Usage of Process Start Form for intensive data entry. Any thoughts?

Question

What would be your thoughts on implementing a full-fledged UI (with 2-3 webservice calls, 15-20 readonly fields, 20-30 data entry fields on average, multiple file uploads, web API calls, 2-3 pagination grids etc) in Process Start Form ? 
 (we were previously doing this in SAIL Task Form and now there is an ask to change it to a Process Start Form. There is also an ECM integration involved) 
 
 I could think of the following problems: 
 1) Debugging the UI for Prod issues is complicated due to lack of a process instance 
 2) Cannot execute script tasks before entering the UI (which we normally do with SAIL Task Forms) and the limitations due to that 
 3) Complicated document generation process (we were previously generating csv document based on webservice data before reaching the SAIL Task Form and were providing a link in UI for user to download that) 
 
 What else could cause problems? Would you suggest taking this route?

sanjays0006 · Accepted Answer

Senthil, 
I think this is not a good approach.Below are some pain points from my point of view. 
 
1) When a UI with large number of data elements are present, you should have some flexibility to save the data temporarily. Else user might have to gather all the information just to initiate the process. So it might not be a good idea to move it to Start page(I guess you wanted to expose it through Sites) 
 
2) I think we cannot add any kind of escalations/exceptions on this as there are lot of integrations involved. 
 
Even Appian&#x27;s Best Practices suggests not to have lot of fields on a single UI. 
It would be better to split all the data into multiple screens. Categorize the data in such a way that you can add all the mandatory fields for starting the process in the Start page. Then you can capture all the data in multiple screens.

aloks0189 · Answer

senthilarumugamr Is there any particular reason behind switching to Start form, are you going to use this Process as Action in a Site? if so then you can follow the following steps: 
 
1. Create a Wizard Form, which will have multiple section followed by buttons as Next, Previous, Cancel, Submit & Save and add this form in Start form 
2. Initially Show only needed fields, Populate remaining fields/Sections based on the users interaction with Buttons. 
3. Once the User comes to last Section by clicking on next again and again, show them 2 Primary Buttons as Submit and Save 
4. On Click on Save, save it&#x27;s corresponding action Value like save or true into a rule input 
6. Have a Gateway just after the Start node 
7. check whether the Save buttons has been clicked on not. 
8. if save Button is been clicked, route the flow to a user Input task, which will also have the Same Interface integrated with, which captures pv! data into it&#x27;s ac! 
 
So in this way, you can avoid loading multiple fields/sections unnecessary(which you were thinking to display in another user input task earlier), also the user will feel that after click on save he is on the same form and of-course the large amount of Data which user has entered into form will be also saved, on which he can act later by clicking on the Task.