How to know which button was selected by the end user

Question

Hi All, 
 Here is a question about interfaces with multiple submit buttons. I have an approval interface with three submit buttons - Cancel, Re-work, and Proceed. 
 The user can select any of the buttons to close the form and proceed with the process. However, I need a way to update a process variable based on which button the user clicked. Secondly, I would like to make the comment text field required if the user clicks the Cancel or Re-work buttons. 
 I thought I would add an a!save function in the buttonWidget definitions but it seems SAIL doesn't like that. 
 How should I do this? 
 Thanks.

Mike Lasutschinkow · Accepted Answer

Yes, you can add a save into the saveInto of the button (and this is the most sensible way to capture which button was pressed). 
 Your code would look something like the following: 
 
 a!buttonWidgetASubmit(
 label: cons!BUTTON_LABEL_TEXT, /* your constants here */
 value: cons!BUTTON_LABEL_TEXT,
 saveInto: {
 ri!buttonClicked /* text rule input to save into process variable */
 }
)

charlesm492 · Answer

For the first question, as others have said you just need to use the value and saveInto properties of your buttons to save the different values into a rule inputs. As a best practice, these values that you are saving should be constants. 
 
For your second question, you would just need to mark the required property of your comment field as true and mark the skipValidation property of your Proceed button as true so that only the other two buttons cause the required validation on the comment field to fire.

Hrishikesh Dixit · Answer

To update a process variable, the interface needs to have rule inputs. Use this rule input into the saveInto attribute in a!buttonWidget. 
eg: 
a!buttonWidget( 
 label: "Cancel", 
 value: "Cancel", 
 saveInto:ri!buttonClicked, 
 submit: true 
 ), 
a!buttonWidget( 
 label: "Proceed", 
 value: "Proceed", 
 saveInto:ri!buttonClicked, 
 submit: true 
 ) 
 
This will mean if Cancel is clicked ri!buttonClicked will have value as "Cancel", if proceed button is clicked it will have value as "Proceed". 
Then map this to a process variable in the Data -> Inputs tab in a User Input Task activity in which your SAIL interface is called. The rule inputs of the interface will be the activity class parameters (Data Inputs) and these can be mapped to a process variable. 
 
For your second query you can use validation groups. Refer to this SAIL recipe - docs.appian.com/.../recipe_configure_buttons_with_conditional_requiredness.html

susana197 · Answer

Thanks Mike, 
 
This solution worked like a charm! 
 
Have a nice day.

Carlos Santander · Answer

For the first question, you need give a different value to each button, and then have each button save into the same rule input. 
 
For the second question, you can make use of validation groups. Take a look at the following recipe for an example: docs.appian.com/.../recipe_configure_buttons_with_conditional_requiredness.html

Andrew Zysk · Answer

Hi Susan, 
 
1. 
Typically, you can use an interface rule input of type Text (I usually name it "button_text"), and save the unique value of the button into that variable before submitting. 
 
For example, clicking the Cancel button should save "Cancel" into ri!button_text. In your process, you should have a button_text process variable that the form saves into. 
 
"I thought I would add an a!save function in the buttonWidget" - this is possible! :) Make sure you are using the "saveInto" field on the buttonWidget. These saves are executed before the form is submitted. 
 
2. 
To make a text field required only for certain buttons, it sounds like you might want to look at the "validate" and "submit" fields on each of your buttons - you can alter the logic of whether or not the button should trigger required fields.