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HOWTO_external_services.md

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External Services — Order Forms

Services can require a completed order form which can be hosted through an external service. By default, NUCore uses Form.io as its external service, but it should be simple to integrate another service.

Currently, you can only use one external service class at a time.

Default (and only): UrlService

You can change the default external service by creating a new class that extends from ExternalService. The current implementation, UrlService, provides the majority of functionality.

There may be other gems or companion applications that utilize UrlService. For example, NU is using acgt, sanger_sequencing, and the IMSERC application (https://github.com/tablexi/nucore-imserc).

Process

  1. Add the URL to the product under Products > Services > Order Forms and activate the form. This should be the URL for taking a new survey

    For Form.io, this link can be found by logging into Form.io and selecting the "Embed" tab for the form you wish to use. The link will look like this: https://[form-io-stage-path].form.io/[survey-path]

  2. User adds the service to their cart

    Screenshot

  3. The "Complete Online Order Form" button links (via GET) to the URL added to the product. It also includes the following parameters:

    success_url The URL that the external service should redirect to upon completion of the survey. e.g. http://[yourdomain.com]/facilities/[facility_url]/services/[service_url]/surveys/[external_service_id]/complete?receiver_id=[order_detail_id]

    receiver_id The OrderDetail ID

Other data is also sent along in the query string: order number, quantity, order date, ordering user name/email/NetID, payment account owner name/email/NetID, and the payment account number. See UrlService#additional_query_params and SubmissionsController#prefill_data for a current list of data passed along to the external service.

  1. Once the user completes the survey, the external service should redirect the user to success_url. The URL should have the following additional parameters:

    receiver_id Was passed to the external service

    survey_url This is the URL to view the completed survey.

  2. The user may go and edit their order form

    Screenshot

    The link to this will be the survey_url passed back unless you have overridden edit_url in a subclass of UrlService.

  3. Once the user has purchased the product, administrators will see a link to "View Order Form" under the order. This links to the survey_url that was passed back.

Form.io

Form.io is used as a survey tool/data aggregator for service requests associated with an order. Form data may include pathology sample information, machine shop project schematics, chemical formulae and requested experiment details, and other related non-financial service workflow information. Facility staff can view the forms to see what what is requested or required for the order.

See https://pm.tablexi.com/issues/157154#note-7 for a list of facilities at NU that use form.io surveys.

Checking and upgrading form.io assets

From time to time we should upgrade the version of the JS and CSS assets used to support and render form.io forms.

To check the latest version, you can:

You can upgrade the version by setting FORMIO_VERSION on the server, then doing a full eye-patch quit/load to pick up the version change. This allows for some testing to be done without a code change and deployment. Check ~/.bash_profile.d/env_variables_nucore for the FORMIO_VERSION value.

To confirm the the upgraded assets are being used:

Upgrading form.io premium assets

  1. SSH onto the server
  2. Run npm login --registry https://pkg.form.io and log in with credentials that have access to premium module assets.
  3. Run npm update @formio/premium --registry https://pkg.form.io
  4. Perform a full eye-patch quit and then load.

More info: https://pkg.form.io/-/web/detail/@formio/premium

Updating OrderDetail records on submission to Form.io

A form.io survey can be configured to update the note, quantity, or reference ID in NUCore upon submission. On successful survey submission (new or update), an ajax call is made to update the order detail.

This provides additional context for facility staff, especially when viewing a long list of open orders in the New/In Process queue. This helps staff effectively manage pending service requests and complete them for billing when the work is done.

Here are the steps to configure the form.io survey:

  1. Log in to form.io
  2. Select the "Live" tab (form.io allows multiple stages for keeping forms organized)
  3. Select "Forms" on the side nav bar
  4. Click the form you want to edit
  5. Create a new form component (or click the gear icon to edit one)
  6. Click "API" tab on the top nav
  7. In the field for "Property Name", enter "orderDetailQuantity", "orderDetailNote", or "orderDetailReferenceId"
  8. Save the changes

Validating form inputs from Form.io

  1. Log in to form.io
  2. Select the "Live" tab (form.io allows multiple stages for keeping forms organized)
  3. Select "Forms" on the side nav bar
  4. Click the form you want to edit
  5. Create a new form component (or click the gear icon to edit one)
  6. Click "Validation" tab on the top nav
  7. Enter a max value in the field for "Maximum Length". The max for note is 1000 characters, 255 for reference ID. Use something sensible for quantity.
  8. Save the changes

Testing

You will need a form.io account with access to the NU forms in order to debug or make changes on the form.io side.

There is a product on NU staging set up for testing: https://nucore-staging.northwestern.edu/facilities/zed_mark_2/services/aaron_form_io

Developer Notes

Your new service must extend from ExternalService and contain the following methods:

receiver in this case will be the OrderDetail object.

new_url(receiver) Returns the URL for filling out a new survey. This URL should contain the success_url parameter for where the external service should return after the user completes the survey. The main part of the URL will likely be the location field from the database.

edit_url(receiver) Returns the URL for editing a completed survey

show_url(receiver) Used on the administrative side to link to viewing a completed survey

The easiest way to set up an external service is to extend the UrlService class, which contains basic functionality for these three methods.