Adding pre-processing stage into send-workflow button in Orbeon XForms Form runner

Question

I have a form in Orbeon Form runner where I needed to add external validation before submitting with 'workflow-send'. Can we add capability to 'workflow-send' button in properties-local.xml for that?

For the record, I have also implemented a button which does the validation and does certain actions when the validation results come back. So alternatively, can we add 'workflow-send' capability to that button of mine?

By "external validation", do mean call a service (like a web or REST service) to which you POST the instance and get a result telling you whether the document is valid? What should happen if the document isn't valid? Should users stay on the form and see the error returned by the service? — avernet
Yes, you got the point. However, I have done this successfully by editing persistence-model.xml. Thanks! — Dagvadorj
OK, good then. What about you answer your own question and describe how you did this? This will be useful to other people who stumble upon this question in the future. — avernet

Dagvadorj Dagvadorj · Accepted Answer · 2012-11-07T07:31:14

I have done this by making some changes to the persistence-model.xml file. This kind of validation needs to be done in the persistence stage. Because, what we need was a server-side validation (accessing database etc) that was called before saving the data and obviously before workflow-send.

I have commented out the old code snippets.

<!-- Respond to send button activation -->
<xforms:action ev:event="DOMActivate" ev:observer="fr-workflow-send-button">
    <xforms:send submission="validation-submission" />
    <!-- xforms:setvalue ref="instance('fr-persistence-instance')/submit-or-save-or-send">send</xforms:setvalue> 
        <xforms:dispatch name="fr-save-action" target="fr-persistence-model"> <xxforms:context 
        name="fr:check-data-valid" select="true()" /> </xforms:dispatch -->
</xforms:action>

<xforms:action ev:event="my-valid-action">
    <xforms:setvalue
        ref="instance('fr-persistence-instance')/submit-or-save-or-send">send</xforms:setvalue>
    <xforms:dispatch name="fr-save-action" target="fr-persistence-model">
        <xxforms:context name="fr:check-data-valid" select="true()" />
    </xforms:dispatch>
</xforms:action>

<xforms:instance id="validation-result">
    <dummy />
</xforms:instance>

<xforms:submission id="validation-submission"
    ref="xxforms:instance('fr-form-instance')" resource="http://localhost:8080/MyApp/OrbeonValidationServlet"
    method="post" replace="instance" instance="validation-result">
    <!-- Clear external errors just before doing external validation -->
    <xforms:delete ev:event="xforms-submit" nodeset="//@v:*" />
    <xforms:action ev:event="xforms-submit-done">
        <!-- Insert external validation results when done -->
        <xforms:insert nodeset="."
            origin="instance('validation-result')/v:data/*" />
        <!-- Show all errors on form -->
        <xforms:dispatch name="fr-visit-all" targetid="error-summary" />
        <!-- Update error summary for incremental mode -->
        <xforms:refresh />
        <xforms:dispatch name="fr-update" targetid="error-summary" />
        <xforms:dispatch name="my-valid-action" target="fr-persistence-model"
            if="count(instance('validation-result')/v:global-errors/*) 
            = 0" />
    </xforms:action>
</xforms:submission>

So basically

I have implemented my-valid-action and validate-submission
Placed validate-submission instead of workflow-send
Dispatch my-valid-action only if there is no error
Call workflow-send from my-valid-action

The last thing was binding validation-result to a fr:error-summary in my form.

One can try harder and make /OrbeonValidationServlet settable from properties-local.xml.

Adding pre-processing stage into send-workflow button in Orbeon XForms Form runner

1 Answers