Smart Form Manager
- Jennifer Dewey
- Heather Smith
- Amanda Fischer
In Regent’s Smart Form Manager tool, clients with a Regent Fund or Regent Review license can create new smart forms, edit client-created smart forms, and import smart forms from different instances (e.g. QA to Production). Smart forms can be designed using conditional logic to tailor each question to the individual completing the form. Document workflows can leverage the use of smart forms in managing the notification, submission, and review of an application.
Clients are not required to create, edit, or manage their own custom smart forms. Clients may continue to engage Regent for support in creating, editing, or updating any custom smart forms.
PLEASE NOTE the following important warnings and guidance regarding Smart Form Manager:
Clients must not make changes to any of Regent’s standard smart forms, including:
All Verification Worksheets
FERPA Authorizations
Thank You Note
Title IV Authorizations
MHEC Remain Drug Free
Any forms related to State Fund awarding
Clients must follow the procedures below when making changes to any existing custom smart form.
Clients should never create or edit smart forms directly in Production. Always create/edit and fully validate smart forms in a QA instance, then export and import/upload a successfully validated smart form to Production.
Clients should export smart forms drafted in a QA to prevent overwriting by scheduled or ad-hoc restores.
Any data clean-up efforts that are required as a result of client actions on smart forms may require a Statement of Work (SOW) with associated costs paid by the client.
Procedures for Updating Forms Using Smart Form Manager
Create a CZ ticket to communicate updates to the form and provide a clear description of the changes being made.
Make a copy of the form in Smart Form Manager and increment the Revision Number on the Information tab.
After changes are made, export the Smart Form and attach the file to the ticket, including the revision number in the file name.
After testing of changes, when the new version is imported into the Production environment, select ‘Invalidate Smart Forms with the same name.’
If future changes to the form are requested from Regent, the latest revision of the form must be included in the ticket to ensure Regent is working from the correct version.
Table of Contents
Overview
Once enabled on the backend by Regent, the Smart Form Manager is available in the Regent Tools menu for users with the Global Permission enabled for the assigned role to view and edit smart forms within the Smart Form Manager tool. This tool is designed to be used at the Enterprise level, but an Institution- or Campus-specific Smart Form can be created and associated to a document via Document Setup for one or more Institution or Campus.
To use the Smart Form Manager, a client must:
Submit a Customer Zone Support ticket requesting Smart Form Manager and Admin Panel Tools be enabled on the backend by Regent
Be on Regent Release 6.5.0.0 or a subsequent Release.
Update Global Permissions → Tools Permissions → Smart Form Manager for applicable user role(s).
Ensure all Active (able to be used) and Inactive (not in use) smart forms are visible.
Accessing Smart Form Manager
To access the Smart Form Manager, go to Tools in the left navigation menu and click Smart Form Manager. The following options are available in the Smart Form Manager tab tree-view:
+ Create Smart Form – Begin the creation of a new smart form
+ Import Smart Form – Import/upload a smart form from one instance to another, e.g. QA to Production
→ Active Smart Forms – Access an existing ‘Active' smart form. A smart form is considered ‘Active’ if today’s date falls within the effective Start Date and End Date defined on the Smart Form Information tab.
→ Inactive Smart Forms – Access an existing ‘Inactive’ smart form. A smart form is considered ‘Inactive’ if today’s date does not fall within the effective Start and End Date defined on the Smart Form Information tab.
Creating (or Editing) a Smart Form
To create a new smart form from scratch, select the “Create Smart Form” option in the Smart Form Manager.
To copy an existing smart form as the starting point for a new smart form, select the existing smart form from the nested list under Active Smart Forms or Inactive Smart Forms and click the Copy tab. Complete the fields on the Copy tab to copy the selected smart form to the same QA instance. The newly created smart form will appear in the same destination (Active or Inactive Smart Forms) as the copied smart form. All data from the copied smart form will be applied to the new smart form, excluding dependencies or validators. Note: The user must update the Code field to a unique value.
