Where are forms found?

There are forms found in several packages within AGRIS. Each package has their own forms in their forms manager. Meaning, if you want to edit a GRN settlement form you will need to go to the GRN forms manager.
Here is a list of the packages and the forms that can be designed in each one:

Security on Forms

Each Dataset has it's own settings in System Security for Form Manager so that you can limit to the whole thing, or just certain forms and setting defaults.

Each form also has some securities you can add to it.
On the first screen of the form it gives you the option to limit to a single dataset, limiting to a certain use to run it, or set a password so only certain people can edit the form.

Setting Default Forms

Each Form Manager has the ability to set the default form you wish users to select.

When you select the Choose Default Forms option, it will list the types of forms in that package to default.

You can default by location, user and workstation. Checks and remittance also have the ability to default by bank code.

To default by location

• Select the package the form was designed in

• Select Form Manager

• Select Choose Default forms

• At the bottom, select location

• Pick the location you are defaulting for and hit ok

• You will now see the location above the list of forms

• Select the form Type

• Select Standard or User Defined

• Select the form you wish to default for that location

• Select Allow Override or Allow No Override
  
  

To default by user

• Select the package the form was designed in

• Select Form Manager

• Select Choose Default forms

• At the bottom, select user

• Pick the user you are defaulting for and hit ok

• You will now see the user above the list of forms

• Select the form Type

• Select Standard or User Defined

• Select the form you wish to default for that location

• Select Allow Override or Allow No Override

To default by workstation

• Select the package the form was designed in

• Select Form Manager

• Select Choose Default forms

• At the bottom, select workstation

• Pick the workstation you are defaulting for and hit ok

• You will now see the workstation above the list of forms

• Select the form Type

• Select Standard or User Defined

• Select the form you wish to default for that location

• Select Allow Override or Allow No Override

To default by bank code

• Select ACP or GRN Package

• Select Forms Manager

• Select Choose Default Forms

• Select Check Forms

• A list of banks will populate, select the bank you want to set a default for

• Select Standard or User Defined

• Select the form you wish to default for that location

• Select Allow Override or Allow No Override

Allow Override or Allow No Override?

• ALLOW NO OVERRIDE will push the user directly into printing. They will NOT see any other forms that are designed. They will NOT have the ability to back out of the default form to use another form.

• ALLOW OVERRIDE will display the form in a window along with other forms. The form will be highligted so they can just accept that form & go on; or the user can select another form or ESCAPE back to the Standard/User-Defined window to go to even more forms.

 

How to Add and Delete Forms

When you first go into the form manager it will populate the list of user defined reports. If you don't have any user defined forms, it will ask if you wish to create one.

To add a Form

Hit the insert button at the bottom of the list

It will ask if you want to create from a default. I suggest you hit yes and pick the form closest to what you want. If you select no you will be starting from a completely blank page.
If you hit yes, you will need to select standard or user defined and then the form you wish to start with.

To delete a form

Highlight the form you wish to delete and select delete at the bottom.

It will ask you to confirm that you want to delete this form, once you hit yes it will be gone.

What to Name and Number Your Form

Once you have inserted your form it will ask you to assign a sequence number. The sequence number is the same as the report id when you are choosing a form to print. When you are selecting the number think about where you want this form in the list. Do you want it at the top, behind another form, or at the bottom? Choose a number that will put it in the location you want it.

Next it will ask you to name your form, you should give it a unique name that is easily distinguishable by you and others in the company.

Choosing Output for Your Form

The output is where you want your form to print. You can leave this as the default for the user by setting it as 0. You can also set it to one of the other system options.

Setting an output does not mean that is where it will print always, it is just what you want to default into the print options when you get to that screen. You will be able to change these at that time.

Getting Started with Text Based Forms

Basic overview

Text based are designed by putting the information in rows and columns.
Think of it as a graph with column and rows.

When you insert a new form it will ask you if you want to design a form from default. If you say yes, you can select the standard or user defined form that is closest to what you want and you can make minor changes. If you say no, this entire grid is blank and you will have to put every piece of information that you want on it.
With the exception of labels, most forms have three parts; before the detail, detail and after the detail.
Before the detail is usually the portion that identifies your location and what customer the form is written for.
The detail is usually the purpose for printing the form.
After the detail is usually the totals and any terms or notes you wish to add.

