Applying operations to question responses

As a catalog administrator, apply operations on the question responses and design a responsive questionnaire that adapts in real-time to user input. The operations can compute derived values, enforce business logic, and automatically populate dependent fields before request submission. These configurations are carried out in the Question Designer within the catalog console. End experience the capability while interacting with the questionnaire during request submission. This capability helps prevent non-compliant entries, minimizes errors, and accelerates processing the service requests. It also reduces manual input and cognitive load, enhancing the overall user experience.

How applying operations to question responses works

Catalog administrators can define functions that automatically derive values based on user responses while the questionnaire is being filled out. These functions can combine answers from multiple questions by using supported operations such as string, concatenation, or basic math. The result is then assigned to another question in the questionnaire. You can also define nested expressions for complex scenarios. The computed result can be utilized in various ways, such as to control what users see next, filter lookup data, or pass values into the process. Here are some common examples:

Auto-calculating totals for expense forms.
Validating eligibility for refund limits.
Populating dependent fields like the full name from the first and last names.

Scenario

Hanna is a BMC Helix Digital Workplace Catalog administrator who designs a questionnaire to help employees claim wellness reimbursements. She sets a monthly cap of ₹5,000 and uses built-in functions to automatically calculate and validate the total amount before the request is submitted. The questionnaire for the Wellness reimbursement service accepts multiple bill entries and uses functions to compute the total before submission.
Britney, a support team employee, logs in to the end-user console. She opens the Wellness reimbursement service and starts filling out the questionnaire. She enters the following bill amounts:

₹2500 for a gym membership
₹2000 for a weighing balance purchase
₹1550 for a kneecap purchase

The system calculates a total of ₹6050. Because the calculated amount exceeds the monthly cap, the questionnaire prevents submission of the Wellness reimbursement request. Britney modifies the entries by removing the last one to ensure compliance with company budget limits and then submits the request.

Supported question types

The following list of questions is supported for defining functions that apply operations on the question responses:

Question type	Operations supported	Result of the operation
Text Field	All string types, math, Date	TEXT
Text Area	All string types, math, Date	TEXT
Password	All string types, math, Date	TEXT
Date	Date	DATE
Date Time	Date and time	DATETIME
Time	Time	TIME
Counter	All string and math	INTEGER

Limitations

The following question types are not supported for applying operations:

Dropdown (Single)
Dropdown (Multi)
Lookup
Radio Buttons
Checkboxes
Table (Single)
Table (Multi)
Toggle (Yes/No)
File Attachment
Documents

Important

Empty texts and empty lists are considered equivalent to NO VALUE.
If you are trying to assign a text value to an integer, the text should contain integers. Otherwise, the conversion will not work, and it is considered empty text.
Applying operations to the repeatable set of questions is not supported.

Before you begin

To learn about defining functions and applying operations on the question responses, see the List of operations table following the procedure.
To understand more about adding questions to the questionnaire, see Adding questions to a questionnaire.

To add operations while adding a question in the questionnaire

As a catalog administrator, log in to the Catalog console.
Click the Services tab and then click Services.
Double-click the service for which you want to update the questionnaire.
On the Service Options panel, click Edit next to Workflow.
On the Workflow & Questions panel, click Edit next to Questions.
In Questions Designer, perform either of the following steps:
- To add a process question, select a question from the Process Questions list, and click on the + button to add this question to the canvas.
- To add a user-generated question, click Add> Question next to the User Generated Questions.
Select the appropriate Form Element Type from the list to which you want to add operations.
To define functions, turn on the Operations toggle key.
You can only see the functions supported for your selected question type.
Click the operation you want to include in the argument.
For example, you can select a mathematical operation for the sum of billing amounts.
Select the appropriate value in the Choose value fields depending on the required function.
(Optional) To undo your action, click . To redo, click .
Insert the required fields and define the function by using appropriate operators.
For example, to define a function for the total bill amount, select questions for the bill amounts entered from the list, and select the addition operation.
The following image shows the UI for this example:
Complete the other required configurations and click Save.

Important

If the defined expression argument is invalid, the error message is displayed while saving the question.

