Your application can validate the format of many user inputs on a flow action form or work object form on the user's workstation, before the user submits the completed form to the application server that hosts Process Commander. This feature is known as client-side format validation.

This optional technique has three benefits:

• Errors are detected earlier, increasing overall user productivity.
• The number of round trips (HTTP interactions) needed to obtain a fully valid and complete form may be reduced.
• Processing workload on the server and HTTP traffic are reduced.

Several standard HTML Property rules support this feature, including those for dates, times, and textareas.

When enabled, user inputs are checked for character formats and by JavaScript equivalents to selected edit validate rules. Additional validation may occur later when the form is submitted.

For example, you can't enter a letter into a numeric field. You can't enter 02/31/2007 into a date field. Error notification occurs immediately when you tab out of the input field or change focus to another field.

Enabling this capability

To enable client-side format validation:

1. For best results, use this capability with flow action rules and harness rules that use the SmartFrames format and JavaServer Pages tags rather than directives.
2. Specify an HTML property rule for the property that incorporates the ClientValidation HTML property rule. (Many standard HTML property rules already incorporate this HTML property rule.) You can override the HTML property rule normally associated with the property in the Format field of the Field panel (on the Flow Action, Section, or Harness form).
3. Check the Enable Client Side Validation box on the HTML tab of the Flow Action form or Harness form.

Notes

Client-side format validation does not test user input values against restrictions defined on the Table Type area of the General tab of the property rule.

	required field, validation
	About Edit Validate rules How to support interactive formatting of user inputs
	Standard HTML Property rules

Definitions — C