Make Public Forms Multilingual

You can create public web forms in Questetra to accept data input from external users.

In “Let’s Create Public Forms (Basic)”, we explained how to set up and publish forms while creating an application that accepts email addresses and names as form inputs. Next, in “Let’s Create Public Forms (Input Check)”, we introduced how to validate email addresses entered in forms and how to set a deadline to wait for form inputs.

In this article, we will show you how to create public forms for input by users of different languages. Making your forms multilingual will make it easier for people who have difficulty understanding Japanese, such as foreign employees and overseas business partners, to fill in the forms. To make your forms multilingual you will use query parameters.

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What are Query Parameters?

Query parameters are used to send additional information to the server. Query parameters can be written at the end of the URL given to the form after a “?” in the format  <parameter name>=<parameter value>.

https://example.com/?exampleParam=exampleValue

In Questetra, you can specify the display language of public forms using query parameters.

Specifying the Form Display Language

Public forms generated by [Message Start Event (form)] and [Receive Task (form)] are displayed according to the system language of the workflow system if no query parameter is specified.
(The system language is the display language of the login screen: https://<your workflow system domain>/Login_show.)

By adding a locale parameter to a URL as a query parameter, you can specify the display language for some elements of the public forms, such as the “Submit” button and confirmation messages.

Notes

It is not possible to switch the language of process names or data item names defined in the app, or of the actual text entered in data items, etc.^* Please take care of this by writing text in multiple languages in parallel, etc.
*The language used for the Subject field can be switched.

How to Specify the Parameter

Please add ?locale=<language code> the end of the form URL.

Languages that can be Specified
Japanese (ja), English (en), German (de)^*, Spanish (es)^*, French (fr)^*, Korean (ko)^*, Portuguese (pt)^*, Simplified Chinese (zh)^*
*Beta function

Example of Specification (when specifying English in [Receive Task (form)])

https://<your workflow platform domain>/System/ReceiveTask/Form/<app ID>/<node number>/<process ID>/view?locale=en

Creating Multilingual Forms

Let’s try to create a multilingual public form.

As noted in the notes, the language of the process name, data item name, and the text entered in the data item does not change depending on the language specified for the form. Therefore, to create a public form that supports multiple languages, do the following.

1. Within a single app, describe the data items and process names by multiple languages
2. Within a single workflow app, prepare data items and form start events, such as  [Message Start Event (Form)], for each language.
3. Create a separate app for each language

In case b., where forms and data items are prepared for each language within a single application, it is easy to enter data because only one language is used in the form, but the data will be divided unless integration processing is performed, and the more items that are set, the more difficult it will be to maintain.

In case c., where each language is a separate workflow application, the structure of the application itself is simpler than in case b., and is the same as in case a., where multiple languages are written together. In the case of complex workflows, such as requesting form input via email and waiting for the form in a [Receive Task (forms)], the workflow diagram becomes more readable, making it easier to understand the status of processing and where problems occur. On the other hand, data integration is more difficult in case c. than in case b.

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Using forms for multiple languages will make it easier for a wider range of users to fill out your public forms. Please take advantage of this.

In Questetra, you can also specify initial input values for public forms by using query parameters. In the next blog, we will show you how to do this.