Output types

The output type will effect how your file is created. You can choose one of the following:

1. Fixed-Font Text Form ~ Fixed font means that all of the letters will be the same size no matter what they are. For example: I will be the same width as W. This allows for you to create a uniform document because you know the number of spaces each line and you won't have to figure in for character width. If you plan to make a text based document to print, this is the option you want to choose.

2. Generate a File ~ This option will create a Fixed-Font Text Form, but instead of printing it will save to a designated folder. You can define this folder when you are creating the form. Then you can print or email the form later. Unlike reports this will not give a unique name and will overwrite itself. You cannot change the extension either, .fil is the only option.

3. Append to a file – This will also create a Fixed-Font Text Form and save to a file, but it will not overwrite what has already been written. It will add it to the end instead. If you are going to be creating lots of forms and printing them all off together, this is a good option. Just remember to go in and delete the file after you print or you will be printing them off again the next time.

4. Multiple-Font Graphic Form ~ These are graphic forms, they are not set up like a grid, you can drag and drop the information where you want it and will be covered later in this document.

General Form Layout

Total Number of Rows on Form: Key in the number of rows based on the vertical length of the form and the number of lines per inch (lpi) that your printer uses. You may need a ruler to measure the length of your paper form. You should keep in mind that most printers print 6 lpi. An example: if the form is 11 inches long and your printer prints 6 lines per inch, simply multiply 11 times 6 to calculate the value for this question. Or if the form is 7 inches long, multiply 7 times 6 for a value of 42 rows.
Rows before Detail:
Number of columns in each row:
The value for this field is based on the horizontal width of the form and the characters per inch (CPI) that your printer prints. The standard character types 1 and 3 are set for 17.1 CPI and types 2 and 4 are 10 CPI. Your printer may actually print a different number of characters per inch. You may need a ruler to measure the width of your paper form. An example: if your form is 8 inches wide and your printer prints 10 CPI, simply multiply 8 times 10 to calculate the value for this question. You may need to squeeze more information on the row (as in the detail section) and if the printers prints 17.1 CPI, multiply 8 times 17.1.
Print in Compressed Character Mode:
This field requires a yes or no response, which causes the printer to shift from "big print" (10 CPI) to "small print" (17.1 CPI) at the beginning of the section.
Print these rows on first (or last) page only?
This field requires a yes or no response. The rows before the detail section typically contain bill-to and ship-to information. The rows after the detail section typically contain totals or the grand totals. If you want this information to only print ONCE, then answer YES to "print these rows on first (or last) page only?
Rows before Detail/Rows after Detail:
Detail section starting on row number
This field requires an exact row (line) number, relative to the top of the form. For example: row 25 starts the detail section exactly on row 25. You may need to use your ruler again to determine how far from the top of the form to start. (Multiple by the number of line per inch). Hint: if you are in doubt, type a number in this field then print a sample.
Number of rows in detail section
This field requires an exact number of rows on the form to use for the detail section. Remember that the detail section is for a single page form, but that the software will automatically begin additional pages if the detail section needs to overflow.
Number of rows per detail item
The answer to this question is based on the amount of information to be printed on a row. You have to consider the number of characters on each row, and whether they are in compress mode. If you cannot squeeze all the required information onto a single row, then you may need to increase the answer from one to two or more. 10 \
Print in Compressed Character Mode:
This field requires a yes or no response, which causes the printer to shift from "big print" (10 CPI) to "small print" (17.1 CPI) at the beginning of the section.

Yes/No Questions

Every Text form will have a series of Y/N questions on the last page of the title screen.
These questions allow you to print extra information on the form or to print in a different format
These questions will be different for every form. Some forms will have none and some forms, like an invoice, will have a lot. The thing to remember is that these fields print below your detail line and they follow field positioning of other fields above. You do not have that much control over how they print, it just prints extra information that is hard-coded positions into the text writer forms manager. So you can answer YES to everything and see what prints, then go back and turn off features.

Create Additional Copy in Spooled Forms

 

This option will save a copy of the form into the form spool along with printing it out to a printer or screen. By answering YES to this question, you are prompted to handle different printing situations. For example, you may not want a copy sent to the form spool if you are reprinting a form to the screen to review.

Create Additional Copy in a Folder This option will save a copy of the form into a specified non-AGRIS folder or into the Document Library.

