, meaning they can also become editable at the same time, creating a form group.

These three considerations are established when the form is created, as seen in the dialog box below.

New form dialog box

These properties can also change dynamically as a result of rules being applied, see Rules.

Setting display modes statically

Remember forms in process instances are either in edit mode meaning they can be edited/changed or read mode where the details are visible to form users but cannot be changed. The actions below refer to making forms editable so if the actions below are not used, then the forms are in read mode. The actions below refer to static or fixed use, set when the form is first created or updated at a later time.

1. Forms in process instances will be editable for Default owner(s), that is the form owners defined when the form is created, or a form is edited. Form owners are defined in the New form/Edit form dialog box, shown in part 1 of the image above. When a process instance runs, the form owner can then edit the form in that instance.

2. By default the first form in a process becomes the current form, so only this form will be editable. However if several forms are activated with the current form when the form is created or edited in the New form/Edit form dialog box shown above, then all forms in that group will be editable by the form owner in a process instance.

3. By default the Submit mode for forms is Only this form meaning that when a process instance is running you can choose only that particular form can have details submitted or saved. Alternatively you can choose all forms in edit mode, meaning that several forms can have their details submitted or saved. For example if several forms are activated together and all are in edit mode then the details of all these forms can be submitted together in the database.

4. Forms can be statically set to allow Quick actions including allowing editing. When a form is created or edited using the New form/Edit form dialog box, clicking on Enable quick actions allows you to statically enable:

   a) reassignment of forms

   b) editing of forms

   c) custom actions on any form

   For a) and b) you can choose individuals and/or groups who can reassign or edit forms. In the case of b) edit there are options to hide form footer buttons when editing, and to trigger rules on save against a set field when saving edits.

   

   For c) custom actions, you can set your own custom action and create an action label against a particular form field. This means that the user(s) assigning the custom action will see the labelled action designated for them. As a designer you can choose the action display mode as read-only, edit or both, so you can decide what type of access the user(s) will have.

Changing form display dynamically with rules

If you use the Form action rule called Field display mode, you can change how a field or form displays dynamically. For example you have a condition set that the display will change based on the condition being present or not.

When you add this rule, under Action you can choose a field or form and choose from Edit mode or Read mode.

For more information on this rule go to Field Display mode rule.

Other rules can be used in other ways to change process workflow and therefore how forms behave. For example using the Assign form rule you can assign a form to a particular user, making them the form owner, and therefore giving them edit access to the form.

What’s next

To read more about form ownership go to Form owner. To read more about quick actions, go to Form quick actions menu.

2.3 - Form quick actions menu

Introduction

The Form quick action menu will appear to designated users as a quick action menu option in the top right-hand corner of a form.

Depending on what type of quick actions are enabled and if you are assigned quick actions as a form user,, then you will see options when you click on the quick action button , for example to reassign a form to someone else, or to perform a custom action like signing off on a purchase order.

How to get started

To enable quick actions, click on a process with Kianda Designer and then a form of choice so that the Edit (Pen) icon is visible.

1. Click on the to edit a form.

2. In the Edit form dialog box, check the checkbox beside Enable quick actions.

3. When you select Enable quick actions then you have three options to select:

   • Enable re-assign - allows a form in a process instance to be reassigned to a by a designated person/group
   • Enable edit - allows a form in a process instance to be edited by a designated person/group
   • Enable custom action - allows a form in a process instance to have customised actions associated with it, and these actions are assigned to a designated person/group

   

   Check the checkbox beside the desired action as necessary. Each option is further explored below.

Enable reassignment

When you check a checkbox for example Enable re-assign then you can click on the Ellipsis button then you can select Users, Groups and Partners who can be chosen to reassign the form to. There is also a checkbox to allow form owners to reassign forms to other users.

Enable edit

This opens the Action settings dialog box, such as the Edit action settings box shown in the image below.

1. Choose from the options in the action settings dialog box:

   • Edit action users - select the Users, Groups or Partners who will use the action
   • Allow form owners - allows form owners to use the action
   • When editing auto hide form footer buttons - hides form footer buttons when users are editing forms in a process instance
   • Trigger rules on save - allows rules to be triggered when a form is saved/submitted. In this case, select the button name used as the trigger in the Save action field

2. Click on OK when complete or Close to exit the dialog box.

Enable custom action

If you check Enable custom action users who have been selected using the Users, Groups and Partners option, will be able to perform a customised action on a form, defined using the dialog box within this section.