List of operations

You can define the functions by applying operations to the question responses. The following operations are available in the Question Designer:

Math functions

Addition
Substraction
Multiplication
Division
Pecentage

String functions

Function	Description	Example	Notes
LOWER(TEXT) =>TEXT	Converts all characters in the input string to lowercase.	Question type: TextField Question label: Full Name User input: Mary Mann ExpressionLOWER(Full Name) Result: mary mann	—
UPPER(TEXT)=>TEXT	Converts all characters in the input string to uppercase.	Question type: TextField Question label: Full Name User input: Mary Mann Expression: Upper(Full Name) Result: MARY MANN	—
REPLACE(TEXT source, TEXT replaced, TEXT by)=> TEXT	Replaces all occurrences of the specified text in the source string by another text.	Question type: Text Field Question label: Phone number User input: 91-123-456-7890 Expression: REPLACE(Phone number, "-", "") Result: 911234567890	—
CONCATENATE(TEXT, TEXT)=> TEXT	Joins two or more strings into one.	Question type: Text Field Question labels: First Name, Last Name User input: First Name = Mary, Last Name = Mann Expression: CONCATENATE(First Name, Last Name) Result: ManyMann	Use $NEWLINE$ to insert a line break between strings. Example: CONCATENATE(question1, $NEWLINE$, question2, question3, question3) results in: question1question2question3question3
SUBSTRING(source, start, end)=> TEXT	Extracts a substring from source, starting at index start and ending before index end.	Question type: Text Field Question label: Employee ID User input: EMP12345 Expression: SUBSTRING(Employee ID, 3, 8) Result: 12345	The end index is excluded from the result.
LENGTH(TEXT) => INTEGER	Returns the number of characters in the input string.	Question type: Text Field Question label: Comments User input: Please arrange a service call Expression: LENGTH(Comments) Result: 25	Includes spaces and special characters.
REVERSAL(TEXT) => TEXT	Reverses the characters in the input string.	Question type: Text Field Question label: Device Serial Number User input: SN-987654 Expression: REVERSAL(DeviceSerial Number) Result: 456789-NS	Useful for formatting or encoding. This function can be used to generate a temporary tracking ID or to validate that the serial number format is being processed correctly by reversing it for internal logging or testing purposes.

Date functions

Function	Description	Example	Notes
YEAR(datetime DATE \| DATETIME)	Returns the year component of the input.	Input: 2025-06-13 14:30:00 Expression: YEAR(SubmissionDate) Result: 2025	—
MONTH(date)	Returns the month of the year (1 = January).	Input: 2025-06-13 Expression: MONTH(SubmissionDate) Result: 6	—
WEEK(date)	Returns the ISO 8601 week number of the year.	Input: 2025-01-01 Expression: WEEK(SubmissionDate) Result: 1	Week 01 is the week with the first Thursday of the year.
DAY(date)	Returns the day of the month.	Input: 2025-06-13 Expression: DAY(SubmissionDate) Result: 13	—
WEEKDAY(date)	Returns the ISO weekday number (1 = Monday, 7 = Sunday).	Input: 2025-06-13 (Friday) Expression: WEEKDAY(SubmissionDate) Result: 5	—
HOUR(datetime)	Returns the hour of the day (0–23).	Input: 2025-06-13 14:30:00 Expression: HOUR(SubmissionTime) Result: 14	If a DATE is passed, returns 0.
MINUTE(datetime)	Returns the minute component (0–59).	Input: 2025-06-13 14:30:00 Expression: MINUTE(SubmissionTime) Result: 30	If a DATE is passed, returns 0.
SECOND(datetime)	Returns the second component (0–59).	Input: 2025-06-13 14:30:45 Expression: SECOND(SubmissionTime) Result: 45	If a DATE is passed, returns 0.
TIME(datetime)	Extracts the time portion from a DATETIME value.	Input: 2025-06-13 14:30:00 Expression: TIME(SubmissionTime) Result: 14:30:00	Returns the time in the datetime’s timezone. For epoch-based values, returns UTC time.

Date and Time functions

Function	Description	Example	Notes
DATE(DATETIME) => DATE	Extracts the date portion from a date-time value.	User input: 2025-06-13 14:30:00 Expression: DATE(SubmissionTime) Result: 2025-06-13
DATEADD(datepart TEXT, number INTEGER, date DATE \| DATETIME) => DATE \| DATETIME	Adds a specified number of units to a date or a datetime.	User input: 2025-06-13 Expression: DATEADD("day", 7, StartDate) Result: 2025-06-20
DATEDIFF(datepart TEXT, startdate DATE \| DATETIME, enddate DATE \| DATETIME) => INTEGER	Returns the difference between two dates or date times in the specified unit.	Input: StartDate = 2025-06-01, EndDate = 2025-06-13 Expression: DATEDIFF("day", StartDate, EndDate) Result: 12	Returns an integer. Negative if EndDate is before StartDate. Mixed types (DATE + DATETIME) are normalized.

Result

Catalog console

The following image displays an example of a function defined by using a math operation:

QDesigner

End-user console

The following image shows the corresponding user interface of the end-user console questionnaire for the same service request as an example:

req submission ui