Name/Address Comments

Many of the forms, such as the A/R statement form, include the ability to print information from the comment fields found in the Name/Address System. Most forms relate to more than one name ID. For example: bill-to and ship-to name ID's, remit-to and ship-from name ID's, shipper name ID, agent/broker name ID, collection point name ID, etc.
Based on a setting in NAM Setup Information, you may attach a maximum of 990 comment fields (99 groups of ten comments) to each name ID. Each comment field contains a maximum of fifty characters. You may assign a descriptive title to the comment fields through an option in NAM Setup Information.
You may print a maximum of 36 of the 990 comment fields. A screen for specifying which comment fields to print is displayed when designing a form. If the form relates to more than one name ID, this screen is used to select which name ID and which comment fields to include. A search box to select a name ID field may be opened on any of the NI fields by typing an asterisk .

Before/After and Detail Fields

Screen four of five is for any field you want to print above and below the detail. Remember the screen where you defined the area above the detail and below the detail, Screen 1 of 5. This screen gives you every possible field that can print on the form and based on the space defined above the detail and below the detail these fields print.
Row
The row indicates vertical positioning on the form. Remember that there are the rows above the detail line. Then there are the rows below the detail line. So if we look back at screen 1 of 5, we see detail section starts on Row 26 and there are 27 Rows given to print detail. This means that the After Detail section starts printing on row 53.
This interprets to the following: Upper section has rows 1-25 Lower Section has rows 53 to 60 15
Column
The column indicates the horizontal position on the form. The COL input field tells the software where to begin printing a field. If you specify both a row (vertical) and column (horizontal) for a data field, the software can position the data field on the form. You can eliminate a field from printing by blanking out these two input fields.
Size
The size indicates the number of characters on the form to reserve for printing the data field. For example: when you may define a data field to print 25 characters, then no other data fields may be printed in the same area on the print line.
The Size input field also limits the number of characters in a data field to be printed. For example: the name ID description field may contain 50 characters. And if you specify a size of 25, only the left-most 25 characters are printed. By decreasing the value in this input field, you can squeeze more information on a print line. But beware of decreasing a numeric field too much since you could truncate significant digits.
Decimal
The Dec input field controls the number of decimal places to print. This field may contain a number or one of the characters from the Numeric Precision option. Normally, you should not change this value.
Type
The Types input field controls the appearance of the data field when printed by inserting characters such as slash, dollar sign, common, and decimal point. The types are shown in the legend box.
As indicated in the legend below, you can format the characters in the data field to:
0 Print the characters in the field,
1 Insert slashes in a date field,
2 Insert a decimal point,
3 Insert commas and decimal point,
4 Insert a currency symbol and decimal point,
5 Insert a currency symbol, commas, and a decimal point,
U Use the USPS standard (which eliminates punctuation)
If the value in a numeric data field is zero, you may either print the zeroes with a decimal point, commas, and currency symbol by entering 6, 7, 8, or 9 in the input field; or you may print blanks by leaving the input field blank.
Constant text
The constant text fields are used to print titles, notations, and other uniform text. For example: field titles often printed on plain paper forms with lines drawn between the sections. Each form definition has a couple of screens for the main and detail sections where you can type constant text and indicate the row and column where the text begins.
Each Constant text input fields may contain a maximum of twenty-five characters. If you need more than twenty-five characters, you may wrap the text around to the next field by entering the same row but a different column. For example: if you may want a row filled with dashes in order to print a line across the form, you would need to enter four separate constant text fields. All four fields should have the same row number. In the text area for column numbers 1, 26, and 51 you need to fill the input fields with dashes. And in column 74 you need four more dashes.
A secret to the constant text is that it will always have quotations around the data printing under the field name.

Detail Fields

Screen five of five is for any field you want to print in the detail section. Remember the screen where you defined the area above the detail section, Screen 1 of 5.
This screen gives you every possible field that can print on the form and based on the space defined in the detail these fields print.
The Rows here are different from Screen the previous screen 4. Note that you defined "number of rows per detail line = 1" this means that everything will print on row 1 (see screen shot above) and each record prints below the next.
If you had had "number of rows per detail line = 3" then you could define fields to print on row 1, 2, or 3. You will not see a progression of numbers because you are only defining a single row that will repeat information for each new detail record.

Print button

Any field that has an AT sign (@) is a field that is overlapping.
And if you are printing multiple font sizes (17.1-CPI and 10-CPI), like the invoice above the screen print or HTML print does not have the option to change font size. It will print correctly to printer or PDF.

