Define inputs — gull system handbook

Step 2 Define inputs: adding an input, the default value, ordering, inputs from another configurator and inputs filled automatically.

Define inputs

An input is a name and a default value, nothing more. The range, the field type and the choices belong to the form field that collects the input.

An input is a value an order brings from outside — from a customer on a page, from a salesperson in a form, from a row in Excel. The rules in step 3 compute from it what is written into the model.

Procedure

1. Open step 2 Define inputs and click Add a new input. A "New input" appears with the cursor in its name.
2. Type the Name. It is the name the input is found by everywhere — in rules, in a form field, in a column heading. See Name things so that they connect.
3. Fill in the Default value. It is the value used when an order does not bring the input, and the value a rule test uses. A number is read as a number, anything else as text.
4. Drag the rows into order. It is the field order of the test form and the default order when a form is created automatically.

The default value

• Write a number with a decimal point: `12.5`. Whatever cannot be read as a number is text.
• For a checkbox write `1` or `0` — the words `true` and `false` are not read as booleans.
• It is the same value as the Default value of the form field collecting the input. Change it in one place and it changes in the other.
• Without a default a rule cannot be tested; the app says "The preview cannot be shown — the input has no default value". The rule itself is fine.

An optional finish — a colour the customer need not pick — needs an empty default. While there is one, an empty field in the form means that value, not "no colour". Details in Connect a finish to the customer's inputs.

Inputs from another configurator

Add inputs from another configurator copies All inputs or one chosen input. It suits several configurators sharing one form: the field "Length" fills the input "Length" in each of them.

Inputs the workflow fills

An input with the row Filled automatically is not filled by the customer but by the workflow's Value node — typically an order number. How to set it up is in Number the orders.