Important
Information and features vary according to the roles to which you belong and the permissions associated with those roles. For more information, contact your module manager or your campus support team.
Look ups populate other questions on the form based on information selected or entered from a source question. For example, you can populate name and contact information fields/questions when a faculty member enters their email address. Look ups can be used with textbox, drop-down, and hidden questions/fields.
Look ups use the SQL queries provided in data sources to pull information from the designated tables into your form fields. The @@LookUpValue parameter must be included in your look up data source's SQL query. Anytime @@LookUpValue is referenced in the data source, the value entered in the triggering question (i.e., the question that you add the Look Up Data Source to) will replace @@LookUpValue and execute the query.
SELECT_FIRST_NAME, MIDDLE_NAME, LAST_NAME, EMAIL_ADDRESS FROM_NAMEMASTER WHERE_ID_NUM = @@LookUpValue
If you add a Look Up Data Source that uses the above query to an ID Number field on your form, the following will occur:
The user enters their ID Number into the ID Number field.
The ID Number entered will replace @@LookUpValue and execute the query.
The data from the FIRST_NAME, MIDDLE_NAME and LAST_NAME columns that correspond with the ID Number will be pulled from the NameMaster table, and the email address (AlternateContact) will be pulled from the AlternateContactMethod table.
The values in the above columns that were matched to corresponding questions/fields in the form will populate those fields.
Note
A look up takes the value supplied by the source question, passes the information back to the database asynchronously, and return values to be assigned to other inputs on the page.
A look up data source can return multiple columns from multiple tables, but the restriction is that a single row is returned from the query. This row is almost always associated with a value provided by the source question. This value can be referenced in the data source query using the parameter “@@LookUpValue”.
Complete the steps to Create a Data Source.
Click Manage Forms.
Click on the form you are working with.
Click on the tab you want to work with.
Right-click on the textbox, drop-down, or hidden question and select Properties to open the Edit Item pop-up.
Click the Look Up tab.
From the Look Up DataSource drop-down, select the data source you want to use to look up information. The table columns associated with the data source appear with corresponding drop-downs.
From the drop-downs, select the Unique IDs of the form questions/fields you want to auto-populate with information from the matching table columns.
Select the Execute on load checkbox If you want your look up to execute immediately when the form is accessed.
Note
By default, the lookup will execute when the value of the question changes.
Select the Trigger After Set checkbox if the questions/fields being populated should trigger the question/field's events.
Select the Preserve user input checkbox if you want to save the text a user manually inputs in a field that utilizes a lookup.
Note
If there is a default value in the field, that would also be preserved. If you use the default value setting and pre-populate the field with @@LastName, it considers that user input and the value wouldn't be overwritten if this setting is checked. If this is not selected, the text pre-populated by the lookup will overwrite any text that the user inputs.
Click Save changes.