What’s next

To read more about how to create processes and forms go to Application Designer.

To find out about help and support, go to Help.

2.4 - Form responsive layout

Responsive layout refers to the fact that all forms will display equally well on laptop screens, tablets and mobile phone screens. As a form designer you can set the appearance of form fields using the layout function.

How to get started

Within Kianda Designer, click on a process, then a form of choice so that the Edit (Pen) icon is visible.

1. Click on a field of choice within the form so the Edit (Pen) icon is visible for the field.
2. Click on the Edit (Pen) icon button for the field.
3. Click on Layout under Field properties in the right-hand pane.
4. Click on the Expand button within Layout to see desktop layout see Layout bar and Mobile Layout for the field.
5. Click on the blue bars to extend the size of the field, for example in the image above, the desktop layout is 50% of the maximum width available, so the field ‘Department Manager’ would only take up half the width of the form. The mobile layout however is set to 100% and the field would take up the maximum width available. There are 12 possible width options that can be used within these bars.
6. Click on the Collapse button to minimise the Layout property.

What’s next

To read more about how to create processes and forms go to Application Designer.

To find out about help and support, go to Help.

3 - Getting started with Kianda processes

The power of Kianda lies in giving anyone, even those without coding experience, the ability to design a business application or process quickly and efficiently, for example, this process could be a Quality Assurance checklist that installation engineers must follow on site using a mobile app or it could be a HR process to allow employees to submit annual leave requests and approve these online. Processes can connect to your data sources like Sharepoint or SalesForce allowing for the flexibility of your applications to grow as your business grows.

Each process can be linked to dashboards so you can see at a glance, for example, how many leave requests were submitted, purchase orders approved and so on. And you can customise all of these processes the way you want.

Before you begin, we at Kianda recommend doing some simple planning before you design your process. It could be something as simple as a quick flow chart or a spreadsheet where you quickly log the key components, fields or rules that should be needed in the process.

Creating processes

1. To start creating your first process, go to the side menu on the left of the screen and click on Administration > Designer.

2. To create processes you can:

   • Use Kianda’s pre-defined processes or Apps, see Using the App Store.

   • Create your own processes from scratch, see Creating your own processes.

   • Import processes that are already created, see Importing processes.

3. When you have created your process(es) go to Editing processes to find out how to start adding forms.

4. You can also export any processes for backup and reuse, see Exporting processes.

Using the App Store

1. You can choose from Kianda’s process templates by clicking on the App Store button .

2. Choose from General, IT, Customer Services, Finance, Travel, Quality and Accounting apps by clicking on the relevant button in the left-hand pane and then select an app from within that category, for example Customer Support Queries.

   

3. You can click on Read More to read about the app and click on Import Process App to import the process.

   

4. If the process is an existing process, you can choose to override the existing process by clicking Yes or if not, click No. Change the Title and Name of the process as needed, for example Customer Queries, and click on Next.

   

5. The system will report datasources being imported. Click on Next.

   

6. Select dashboards to be included by checking the checkbox beside dashboards you want to import. In each case you can decide to override the existing dashboards by clicking on Yes or if not No. Click on Next.

   

7. You will see a summary of what is about to be imported. Click on Import to execute the import.

8. Imported processes are available to view and edit from the main process view.

9. When you have created your process go to Designer to find out more on how to add and change forms within your process(es).

Creating your own processes

1. To create your own process, click on the Add new button . Note that if you click on the arrow on the button, you have options to create a Process, a Component or Create from datasource.

   

   • A Process is a complete set of forms that encapsulates a business process for example, Purchase Order Approval.

   • A Component is a part of a business process, and you can decide your approach and how you want to order and present forms.

   • Create from datasource refers to using a particular data source and elements within that datasource tree, for example if you choose Kianda pre-defined processes then when you select Kianda you can see all the processes that are already imported into your system as shown on the right in the image below.

     

     Click on the OK button when you are finished to save your work, or click on Close to exit the dialog box.

2. The following edit options are available:

   • Title - of the process, for example Annual Leave Approval

   • ID - this is a unique name for the field

   • Description - a description of the process

   • Group - a defined group of users for example HR Managers. If you choose ‘Create new group’, a further field New group name will be displayed, where you will enter the new group’s name.

   • Administrators - choose from a) Users or b) Groups

     These are the users or groups who will act as administrators for the process, for example to edit or delete the process. For example if you click on Users and click in the Administrators field you will see a list of all the users who are approved to administrate this process.