To export an existing smart form as the starting point for a new smart form, select the existing smart form from the nested list under Active Smart Forms or Inactive Smart Forms and click the Export tab. The existing smart form will be exported as an eXtensible Markup Language (XML) file to the user’s computer, which can subsequently be imported into another environment via the Import Smart Form in the treeview menu.
General Smart Form Setup
In the UI, the user will be presented with key data fields to be completed. Fields names indicated in red text are required. After the data on this screen is saved, other setup tabs for the smart form are presented and the form is available in either the Active Smart Forms or Inactive Smart Forms menu, depending on the Start Date and End Date values that were entered. Four tabs are used to setup the general information for the smart form:
Information tab
Document Persistence tab
Student Persistence tab
Parent/Spouse Persistence tab
Smart Form > Information tab
The Information tab provides basic smart form setup information. Once entered data on this screen is saved, other setup tabs for the smart form are presented and the form is available in either the Active Smart Forms or Inactive Smart Forms menu, depending on the effective dates.
Smart Form > Document Persistence tab
Clients must use caution when adding document persistence for documents that are configured to ‘Block Packaging’ or ‘Block Disbursements’. If persistence is inaccurate, funds may not be packaged and/or disbursed as expected.
Persistence is the automated creation or assignment of defined data within Regent. Document Persistence allows users to create rules using regular expressions to add or update a document requirement in Regent (see JavaScript RegExp (Regular Expression) - GeeksforGeeks). Persisted document requirements are added and updated upon the completion of the smart form, including signature(s). The document requirement is only added or updated if the expression results are true. For example, if a student selects the response, ‘I was married at the time of FAFSA completion but am no longer married’ to a smart form question, Document Persistence can be created to add a Divorce Decree document requirement with a status of ‘Needed’ to collect the additional documentation required based on the student response.
Document Setup must be considered when adding Document Persistence. For example, if a document is configured to ‘Enforce Scope Uniqueness’, a new document will not be added if the document already exists; however, the status of an existing document can be updated via Document Persistence. Alternatively, if documents are configured to be added automatically via another process (e.g. ISIR Import), the Document Persistence can be used to update the Document Status on an existing document(s). For example, Document A is a document requirement assigned by ISIR Import with an initial status of “Needed”. The student completes and signs Smart Form Z, which has Document Persistence defined to update the status of Document A from “Needed” to “Waived”.
Smart Form > Student Persistence tab
Student Persistence updates the Student Details tab > Student Portal Authorization fields in Regent based on the smart form question response(s). Student Persistence is added and updated upon the completion of the smart form, including all required signature(s).
Smart Form > Parent/Spouse Persistence tab
Parent/Spouse Persistence updates the Student Details tab > Parent/Spouse Reference Information fields in Regent based on the smart form question response(s). Parent/Spouse Persistence is added and updated upon the completion of the smart form, including all required signature(s).
Sections/Groups/Questions
A smart form is comprised of Sections, which are comprised of Groups, which are comprised of Questions.
Sections
In the Student Experience portal, each smart form Section will be listed in the menu for the smart form. Sections are presented in order based on the number entered in the Section > Sort Order field.
Two tabs are used to setup Sections in the Smart Form Manager:
Information
Dependencies
Section > Information Tab
The Information tab provides basic setup information for the smart form Section, including Section Name and Sort Order.
Section > Dependencies tab
Dependencies determine when a section will be presented within the smart form based on defined rules. Dependencies can be applied at the Section, Group, and Question level. See Dependencies section below for more information.
Groups
Groups are used within each section to categorize questions. Each group is comprised of one or more questions. All questions contained within a group are organized beneath the Group name defined and displayed within each section. Groups display in the smart form in order based on the number entered in the Group Sort Order field.
Two tabs are used to set up Groups in the Smart Form Manager:
Information
Dependencies
Group > Information tab
The Information tab provides basic setup information for the smart form Group, including Group Name and Sort Order.
