Missing Documentation on Form Validation functions

  • 12 September 2014
  • 10 replies
  • 9 views
N
Badge +3

I cannot find any documentation on how to format validation rules or custom validation functions on fields.  There are a couple of examples of validation formats like this post:Using validation rules to ensure a comments box is not left empty

 

But no documentation showing how these functions should be formatted.  For example through trial and error I have now discovered that you cannot use any spaces in your functions.  What is confusing is no errors are thrown, rather the function just doesn't work.  The other thing I've discovered is that apostrophe's need to surround text values 'Example', quotes do not work "Example".

 

If anyone could point me to the documentation I would greatly appreciate it!

 

Thanks.

10 replies

A
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

I've tried to reproduce your issue, but unfortunately, I cannot. In a text field on my form I have a validation rule with the condition:

endsWith({Self}, "text")

and the Message as Bad Text

So when i publish my form and put in the value into the single line of text control who is running the validation rule and put in the value "My text", the form will not submit and the validation error of "Bad Text" appears at the top of the screen.

I was able to use spaces in the function, and used double quotes around the string literals.

I did find in almost all of the examples in the help document on Inline or Runtime functions that they had spaces in the formatting. It was not specified if you could or could not as it seems it is not a requirement on what you do. Also in the documentation I found under section 3.18 of Rules under Validation that the formatting suggests to use double quotes

Formatting

The condition that will trigger the rule is set in the Condition field. The formula here must resolve to the value of TRUE for the instruction on the rule to be triggered, any other value will be treated as a FALSE value and the rule will not be triggered. The formula builder button (to the right of the Condition field) can be used to aid construction of condition formulas.

Syntax for conditions can include any variables available in the formula builder; including Item Properties and Named Controls. Runtime functions and standard mathematical symbols can be used to manipulate or compare values for the purpose of crafting a condition. In addition, the following symbols can be used as comparison operators. String literals must be contained in double quotes (e.g. Option=="High").

What function where you using? What type of Control? Maybe it is a bug on a specific version, what version do you have?

N
Badge +3

Hi Andrew, can you provide a link to help document on Inline or Runtime functions?

Thanks.

A
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

You can download them here if you need a copy. Nintex Forms Help Files

Otherwise, the help within the designer has the exact text found in the documents.

N
Badge +3

Thanks for the link, I'm wondering if we are using the same version of forms?  I'm using Forms 2013 (on-premise) and the Help button is not near as helpful as you are describing.  The search doesn't return any results about the forms, but does return results for excel, word, and other office applications.  For example, if I search for "validation", I just get back a bunch of general results from "SharePoint Help".  It doesn't appear that any of the Nintex specific information gets indexed for search?
Nintex-Forms-Help-search-results.jpg

A
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

That's unfortunate that when you click on the help button you see SharePoint help and not Nintex help. There must be a misconfiguration or some other issue in the farm to cause that, as in a standard installation you should see as follows

nintexhelpimage.PNG

There should be a way to fix it though.

This is from SP2013 on premise

N
Badge +3

I see the Nintex help on initial help load but the Nintex help information that is displayed is not always what I'm looking for.  That's why I try to use the help search, but search doesn't appear to return any of the Nintex specific information.

For example try searching for 'FormatDate'.  I don't get any results for that search.  If I search 'Validation' like in my screenshot on my last post, I just get back a bunch of general results relating to SharePoint and Office and nothing in regards to Nintex.  

And even though the help is semi-contextual, the context is not always specific enough.  So for example let's say you were creating a Validation rule and wanted to use the formatDate Runtime function. Where could you find the formats for the date?  Clicking on the formatDate field and then clicking on the little help icon, just brings up the contextual search for 'Formula Builder'.  There is no reference to the formatDate function on the popup help window. 
Nintex-Forms-Help-context.jpg

A
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

Just click on Inline Functions as seen in the screen shot you provided for more info

N
Badge +3

Clicking on Inline Functions only provides a partial list of the functions, this list does not include the formatDate function.

A
Userlevel 7
Badge +17

I see that you are looking for a runtime function help, not inline function help. To see runtime functions look under the runtime function help section.

If you would like a copy of all of the help text and images into a pdf, it can be downloaded here: Nintex Forms Help Files Excerpts (look here for user guide content)

 

nintexFormatDateHelp.PNG

N
Badge +3

The Nintex Forms help files are great!  You can search in those and find the function you are looking for right away rather than trying to navigate to them using the Help button.  Hopefully Nintex will fix the help search soon.  Thanks. 

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