Home → Using LincDoc 3.1+ → Field Attributes → Pushing Multi-value Field Content Into Other Form Fields
9.3. Pushing Multi-value Field Content Into Other Form Fields
You can place the contents of a multi-value field into a set of non-multi-value fields on your form using the Push values to field setting.
About the Setting
The Push values to field setting is located on the Admin dialog box's Fields/Sections tab.
Note: You need to click the advanced check box to view this setting.
This feature was created to address a specific use case: when you have tables you wish to populate in a PDF source document.
Consider the following issue: Word source documents can contain multi-value fields while PDF source documents cannot. Therefore, in these situations, a Word document is introduced into the LincDoc form solely for its ability to generate multi-valued fields; then, with the use of this function, at submit time, this feature can "push" the multi-valued fields into static fields in the PDF.
Tip: In this scenario, the inclusion rule for the Word document is often to exclude the document from the final form.
Generally speaking, the final PDF will contain a table with fields using the naming convention shown in the example expense report form below. Refer to the example's table with Expense Date, Expense Description, and Amount. Notice that each field ends with a number to indicate its row within the table.
Notice the table in this example (in the bottom portion of the report) must have individual PDF fields for every cell in the table. These fields are the ones into which this feature will push values.
Using the Setting
The setting allows you to access a dialog box, which is used to specify the multi-value fields that will be "pushed".
- Click the arrow button adjacent to the setting, as shown in the section above.
The Push multi-row field for dialog box appears.
All of your LincDoc form fields are listed in the right column. By default, the left column is empty. - In the right column, click the field whose values you want to push.
Important: Be sure to pick the field that will be used to populate the first row of the final, PDF table, since values are pushed from the top of the selected fields list (left column) to the bottom of the list in the order they are displayed. This top-to-bottom order is known as the numeric order.
- Click the left-pointing arrow buttons to move the selected field to the left column.
The field is now selected and will be used to create the PDF table. - Repeat step 2 and step 3 until all desired fields are selected and in the correct order in the left column.
These selected columns (in the left column) will represent the multi-value subset.
Tip: If there is to be a limit of five rows from the multi-value field, you should select five fields to push against. Remember that the selected fields numeric order is used, so if, for example, quantity# is used, you would push fields qty1, qty2, qty3, qty4, qty5, in that order (from the top of the list to the bottom of the list).
- Click OK.
- Save your form.
Notes:
- If the multi-value field is of a certain field type (for example: integer), pushing it to a non-matching field type will convert it to match the new (pushed) field type. For example, a text field will be converted to an integer if pushed to an integer field type.
- The field to which values are being pushed will now contain a calculation that will refer to the appropriate multi-value and subset.
- You can use a longer process to achieve the same results by using a calculation and selecting a field matching entry of the multi-value field and subset.