What is 'Load realtime workflow data' setting in Nintex forms for workflow action?

Emily Billing​

Bumping this up from last year.

Would you be able to direct this to someone please?

Thanks,

Gavin

Frank Field​

This is an old question of mine which I would still love an answer for.

Can you give it another bump to the team please?

Thanks,

Gavin

I ran into using this today in order to see if it would accomplish what I'm trying to do... but in an easier way. 
I was hoping that I would find a little more talk about it here on the forums, but it would seem that it's nothing but tumbleweeds around these parts! 

So. Here's a brief summary of what this does along with my findings and suggestions on how it could possibly be a bit better. Hope it helps somebody out there in Nintex Land. 

When does this show up?

This option shows up in the Form Settings > Advanced Options, only* if you are working on a Task Form that has been generated as result of a Workflow Action.  

How is it used? 

This option is only useful (as far as I can tell) if you're working with an Action that will generate a unique Task for EACH Individual member. 

If that's the case, then if you have a Workflow Variable that is displayed as a control on the form, turning this option on will load the current value of that Workflow Variable whenever somebody opens the form in Edit Mode (ie: Whenever they open the form to complete the task). 

Is It Useful!?

Well... not really (for what I was trying to do at least). Please see the Edit 3 in the below text! There IS a use for this setting... but it's not one that people are likely to run into. 

Why?!!?!?!

Because, as I mentioned above, this only triggers when somebody opens the form. That means if have a task that is targeting two users and requires both of their input AND happens to display a multi-line text control connected to Workflow Variable 'var_taskText'. If User 1 opens the form while User 2 is about to submit their task (with var_taskText filled out as "Hello World"), User 1's form WILL NOT check at the time of submission if the variable has been changed. If User 1 were to simply submit their form with a value inside of "Testing" inside of the text field linked to var_taskText, the final result of that variable (now that the tasks have resolved and some outcome has been reached) will be "Testing"    . 

However, if User 2 submitted their form, and gave their control linked to var_testText a value of "Hello World", and then User 1 opened their task form to complete it. The starting value of that same text field would now render as having "Hello World" inside of it! If they added the text "Testing" to the end of it, the final resulting Workflow Variable would have a value of "Hello World Testing"! 

How could it be more useful?

If upon submission, the form would check the Workflow Variable to see if it had been updated since the time of rendering, it would make this option an absolute glorious bounty of great fortune. This could probably be accomplished they could tie an ID of some sort to the Workflow Variable's change state (like an ETag) which could be checked at the time of submission and would result in one of those terrible "Something Went Wrong!" sharepoint errors that happen in concurrency situations. 

*(It might show up on other Forms that have been generated as a result of a Workflow, for instance, Starting Forms, however, the option would be totally useless)

Edit 1: (It should be noted that I am currently using Nintex Workflow & Forms for Sharepoint 2016, latest ver. However, I wouldn't imagine this working any differently against versions.)

Edit 2: This option can be used (and my also be more useful) for people who are creating multiple tasks in parallel, but that are using a shared workflow variable between them to represent some data set (like a Repeating Section, etc.). 

Edit 3: Well this was unexpected... I DID manage to find a use for this Form Mode. I recently had a need to be very very very lazy and create a form that not only pulled in the data from a main parent form elsewhere (in an Page Viewer) but to also manipulate a particular Repeating Section control inside of the Form rendered inside of the Page Viewer, based on the values present in a Workflow Collection Variable, passed to the Task Form from the Workflow and then converted into a regular javascript variable. Before you ask, yes, I do plan on sharing this madness with you all at some point, BUT, the point is. If you attempt to refernece something like a Workflow Collection Variable from say, a Calculated Control on a Task Form, without this mode engaged, it will simply render as "System.Collections.ArrayList"... and while that certainly IS the type of the internal behind the scenes .net variable that it's using (and possibly a bug), it doesn't do us absolutely any good. HOWEVER! When you turn the Load Realtime Workflow Data on, it will actually pull in the correct Collection Variable String, just as you would see had you referenced it in an email or cast it to a text variable. 

So there you have. An actual use case! 

Nice one, ‌!!

Don't know if people get pinged for edits, but I did wanna say that I have updated my answer to highlight an actual use-case that required this mode to be engaged. Please see Edit 3, and sorry for the bother.