PDF Snapshots

Owned by Brian Banet
Last updated: Feb 09, 2022
3 min read

Problem

PDF Snapshot based forms don't process.  The form submits, and a submission is available in the Submissions tab of the GlobalForms admin interface, but GlobalCapture never processes the document.

Solution

A number of things may impact processing of  Snapshot forms.  Any one or more of these items may impact processing and should be carefully reviewed.

  1. Ensure you are on the latest version of GlobalForms 10, but at a minimum version 10.2.1.102 is required for PDF Snapshots.


  2. Ensure the form has a PDF Snapshot Action.  On the Actions tab of the form designer, a PDF Snapshot action must be listed.


  3. The PDF Snapshot Action must be configured with valid GlobalForms user account credentials.  It's common to use the Admin account here, but any account with read permissions to the form(s) can be used.  On complex forms, or forms with nested forms and resources, ALL form submissions that are part of the flow need to be accessible to the account specified here.


  4. If the GlobalForms website is secured with SSL, a valid and trusted certificate is required.  If a certificate expires, it may impact the server's ability to generate snapshots.  If you are using SSL and browsing to the GlobalForms website shows "Not Secure" in the browser, it can be expected to cause problems.


  5. Ensure a mapping exists for the form.  Snapshots still require "mapping" to translate form fields into data points in GlobalCapture.  It would be impossible to save a workflow if this step wasn't completed prior, but if the mapping were removed after the fact, issues may arise.


  6. The app config for the GlobalCapture Engine and the web config for the Square9CaptureAPI website must have an appSettings entry.  The path specified here should represent a location accessible to both services that reflect the PDFSnapshots folder of your GlobalForms installation directory.

    <add key="SnapshotPath" value="C:\GlobalForms\PDFsnapshots" />



Problem

Some Snapshots do not process as the expected image and instead present as the GlobalForms login screen as a document in the targeted release defined within GlobalCapture.

Solution

The user credentials authenticating the PDF Snapshot Form Action are incorrect. This can cause inconsistent behavior when attempting to get the snapshot. To correct this user, visit the "Form Actions" tab of the form in question, select the edit tab and revise the "Authorized User" and "Authorized Password" fields to match a valid GlobalForms account that has access to the form submissions you would like to capture as a Snapshot.

Problem

Snapshots are not updating at each step of the workflow, as a submission escalates through Validation Nodes.

Solutions

Snapshots are only generated for “user triggered” actions. In other words, only when a user clicks the submit button on a form. The PDF Snapshot Action does not fire when forms leave a validation node on a timer action.

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