Getting Started with Graphic Forms

Getting your Logo to print on a form

The logo defaults to the upper left hand corner. The image is controlled by what image is attached in the Image field in the Control section. If you select a specific image on a specific form, that image will be 'hard-coded' on that form.
The system automatically comes with 3 logos, Logo_AGY.jpg, Logo_ONE.jpg & Logo_SYS.jpg. If you rename a logo to one of these names in order to make it package specific, know that the next service pack or upgrade will overwrite the image you create.
You can specific custom logos by dataset or system.
To use a system wide logo, rename their logo Logo_Custom.jpg and place in the APPS\AGRIS\SUPPORT folder. This logo will appear on every form that doesn't have a hard-coded logo.
To use a dataset specific logo, rename each logo to Logo_custom.jpg and place it in the APPS\AGRIS\DATASETS\xxx folder.
If the system does not find a logo_custom.jpg in a dataset it will then look to the logo_custom.jpg in the APPS\AGRIS\SUPPORT folder and use that logo for all datasets

Tools

Tools are similar to normal Windows tools. You can Insert with the Insert button at the top or by the buttons on the left hand side. They are defined and controlled by the fields in the bottom , right-hand side.

Adding/Editing Label Fields

Label Fields can be INSERTED via the top menu or you can copy an existing label field and paste it into the document. Once you paste it in, you will need to edit the TEXT in the control section to change the print within the label. Be sure to use your arrow keys to move the label/text field around with the detail section.

Increase/Decrease size of Detail, Header & Footer

You can increase and decrease the sections by hovering your mouse over the edge of the section bar until you get a double arrow. Click and drag to the location you want it.
To move the detail section down on the page, make the header area larger.
To increase the width between each line of detail, make the detail section larger.
To increase the amount of detail available to print on the page, make the footer smaller.

Creating a Graphic from a Standard Text Based Form

You can select a standard text based form as a default for your Graphic form however the newly created Graphic form will NOT have the fields and properties that the text based form did.
To do this, insert your form. Then select the text based form you wish to default from. When you get to output type, change to #4 Multiple-font graphic form.

How to upgrade a Graphic Form

The upgrade process of User Defined Reports/Forms adheres to the Security within each package.  
Go into the applicable package and select Report Manager > Advanced Reports > Report Writer Features > Select > View Upgrade Status.  This will show a screen like this:

Select a Report and then select OK.
The following screen will appear.  

 
Type "Y" in the "Use Upgraded Reporting Engine?" field to upgrade to Active 10 and select OK.  The following screen will appear:

• Select "Upgrade All" to upgrade all reports in this package to Active 10.  

• Select "Upgrade This Report" to upgrade ONLY the selected report to Active 10.  

The system makes a copy of the pre-upgraded report/form in case you wish to revert the report/form to the previous Active engine.  It then upgrade the report/form to Active 10.
 

Watermarks

Watermark is only available to be modified when you first open the form during an edit. If you touch the form at all, you lose the option to edit the watermark.
This option lets you put a logo or pre-printed column layout or any image as a background to your form. Select the Watermark field and an ellipsis button allows you to search for the background image you wish to use.

Common Form Errors

Error 7 (Out of Memory)

This error can be caused by an invalid image file being used as the logo that displays on graphic (or 'active') forms and reports. Be sure that the LOGO_CUSTOM.JPG file that resides in AGRIS\Support (when using the same logo across all datasets) or AGRIS\Datasets\nnn (when using a logo in only a specific dataset) is valid and can be successfully previewed a JPG file in Windows without encountering any errors. Try renaming the LOGO_CUSTOM.JPG and see if the original error is reproducible.  It is important to recognize that occasionally an error 5 may be encountered in place of the error 7. Also, that rights to the files can also cause these errors. If you checked all of these and are still getting the error, open a case with support.

Basic # 2146232062 (Automation Error)

This error can be caused by two things. Either the form needs to be upgraded or the Net Framework 3.5 needs to be installed or turned on. Seems like we see this a lot when upgrading to Windows 10.
To upgrade the form see the directions earlier in this document.
To turn on Net Framework 3.5 in Windows 10:
Go to the search bar in the left-hand corner and type windows features. A menu will pop up and select Turn Windows Features on and off

Then a list will come up with check boxes, make sure that .net framework 3.5 is checked with a black box.

You may need to restart your computer to make the change work.

Credits:

Some of this content was taken from
2015-07 Forms Manager Webinar given by Alisa Mueller
2015-10 Graphic Forms Webinar given by Alisa Mueller
Both offer more details than what is included here. You can purchase the recording and documentation for $59 (free for Elite companies) Just email your name, company, job title and the webinar you wish to purchase to Webinar@culturatech.com.
~Document Written by Betsy Ropp

10/19