     

3. Click on the OK button when you are finished to save your work, or click on Close to exit the dialog box.

4. When you have created your process go to Designer to find out more on how to add forms to your process(es).

Importing processes

1. If you already have Kianda processes, you can also import these by clicking on the Import button .

2. Click on the Browse Process App button to browse for Kianda files.

3. Select the files you want, for example quarterly-training-request.kianda and click on Open.

   

4. If the process name is an already existing process in your environment, then this new process will override it. However, if the process name does not match any current process, a new process will be created. Change the Title and Name of the process as needed and click on Next.

   

5. The system will report any datasources being imported. Click on Next.

   

6. Under Dashboards to be included, you can view the Title and Name of the dashboards that are present in the Kianda file. If this dashboard already exists in your environment, then including this dashboard in your upload will overwrite it. If this dashboard does not currently exist, then it will create a new dashboard. When finished, click on Next.

   

7. Under Included custom widgets, you can view the title of the custom widgets that are included within the Kianda file being imported. In this example, a Custom dashboard widget is included for use within the User Training Dashboard. Click on Next to continue.

   

8. You will see a summary of what is about to be imported. Click on Import to execute the import.

   

9. Imported processes are available to view and edit from the main process view.

10. When you have imported your process(es) go to Designer to find out more on how to edit or add forms to your process(es).

Editing processes

1. When processes are created they are available to view and to edit from the central view panel found within Administration > Designer.

   

   Information related to your processes, is found in this panel, for example who created the process, and when, the version of the process and a description if it exists.

2. The first version of a process is 0.1 and will increment to 0.2 and so on, each time a process is updated. Once the process is published the version changes to 1.0 and increments with each publication. This makes it is easy to keep track of who made changes and when, and to restore an older version if needed. You can also search for processes by typing your keywords into the search bar.

3. At any time you can edit the Title, Description, Group and Administrators of the process by clicking on the Pen button beside your process of choice.

4. At any time you can delete a process by clicking on the Bin/Trash button and then click on Ok after you have reviewed the process title and you are sure that this is what you want to delete. Click on Cancel if you wish to cancel the deletion.

5. Once you have created your process, you are ready to add forms. Go to Designer to find out more on how to add and change forms within your process(es).

Exporting processes

1. You can export any processes, by clicking on the Export button and select a process to export from the dropdown list. Click on Next when you have selected your desired process.

   

2. The system will report what datasources are included. Click on Next.

   

3. Select dashboards to be included by checking the checkbox beside dashboards you want to export. Click on Next.

   

4. Under Include custom widgets?, you check the checkbox beside the displayed custom widget(s) to include this custom widget within the exported Kianda file. In this example, a Custom dashboard widget is included for use within the User Training Dashboard. Click on Next to continue.

   

5. The final screen displays a confirmation message communicating that the process is now ready for export. Click on the Export button to export the Kianda file.

6. The result is a downloadable file of type .kianda. This can be kept as a backup on a separate system and imported into other Kianda instances as needed.

   

What’s next

We have briefly introduced how to create, edit and export processes. To read more about process instances and settings go to the links below:

3.1 - Process instance

Introduction

Kianda processes are made up of forms, which in turn contain fields or controls and rules. Fields are used to take in user input, make calculations, display values and so on, and rules are used to execute actions to drive the process.

Kianda Designer is used to create these forms and form elements within a process. Each process in Kianda Designer will have it’s own unique link or URL and this can be shared with other form designers for co-creation, for example, for a process named ‘Training process’ the link is:

https://green-itr.kianda.com/admin/designer/training-process

Process instances

When your process is created in Kianda Designer, you can save the process, and then submit data to that process. When you save or submit data, then an instance of the process is created. Another name for a process instance is a record. This instance is tied to user data or calculated values, or to whatever the process is designed to do.

The instance has a unique ID which can be seen in a list widget in a dashboard. For example, this List widget displays the individual records of various training requests submitted by employees. The unique ID for each record is shown in the first column. Form owners or those with security access can click on ID ‘training-request-and-feedback-process-26’ to view the training request form completed and submitted by employee Mark Donnelli.

List widget in a dashboard showing process instances

This means that each new record generated by a process will have its own unique URL that can be shared with those who have the required security access and need to be involved in that particular process instance. For example, in this case, the training request submitted by Mark (an employee) may be viewed and approved by his line manager:

https://green-itr.kianda.com/forms/training-request-and-feedback-process-26

You can create a link on your dashboard – in the example shown above, the Start new process button at the top right of the Training Requests list widget – that enables you to create a new record by bringing you into the relevant form. For information on creating list widgets go to List widget.