Group > Dependencies tab
Dependencies determine when a group will be presented within the form based on set rules. Dependencies can be applied at Section, Group, and Question level. See Dependencies section below for more information.
Questions
Questions are displayed within each group. Each group is comprised of one or more questions. All questions contained within a group are organized beneath the group name defined and displayed within each section. Questions display in the smart form in order based on the number entered in the Question Sort Order field.
Four tabs are used to set up Questions in the Smart Form Manager:
Information
Dependencies
Validators
Options
Question > Information tab
The Information tab provides basic setup information for the smart form question, including Question Name and Sort Order.
Question > Dependencies tab
Dependencies determine when a question will be presented within the form based on set rules. Dependencies can be applied at Section, Group, and Question level. See Dependencies section below for more information.
Question > Validators tab
A validator can be created to prevent students from entering an invalid response for the question in the smart form, and display messaging to the user to indicate a valid response.
Question > Options tab
Options can be created to define the available answers to a question.
Dependencies
Smart forms can be designed to use conditional logic to tailor each Question to an individual applicant and minimize the number of Questions an applicant is required to answer by using Dependency logic. Dependencies use dynamic logic for Sections, Groups, and Questions to make visible or hide based on responses to Questions within the smart form. Dependencies also control whether a Question is required when made visible or not. For example, a Dependency can be created to hide a Question, make a Question visible and required, or make a Question visible and optional (not required).
A Section, Group, or Question can have one or more Dependency groups. Each Dependency group is comprised of one or more Dependency rules. Each Dependency group uses a selected Operator Type of ‘AND’ or ‘OR' when evaluating if the Dependency rule(s) are 'true’.
If there are multiple Dependencies with Dependency Rules the dependency logic first evaluates each Dependency Group and the associated Dependency Rules in chronological order based on the 'Created At' date. Then the dependency logic evaluates each dependency rule if the related Dependent Question is displayed to determine if it is ‘true’ or 'false'. Dependency rules are ignored if the related Dependent Question is hidden.
Dependency Groups can have multiple Dependency Rules with a different visibility or required field set for each. The individual rules have configurable options for visible and required. When different rules in the same Dependency Group have different visible and required options, the first rule that is evaluated will be honored, and all subsequent rules in the Dependency Group will be ignored. In the event of multiple Dependency Rules, a Dependency Group Type of ‘AND’ evaluates if all Dependency Rules are ‘true’ and makes the visible and required determination off of the last Dependency Rule evaluated to make the Dependency Group ‘true’. A Dependency Group Type of ‘OR’ evaluates if at least one Dependency Rule is ‘true’ and makes the visible and required determination off of the first Dependency Rule where the conditions are ‘true’.
Question-based Dependency
Expression-based Dependency
Expressions
Expressions use JavaScript language (see JavaScript RegExp (Regular Expression) - GeeksforGeeks) to perform logical and mathematical operations to determine if the expression is valid. If an expression does not result in a ‘true’ or false', syntax errors are present and the expression is considered invalid. Document Persistence is ignored when an Invalid expression exists.
Document Persistence and Validators use Boolean expressions to create a ‘true’ or ‘false’ statement. A Boolean expression is defined using logical operator such as, AND (&&) and OR (||), which can be used in combination with built-in expressions (see Shortkeys and Helper Functions in this section for additional information), to result in a ‘true’ or ‘false’. Question responses are wrapped in braces (curly brackets) within the expression; the question code is in curly braces.
The SnapUtility.ReasonEqualToAny is a special function that cannot be used in combination with other expressions and will perform the requested action on existing student documents where the document reason matches any of the values provided to the function.
For the expression-based rules, if one of the dependent questions is hidden. then the whole expression will not be evaluated. However, including“@” before the question code in the expression will allow the smart form to evaluate the question even if it is hidden. Example: (@{studentsMaritalStatus})