Creating a repeatable group of questions

The collected answers appear as a table, where the questions are the column headers, and each set of answers is placed in a new row. Each time the end user answers the group of questions, a row is added to the table. The table can have one or more rows of data, depending on how many times the end user replies to the group of questions. Collected responses can be sent as a CSV or an object file for service fulfillment. 

Requesters can click View details on the service request page to track the number of times they answered a repeatable group of questions and the data they entered.

Design the group of questions so that the user responses make each request distinct from others in the aggregated request. Set a limit to the number of times a requester can answer the same group of questions to control the number of requests an aggregated request can contain. For service fulfillment, you can create single or multiple work orders in BMC Helix ITSM, add rows in a record definition in BMC Helix Innovation Studio, send notifications to some employees, and so on.  

Scenario: Laptops are needed for six new employees of Apex Global

Scenario: Access cards are needed for six new employees of Apex Global

Process overview

As a catalog administrator, you perform the following steps:

1. Design a workflow that creates a work order.
2. Add a Repeatable group of Questions type of question and map it to the workflow process input.
3. Add a group of questions within the Repeatable group of questions.   

To create a workflow

Create a workflow for the fulfillment of the request. The workflow must create a work order and pass the aggregated answers in an attachment to the work order. To create a sample workflow to process a repeatable group of questions, see Designing-workflows-for-a-repeatable-group-of-questions. To see a tutorial for creating a workflow and a repeatable group of questions for a use case where people nominate fellow employees for a spot bonus, see Using the Repeatable Group of Questions feature.

To create a questionnaire with a repeatable group of questions  

1. Log in to the Catalog console. 
2. Select Services > Workflows.
3. On the Workflows page, select a workflow, and then click Manage Questions from the Actions menu. 
   Select the workflow you created earlier.
4. Select Actions > Create single-user request.
5. To add a Repeatable Group of Questions type of question:
   1. In the Questions Designer, drag the process question onto the canvas.
      • If the process input is Text, select attachment from Process Questions.
      • If the process input is an Object, select all-instances from Process Questions.
        To learn more, see Designing-workflows-for-a-repeatable-group-of-questions.
        
        
      • 
         
   2. From the Form Type Element list, select Repeatable Group of Questions.
      If the process input variable is an object, the Repeatable Group of Questions option is already selected, and you cannot change the question type.
   3. In the Label field, enter the text that acts as a heading for the group of repeatable questions.
      For example, New laptop questions or Answer these questions about the laptop you want to request can be suitable for a group of questions about a laptop.

   4. Configure the following settings: 

      Setting	Description
      Output Format	Whether the aggregated answers are passed to the work order as Comma Separated Values or in the Object format. Important: If you map a repeatable group of questions to an object type input, make sure that you select the Object format.
      Instance Limit	Maximum number of times a user can answer this group of questions while requesting the service.  The number indicates the number of service requests a user can combine in a single request. Important: The maximum number of sets of repeatable questions cannot exceed 10.

   5. Click Save.
   6. Add questions within the Repeatable Group of Questions.

1. 
   
   1. Save your configuration. 

To add a group of repeatable questions for the CSV output format

1. Click New question.

2. In the Question Designer panel, from the Form Element Type list, select the question type.

   Tip

   Select Check Box, Counter, Date, Dropdown (single select), Dropdown (multi-select), File Attachment, Lookup, Radio Button, Text Field, Text Area, and Toggle question types within a repeatable group.

3. Configure the common and specific settings depending on the question type you select. 

   Important

   The Confidential setting is incompatible with a repeatable group of questions.

4. Click Save.
5. To add the next question in the group of repeatable questions, hover over the area below the question you just added and click New question.

6. Add questions as required to the group of repeatable questions and save your configuration.
   The following video shows you how to add a group of repeatable questions:

   
   

To add a group of repeatable questions for the object output format

1. Click New question.

2. In the Question Designer panel, from the Form Element Type list, select the question type.

   Tip

   Select Check Box, Counter, Date, Dropdown (single select), Dropdown (multi-select), File Attachment, Lookup, Radio Button, Text Field, Text Area, and Toggle question types within a repeatable group.

3. Configure the common and specific settings depending on the question type you select.

   Important

   The Confidential setting is incompatible with a repeatable group of questions.

4. For the Alias setting, specify the custom instance property that you configured when you created the workflow.
   For example, ${processContext.instance.contact.value}. The alias is used in the JSONpath expression to access the answer to a question in an instance of the repeatable group of questions. An alias (contact) references one of the questions in the group and its value (.value) is the answer to the question. 
   

   Important

   You cannot specify the same alias for two questions.

5. Click Save.
6. To add the next question in the group of repeatable questions, hover over the area below the question you just added and click New question.
7. Add questions as required to the group of repeatable questions and save your configuration.

End user requests a service with a repeatable group of questions

The following video shows how a requester answers the same group of questions multiple times:

To view answers submitted to a repeatable set of questions

After the request is submitted, the catalog administrator, requesters, and agents who work to fulfill the service request can view the answers.

Where to go from here

Attach the workflow and the questionnaire to a service.