If you commit to the process by submitting or saving information, then the result is a new process instance – that is, a new unique record – which will be seen in a list widget in the dashboard, as seen in the image above.

Keeping in mind that Designer is used to create processes, and that each ‘run’ of the process design results in a unique process instance or record, will help you later on when designing forms and dashboards. See Process settings for more details on process settings and parameters and Dashboards for more information on dashboards.

3.2 - Process settings

Introduction

There are a number of properties and settings that you can implement to your process and forms.

Settings and properties

Settings are available from the right-hand pane and give you the ability to:

• Import processes

• View Version history

• Change Process settings .

• Edit form information by selecting a form and clicking on the Pen button .

• Change a field to another field by clicking on Change field

• Create a duplicate form by selecting a form, clicking on the Clone button and then click on Ok. A version called ‘Form Name Copy’ is created and available to edit on the canvas. The Clone button can also be used to clone form elements like controls or buttons.

• Delete a form by selecting a form, clicking on the Bin/Trash button and then click on Ok after you have reviewed the form title and you are sure this is what you want to delete. Click on Cancel if you wish to cancel the deletion.

• View and edit Form properties and rules.

Process settings

You can edit process settings by clicking on the Settings button in the right-hand pane.

Within process settings, there are four tabs to navigate to:

1. General:

• Process ID Settings - choose from a) Default or b) Custom and use a combination of [ProcessName]-[UniqueNumber]-[FieldName]

• On load rules execution mode - options are a) Always b) When in edit mode or c) When open new. The default setting is Always.

• Enable form assignment notification? - options are a) Yes or b) No

• Prevent closing instance with unsaved data? - options are a) Yes or b) No

• Enable process navigator? - options are a) Yes or b) No. If you select Yes, the Process navigator tab will appear in the right hand panel, allowing you to quickly snap to and view desired form controls and rules.

  

  

2. Security:

• Enable process security - if you tick the checkbox, can allow certain Users, Groups or Partners to have certain privileges related to the radio button options to create, assign and view as shown below. The default setting is Security users can create, assign to can update, everyone else can view.

• Instance delete settings - options are a) Any user can delete b) Creator can delete c) “Current form owner” can delete d) “Security users” can delete e) “Admins only” can delete. The default setting is Creator can delete.

3. Tabs:

• Hide form tabs - gives you the ability to hide form tabs, options are a) Yes or b) No

• Hide left nav - gives you the ability to hide navigation elements, options are a) Yes or b) No

• Enable mobile navigation? - options are a) Yes or b) No

• Selected tab theme - choose from Navy, Green, Blue, Amber, Red or White as a colour when a form is selected.

• Completed tab theme - choose from Navy, Green, Blue, Amber, Red or White as a colour when a form is completed.

4. Anonymous Form:

• Enable anonymous sharing of forms - gives you the ability to share forms with people outside your organisation for example a feedback form or GDPR subject access request. Options are a) Yes or b) No. If you click on Yes there are various options that you can add:

  • Click on New link to generate a new anonymous form link to share with users and click on Edit to change the link.
  • Message to display after anonymous submission - to add a display message.
  • Hide form topbar - checkbox to hide the form topbar.
  • Force authenticated user to log out - options are a) Yes or b) No to force the authenticated user to log out once the form is submitted. If No is selected, you can choose to Redirect authenticated user to:
    • Process URL
    • Workspace Home
    • The result is a globally available link to allow external users to create a new instance. You can use the Anonymous form link Rule to generate a new anonymous link at runtime that will point to an existing process instance that can be shared with external users.

When you are finished editing the process settings:

1. Click on the OK button to save your changes or click on Close to exit the dialog box without saving.
2. Click on the Exit button to go back to the process list, the Save button to save your work, the Preview button to preview what you have created and the Publish button to publish your work.

What’s next

• To learn more about rules and controls that can be applied to forms go to Controls and Rules.
• To learn more about properties, go to Properties.

3.3 - Process properties

In Kianda every process, every form and every control field such as text boxes and lists, will have properties visible in the right-hand pane of the Designer view.

Process properties

When you go to Administration > Designer > click on a process > Process properties in the right-hand pane, you will see the properties for the chosen process.

