This article explains how to setup conditional branching in Worksheets to streamline your processes and automate tasks based on user responses.

Conditional Branching is the process by which you can Conditional branching allows you to use responses from one question to display or go to other questions or worksheets, based on the response which is received.  This can be a great time saver, allowing resources to skip questions that aren't relevant to them whilst keeping them in place for those instances when they are needed. 

They can also automate some financial processes, ensuring that your invoicing and stock system is kept up to date eg, adding stock items to a job or applying a rating table.

For example, you may only want to ask the question ‘Please describe the fault’ if the answer to the question which proceeds it is ‘Is the machine left in working order’ is ‘No’.

Before adding conditional branching to any question, it is recommended that you first map out the questions that you want to ask and the process you want the questions to flow.

Please note, you can set-up several conditional branches on the same question.

When editing either a WorkSheet or Workflow in Administration, users can view a flowchart which displays both the questions and their branches.  If you are unhappy with the flow, it is then simple to go back to each of the questions and edit/drag/drop until you are happy with the result. 

The diagram will help you to see whether your changes still make logical sense.

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Selecting A Trigger

After selecting ‘Add conditional branching’ you need to select a trigger. You have 5 options:

1. ‘Equal to’: This is an exact match. The answers in the worksheet will need to match exactly. Therefore it is recommended that this conditional branching is used for ‘Yes/No’ and ‘List’ question types.
2. ‘Different Than': ie if the response differs in any way from the answer given. It is also recommended that this conditional branching is used for ‘Yes/No' and ‘List’ question types. There are however applications for number-based questions.
3. ‘Less Than’: A response less than a number value.
4. ‘Greater Than’: A response that is greater than a number value.
5. ‘Other Answers’: Once an answer of any kind has been given go to the result.

Type in the ‘answer’ in the box (6.).

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Selecting An Action

After setting up the trigger, you can now set the Action:

1. ‘Go to Question’: This takes you to another question in the worksheet. Worksheet questions flow from top to bottom automatically, so use of this conditional branch setting is limited.
2. ‘Show Question’: This causes a question to be displayed if the trigger is met, or if you think of it in reverse terms, the question will be ‘hidden’ if the trigger is not met. Please note a question's mandatory state is only valid if it is displayed and can be filled in.
3. ‘Go to Worksheet’: This will take the user to another worksheet, regardless of whether it is assigned to the job or not.
4. ‘View Worksheet’: This will display another worksheet on the job, regardless of whether it is assigned to the job or not.
5. ‘Go to result’: This will take the user to the job result page for them to select a result. Please note if any mandatory questions are visible and have been omitted, completing the job may not be possible.
6. ‘Go to stock’: This will take you to the job stock area on the tablet.
7. ‘Go to consignment’: This will take to you the job consignment area on the tablet.
8. ‘Force Result’: This will force the job to be completed with a specific result, the result must be available for the job type.
9. 'Apply rating': Selecting this will allow you to apply a rating table from a dropdown list which will appear in the next field.

An example of how this might look when would be:

Note that since the conditional branching in this example leads to a stock item, the item of stock would be pulled through and removed from the van stock and added to the cost of the job/financial document.

Used thoughtfully, conditional branching can produce excellent, tailored results for your company.  They can make short work of really quite complex processes and reduce the worksheet seen by the mobile resource so that only relevant questions appear.

Remember that a conditional branching question can also lead you to a further Worksheet