How to Create Forms in the Control Panel

Overview

In Case Management Studio, forms and interfaces are the primary way that your end users interact with their cases. Forms and interfaces allow end users to create and edit cases, and help users provide your case workers and managers with the information that they need to complete a case or address an issue. You can create and edit all of the forms and interfaces for your case management apps in the Control Panel using a set of low-code tools to build entire interfaces without any code.

This page is intended for business users and provides a brief overview of how to create and use forms in the Control Panel with Case Management Studio.

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Reusing forms and interfaces in the Control Panel

With the Control Panel workspace and control panel object, forms and interfaces are shared between cases, case categories, and case types in an additive style, meaning that they build off of one another.

For example, an intake form that is configured at the all cases level will appear on all cases, regardless of case category or case type. If you add another intake form at the case category level, this second intake form will appear as a second step or page appended to the intake form set for all cases. If you add another intake form at the type level, this third intake form will appear as a third step or page appended to the intake forms set at the all cases and category levels.

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This approach strikes the balance between reusability and specificity. You can set a form for all cases that has more general fields that can be applied to all cases, meaning you don't have to recreate those fields on the intake forms in each type. And you can set forms at the category and type levels with fields more unique to the specific topics handled by the category and type.

Prerequisites

Case Management Studio uses the Control Panel workspace and the control panel object. The control panel object that comes out-of-the-box with Case Management Studio allows low-code developers to set guardrails for the configurations that business uses such as case managers can make to your case management app in the Control Panel workspace. The Control Panel workspace is made up of no-code design tools that allow you to configure every part of your case management process.

Configurations in the control panel object

Forms and interfaces for Case Management Studio can be created, configured, and edited by business users in the Control Panel workspace. The types of interfaces that can be configured by business users in the Control Panel workspace are defined by the low-code developer in the control panel object. To ensure that business users can properly configure forms and interfaces in the Control Panel workspace, make sure that low-code developers have already made any necessary preliminary configurations to the control panel object and set the appropriate security.

Configurations in the Control Panel workspace

You can configure interfaces to be shared across all cases, to be used for all cases in a case category, and just for cases in a case type. To configure forms and interfaces for a specific case category or type, go to the Interfaces tab for the case category or type. If you haven't created a case category and type yet, check out the Creating case category and case types page to learn how.

To configure forms and interfaces to use with all cases, you can edit them in the Cases page. Since all in the Control Panel build off of one another, forms and interfaces configured for all cases will be the used alongside the forms and interfaces for case categories and case types.

Interface types

Interface types are used to categorize interfaces by their intent.

For example, an "intake form" is used to create new cases, so it belongs to the "create" interface type. An "update case" form is used to edit an existing case, so it belongs to the "edit" interface type. In the control panel object, low-code developers can specify the types of interfaces business users can create, edit, and use in the Control Panel workspace.

There are three interface types that come out-of-the-box with Case Management Studio:

Interface Type	Intent	Description
Intake Form	Create	Allows end-users to create new cases.
Edit Form	Edit	Allows end-users to edit existing cases.
Summary Page	Display	Displays case details to end-users.

Low-code developers can edit the interface type configurations and add new interface types in the Interfaces section of the Standard Configurations page in the control panel object.

Creating forms and interface

To create and configure a new create or edit form in the Control Panel:

1. Go to the Interfaces tab in the Cases page, a case category page, or a case type page.
2. In the form builder, click an interface type (Intake Form, Edit Form, or Summary Page).
3. Click in the middle of the screen to add a section to the interface.
4. Click the beside Section to add a title to the first page of your interface.
5. Add data fields from the Data tab in left pane onto the page. These are the same data fields from the Data tab for you case category or type.
6. The details for each data field will appear in the right pane. To edit these details, click EDIT DATA FIELD. Note that changes made to this data field will be applied everywhere it's used in the application.
7. To add additional data fields to Case, your case category, or your case type, click the next to Case, the case category, or the case type.
8. To add layout elements, such as headings, rich text, and columns, to the page click the Layout tab at the top of the left pane.
9. To add a new section to the page, click under the existing section. You can reorder sections on the page as needed.
10. To remove a data field from the page, click the data field in the page. Click next to the field name in the right pane.
11. When you're finished configuring your form, click SAVE.
12. Click CLOSE to exit the form builder.

To further customize and configure a form built in the Control Panel, a low-code developer can edit the form as an interface in Appian Designer. Some configurations made in Designer may prevent the interface from being edited in the Control Panel.

Editing data fields from an interface

To edit the details for a data field from the form builder:

1. Add a data field to the page.
2. Click EDIT DATA FIELD.
   

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3. From the Edit dialog, you can view or edit the following field details:

   Field	Description	View or Edit
   Data type	The data type for the data field.	View only
   Data field name	The name of the data field.	View only
   Label	The label of the data field in interfaces and in Data tabs in the Control Panel. De-select the Same as field name checkbox to edit the label.	Editable
   Instructions	Instructions for the data field to show to end-users while filling out the form.	Editable
   Required?	Whether or not the field required to have a value in order to submit the form.	Editable

4. To add a new validation for your data field, click + Add Validation.
   

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5. Select a Data Field, set an operator, and enter a relevant corresponding value.
6. (Optional) Click + Add Condition to add a condition to the current condition.
   1. For additional conditions, select either AND or OR as the operator between the two conditions. This operator will be used between all conditions in this condition set.
   2. Configure the additional conditions.
7. (Optional) Click + Add Condition Set to add a new set of conditions, in addition to the existing condition(s).
   1. For additional condition sets, select either AND or OR as the operator between the two condition sets.
   2. Configure the additional conditions in the condition set.
8. Enter a validation message.
9. (Optional) Click +Add validation to add a new validation with conditions and condition sets.
10. Click SAVE CHANGES.

If you can't edit the configurations for a data field, it could be caused by a few things. You may not have the necessary object permissions. Or, a low-code developer in Designer may have made configurations to the data field that make it uneditable in the Control Panel.

Keyboard mode

Users can also configure and edit forms and interfaces in the Control Panel workspace using Keyboard mode. This is an alternative to drag-and-drop that allows users to use keyboard commands to add, edit, and rearrange sections, data fields, and layouts in forms and interfaces.

Users can use standard keyboard commands such as:

Command	Action
Tab	Move forward through UI elements
Shift + Tab	Move backward through UI elements
Enter or Spacebar	Select or activate UI elements
Arrow keys	Moving through lists, menus, and scrollable elements

Configuring case management forms in Designer

When you create a form or interface in the Control Panel, we automatically generate an interface for it in Designer. Having both a form in the Control panel and an interface in Designer allows you to make use of the benefits of both no-code design tools and the robust capabilities of Appian objects.

Once you've created a form or interface in the Control Panel, you can edit that form as an interface in Designer, practically the same way you would for any other interface. The main noticeable difference is that there are a handful of special functions used in case management and Control Panel interfaces. To learn more, see Low-Code Configurations for Case Management Studio.

There are some configurations to forms that you can only make to the interfaces in Designer, such as using additional form fields. Check out How to Add Additional Data Fields to Forms and the Low-Code Configurations for Case Management Studio to learn more about additional configurations.

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