The following properties are visible:

• Title - the title of process for example Quarterly Training Request
• Page layout - you can click on Wide or Narrow to change the layout.

In the image above, the process ‘Quarterly Training Request’ has 2 forms ‘Training Request’ and ‘Training Approval’. Clicking on one of these forms will show the Form properties.

Form properties

When you click on a form, the Form properties appear in the right-hand pane.

The following properties are visible:

• Title - the form title, for example Training Request

• Visible - click on this checkbox if you want the form to be visible to users

• Show info - click on this checkbox if you want to show information, for example who are the form owners, the design version and when the form was started and completed. This information will pop up at the bottom of the form.

  

Underneath form properties you will see Form submit rules, go to Rules to find out more about Form rules.

Click on a control field, for example a text box, in the form to see Field properties.

Field properties

When you click on any field, such as User picker, list or text box, the field properties appear in the right-hand pane.

The Field type, in the example above, Text box, is shown along with the Title of the field, in the example above, this is Employee Name.

The options within properties are:

• Show Title - show the title of the field
• Required - tick this checkbox to make this field mandatory for users to fill out
• Enabled - tick this checkbox to make the field enabled for users to fill out
• Visible - tick this checkbox to make the field visible to users
• Layout - change the width of the field by clicking on the bar in the Layout box until you see the desired size. Click on the arrow beside Layout to see the Mobile Layout and click on the bar to change the width of the text box for mobile use.

Underneath field properties you will see Rules, go to Rules to find out more about Field rules.

3.4 - Process common fields

Introduction

Within every process, there are forms and forms contain fields. The fields you add in, such as a text box, list or button are called Design fields. For example as seen in Field properties you can change properties for a textbox field, like making the field Required and Visible for form users as shown in the image below for the Training Request form field called ‘Employee Name’

These design fields are also apparent when creating dashboards, for example list widgets. In the example below we can see the Design fields highlighted that are found in the Training Request form. These highlighted fields like Employee Name will appear in the list widget in the dashboard.

Clicking on List fields in list widget shown above will show all the fields that will appear in the widget.

Note that non Design fields are also included in the fields to display, namely ID, Process Name and Modified fields. These fields are part of the set of Common fields associated with all Kianda processes.

Common fields

The non-design fields associated with all Kianda processes are listed below. It is useful to keep these fields in mind when designing forms, as they can be used to retrieve, store or display values from process instances for example Status which is the status of a process instance. Using these ‘internal values’ could be useful where the status of one process could be used as a condition to trigger the start of another process, for example using the Start a process rule.

The common fields associated with process instances are:

What’s next

• To learn more about design controls that can be applied to forms go to Controls.
• To learn more about how common fields are displayed in dashboards in a list widget go to List widget.

3.5 - Process navigator

Process navigator can be found in each process design in the right-hand pane. The navigator is used to help you navigate to fields and rules that are present within you process. By clicking on a field for example, you will be navigated specifically to where the field is within your process while also highlighting the field with a border for a short period of time. You can also do the same for rules, once you click on a rule in the navigator, you will be brought to the form where the rule is located and it will highlight the specific field that the rule is attached to.

The very useful feature of the process navigator is its search bar. With big processes that contain many forms, fields and rules can be overwhelming and time consuming to look for a particular filed or rule. You can simply type in the name of the filed/rule and options will appear under the Process Navigator

How to turn on the process navigator

By default the process navigator is turned off within each process design. To turn the process navigator on:

1. First, navigate to the desired process by going to Administrator > Designer > click on desired process.

2. Go to Settings of the process found on the right-hand pane.

   

3. In the General tab of the Process Settings dialog box, select Yes on the Enable process navigator.

4. Click OK on the dialog box.

5. Click process save button.

How to use the process navigator

When you have your process navigator turned on, you will be able to see it on the right-hand pane underneath the rules tab.

How to navigate to a field/rule

1. Click on the Process navigator tab to expand it. This will allow you to see all forms that are present within your process.

2. Expand a form in which the desired field is located by clicking on the plus, or simply type in the name of the field into the process navigator search bar.

   

3. Click on the field you wish to navigate to. The navigator will jump straight into the form that the field is in and the field itself will be highlighted for a brief period of time. See the image below for an example when navigating to a Comments field within a process design:

   

How to search for a filed/rule

The very useful feature of the process navigator is its search bar. With big processes that contain many forms, fields and rules can be overwhelming and time consuming to look for a particular filed or rule. You can simply type in the name of the filed/rule and options will appear under the Process navigator.

