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Configuring Stages

Stages are the checkpoints a request passes through after it is submitted. Each stage decides what happens when a request arrives (usually e-mailing an approver), what the approver can do, and what happens if nobody acts in time.

Where to find it

Architect Panel → Forms:

  • User Input Views — Manage Stages and Initial Stage Assignment on the view
  • Process Inspector — check each stage reads the way you intended

Stage numbers

Stage 1 is the form being submitted. The platform names it Initial Request and it has no row of its own, so the first stage you add is number 2. Requests move through stages in number order, and every setting that names a stage (a time-out that moves a request, a flag rule, a transfer button, an intake confirm stage) uses these numbers. Renumbering a stage therefore changes what those settings point at; check them afterwards.

Adding a stage

  1. On the builder, press Manage Stages beside Multi-stage. The list shows only this view's stages.
  2. Add a row with the stage number and a stage name. The name appears on the progress bar, in tab names on the request list, and in automatically written approver e-mail subjects.
  3. Choose the Stage Action (below) and fill in its fields.
  4. Optionally set the stage's time-out, approver reminders and reminders while waiting for information. Each has its own article in this section.
  5. Optionally add HTML to show above and below the request on the approver's page, for instructions such as what to check before approving.
  6. Save, then set the buttons for the stage on the Form Stage Actions screen (see Stage Actions and Status Transitions).

The Stage Action: what happens on arrival

Send E-mail

E-mails the approver a link to the decision page. You choose who receives it (a field on the form, a static address, the original requester's address, the address of whoever is signed in, or a custom function your developer has provided), the e-mail account it is sent from, and optionally a template; with no template the platform writes the e-mail. The action can also name a separate template for the progress e-mail the requester receives when the request reaches this stage.

Delay E-mail holds the approver e-mail back until a date field on the form is reached or a set number of minutes, hours, days, weeks, months or years after the request arrives. See Delayed Stage E-mails.

Verify Identity

Starts an identity verification when the request arrives and holds the stage: the approver's buttons are withdrawn until the check passes. Choose the Verification type and Who Is Verified: an e-mail address held on the request (name the field in E-mail Field Row Name) or the signed-in user actioning the stage. No approver e-mail is sent by this action. Verification types are covered in User Verification.

Require Compliance

Brings the record's requirement checks up to date when the request arrives and withholds every approver action until they are satisfied. Set This Record Is A to the kind the requirement types apply to. To check a linked record as well, set all three of Also Check (Field), Also Check (Datastore) and Also Check (Kind); with any of the three missing the link is ignored and fewer records are checked. Requirement types themselves are configured elsewhere in the platform. Configure them and confirm they read correctly on a few live records before pointing a stage at this action: a stage set to it holds every request until its checks pass.

Where a request starts: Initial Stage Assignment

By default a new request goes to stage 2. Manage Assignment lets you name a fixed stage instead, or route by answer: a list of field, comparison and value rules each naming a stage, where the first rule that matches decides. An answer flag that names a stage overrides this; see Answer Flags.

What goes wrong

  • A Send E-mail stage with no account to send from cannot e-mail anybody. Name the account explicitly.
  • A recipient field that is empty on the record leaves the approver un-notified. Check the E-mail Correspondence on the request's progress page.
  • Settings that read Yes but were never filled in do nothing. The Process Inspector shows these in amber.

Worked example

A work-experience programme runs three stages after the application. Stage 2, Parent/Guardian Approval, sends an e-mail to the parent's address field on the form. Stage 3, Placement Supervisor, sends to an address held against the chosen placement. Stage 4, Certificate, shows the student a download page and is completed automatically by a time-out six weeks later. Initial Stage Assignment routes applicants aged 18 or over straight to stage 3 by testing the age field.

Recommendations

  • Leave gaps sparingly. Numbers are referenced elsewhere, so plan them before you build.
  • Always name the sending account on Send E-mail stages.
  • Configure compliance data before the gate. Require Compliance holds everything until it is satisfied.
  • Review every stage in the Process Inspector after changing it.