Setting

Definition

Locked by

Name of user that has locked the question (if any)

Active

If checked, the question is active and will be displayed in the Question and Answer (Q&A) section of the Request Portal when any catalog item to which this question has been assigned is selected.

Interpret this answer, at ORDER level, as the following value:

Any answer entered by the user to this question will be interpreted as a value that is assigned at the order's level.  For example, if this question is marked to be interpreted as the order's asset number, then the asset number for the order will be updated (if not already populated) with the answer to this question.  

Note: There may already be order-level questions that populate the selected order-level value.  If so, the answer to this question will not be used (order-level questions override question-level answers)

Note:  If more than one question has been designated to be interpreted as an order-level value, only the first non-blank answer will be used.  All other answers will be ignored.

Question ID

Unique question ID (this value must be unique among all other questions)

Parent question ID

If the current question depends on the answer from another question, the question ID of that parent question goes here.  Leave this field blank if there are no dependencies.

Only show this question if the parent value is

An operator that is used to compare the current answer of the parent question to the following value.

this value (or these values)

The value to which the current answer of the parent question is compared.  If the comparison yields true, the current question is displayed.  Otherwise, the current question is hidden.

Description

Description of this question.

Apply this business rule for validation

Simple validation, such as constraining the question to specific answers via a drop-down and/or requiring an answer, can be accomplished with settings on the question form.  More detailed validation, such as enforcing a minimum or maximum value, or minimum or maximum length, is enforced through business rules.  Associating a validation business rule allows for more detailed validation.

Display number

The question number, for display purposes (this value is not used by the current Request Portal)

Display order

The order in which questions on a given questionnaire will be displayed, from lowest to highest display order.  A general rule of thumb is to leave sufficient space in between questions to allow for inserting new questions in the future.  For instance, increment display order by 10 for each question in a new questionnaire.

Display column

The column in which to display the question (starting at 1).  The Request Portal will go through all the questions defined and active for a given questionnaire and determine the highest column.  It will then place each successive question in its assigned column, grouping together columns on a given line (if not all columns of the line were assigned questions)

HTML column width

The column width that will be assigned to the column in which the question will be displayed.  This is used by the Request Portal when assigning column widths to the HTML table in which the questions are displayed.  Only the first column width is used, however, as subsequent column widths are calculated by the Request Portal.

Display width in columns

Defines the size of the input control that will be displayed to accept the answer.

Caption

The caption to be displayed above the input control.  The caption accepts general tags.  The caption value will be displayed if and only if the Question is not defined (left blank).  Use the caption for smaller phrases such as "Name: " or "Department: ".

Answer type

Type of answer.  This defines what HTML will be generated to accept the answer.

An answer is required

Check this box if an answer is required.  If this box is checked, validation javascript will be written to the Q&A form that will require the user to enter an answer before being able to continue with the rest of the request.

Question

Any entry in this field will be used as the caption that will display above the input control on the Q&A form.  The Question allows full HTML editing and therefore a much more detailed description of what is expected in the answer.  Use the Question for more detailed definitions of the expected answer in lieu of using the Caption.  

NOTE:  in order to cause anything entered in the Question to match the font and size of anything entered in the Caption, you must use the same font class that the Request Portal uses by default when it displays the Caption.  By default, the Request Portal uses the following font tag:

<font class="FieldHeader">

Switch the Question editor to HTML view to make sure the proper <font> tag is being used.

Acceptable answers

When the answer type is set to OPTION, the list of answer that will appear in the drop-down is defined here.  Each answer is placed on a separate line.

As answers are entered, each answer may contain a price adjustment, either up or down.  The base price will be adjusted via the adjustment if the answer is chosen.  Adjustments are added to the end of the answer, separated from the answer with a tilde (~) character.  For example:

Production
Development~-30%
QA
Test
 
In the example above, if the "Development" answer is chosen, the base price will be adjusted down by 30%.  Adjustments can be expressed in terms of a percentage of base price (using the % character) or as an absolute adjustment (omit the % character and the adjustment will be interpreted as an absolute amount).

Default answer

If populated, this represents the answer that will be filled in for the user when the Q&A area is first presented, before the user has begun to fill in any answers.

Copy existing answer from previous catalog entry

If checked, if this question is used by more than one catalog entry selected for this order, then this question will be populated with the same answer that was given previously (and that answer will override any default set for this question).  This is to ensure catalog items that use the same questionnaire, when selected for the same order, use the same answers.  This is also to prevent the user from having to answer the same question, with the same answer, many times when attempting to order more than one item (where the items share the same questionnaire).

Javascript

ESI ONLY - This allows defining javascript that will run on various HTML input control events such as onclick or onchange.