1. In the provided search textbox of the process navigator, type in the Name of the filed or rule your trying to navigate to.

2. Once you start typing, fields and rules will start to show that contain the text within the search textbox.

   

   In the above image you can see that when the word date is entered, all fields and rules that contain the word date will show in the process navigator. You can then click on the desired field/rule for the navigator to navigate you to the location.

What’s next

• To learn more about design controls that can be applied to forms go to Controls.

4 - Component

Introduction

A Kianda component acts like a smaller version of a process made up of various control fields and rules. You can reuse the component in your process designs to save you time and effort when creating each field and rule combination from the beginning. Within the component you can add all preconfigured control types and rules to match your needs, as well as customised field and rules found under Custom. Creating a component will significantly speed up your process creation time if some of your processes demand the same fields and logic. For example if a lot of your processes have sections in common, for example a Personal Details section where a user needs to fill in their first and last name, email, job role, and phone number. To save process creation time, you can create a component with those exact fields and rules you need and then use the component in various process designs.

The component you create can be updated at any time. Once you publish your component it can be used in any process of your choice and any processes that already use your component will be automatically updated.

How to get started

How to create a new component

1. From the home page, navigate to Administrator > Designer.

2. When you are in the Process designer screen navigate your mouse to the button and click the down arrow.

   

3. In the dropdown menu click on Component.

   

4. In the Add new component dialog box, fill in the following detail:

   

   • Title - represents the title of your component.
   • ID - represents the unique id of the component. Ensure that the ID entered here is unique across all components and processes.
   • Description - enter a valid description of the component you are creating.
   • Group - using this drop-down list, you can add your component to a existing group or create a new one.
   • Administrators - select the appropriate component administrators from , to read more about process and component administrators visit Process security.

5. Click on OK when you are finished filling out the detail. You will be automatically moved to the component designer screen.

Editing an existing component

1. From the home page, navigate to Administrator > Designer.

2. In the Process designer screen, navigate to the folder (if used) where your component is click the Edit button . Note that the type will state Component within the list of all processes and components.

   

3. The Edit component dialog will appear allowing you to change some of the detail which include:

   • Title
   • Description
   • Group
   • Administrators

4. When you are happy with the changes made to the details, click on OK.

Accessing an existing component

1. From the home page, navigate to Administrator > Designer.

2. In the Process designer screen, in the list of processes, components and folders, navigate to the until you see your component and click on the title.

   

3. You will be navigated to the component designer screen.

What’s next

• To read more about field control visit Controls.
• To read more about rules visit Rules.

5 - Create from Datasource

Introduction

The Create from Datasource feature allows you to create a process using a Datasource of your choice where the datasource elements will populate your Kianda form. Note that the datasource is already created within your platform within the Administration > Data sources section.

Using this feature serves as a way of swiftly populating your process with the relevant fields from your datasource lists so that you can increase design productivity from the beginning.

See below for an example of SharePoint columns being populated into the Kianda process as fields:

How to get started

Creating a process from a datasource

1. From the home page, navigate to Administrator > Designer.

2. When you are in the Process designer screen navigate your mouse to the button and click the small down arrow.

   

3. In the dropdown menu click on Create from datasource.

   

4. In the Select datasource dialog box, fill in the following details, note that these data sources must be precreated using the Datasource function under Administration:

   

   • Replace list form with Kianda forms? - select between Yes or No, where the default option is Yes.

   • Datasources - select your datasource of choice that you would like to create the process with. The window displays data sources that are already created and connected within your Kianda platform. For more information, see Datasources. In this example we will choose a SharePoint datasource.

   • Datasource tree - once a datasource has been selected, select which elements in that datasource that you want to use in your process, for example a list or a folder. You can drill down into the tree by clicking on the main datasource node at the top and select the relevant element, and you can search the tree by using the search bar in the top right. In this example we will choose Accounts as shown in the image above.

5. Click on OK when you are finished filling out the details. Alternatively you can click Close to exit the creation dialog.

   Note: When creating a new process from a datasource, ensure that there is not already a process with the name of the datasource list as this may cause conflicts in the unique names of the processes.

Your process will then be opened and it will detect all the fields of your selected datasource node and populate them into a form of the same name.

Note: If you create new list columns within your chosen datasource, these options will not be reflected within the design unless you repeat the creation process.

What’s next

• To read more about field control visit Controls.
• To read more about rules visit Rules.
• To read more about datasources visit Datasources.