Who is this article for?

Ideagen Quality Management administrators managing the system.

Admin access is required.

Smart Restrictions are rules determining the values presented in one field based on selections in another field. For example, a restriction may say that selecting Louisville from a list of Regional Offices in the first field means that only Screws, Nuts, and Bolts are available from the product list, rather than all other product types.

This feature replaces the List Field Exception feature found in previous 4.x versions of Ideagen Quality Management. In addition to List Custom fields, you can now use Personnel, Document, and Standard fields to create restrictions. These fields can be used in any combination, meaning a selection from a List (Regional Offices) can impact what's available in a Personnel (Manager) field; selections in a Document field (SOP Violated) can affect what's available in a Standard (Associated Requirement) field; and so on.

Note: The Custom Fields Administration permission is required to view and modify the Smart Restrictions Administration page.

1. How to Add/Edit/Remove Smart Restriction

1. Select Administration, and then Smart Restrictions. From here you can:

• Add Smart Restrictions - to create new restriction.
• Filter - to find a specific restriction.
• Edit - to modify an existing restriction.
• Remove - to delete a restriction.

2. To add a Smart Restriction, select Add Smart Restriction.
3. From the Smart Restriction pop-up, enter a Title to distinguish the it from others.
4. Select Add Source fields to choose the "If" field and values in the If > Then statement.

Note: Selecting more than one source field means that every field and its values (step 7) must be in use for the Smart Restriction to apply.

5. Once you've chosen at least one source field, select the Add Source Fields button.
6. From the definition page that opens, click Edit underneath each source field you've added to select the specific values to trigger the Smart Restriction when applicable.

7. Select the value(s) and click the Save Choices button.

Note: Values for each field are restricted to either single- or multi-select based on the Custom Field definition.

8. To select which fields the source fields will affect, select Fields to Restrict.
9. Select the fields from the fields to Restrict list and select Add Fields to Restrict.
10. Once you've chosen at least one fields to restrict, select the Edit link underneath each fields to restrict you've added to select the specific values that will be available when the Smart Restriction's source fields are chosen.
11. Select the value(s) and click the Save Choices button.

Note: Once the desired source and fields to restrict values have been selected, review the completed If > Then statement in the upper-right section of the Smart Restriction definition page for accuracy.

12. From the Applies To section, enable the applications you want the Smart Restriction's If > Then rules to apply. Choices include workflows, folders from the Documents Tree, and personnel fields from the personnel and individual profile pages.

Note: Only applications that contain all source and fields to restrict appear in the Applies To section. Add any missing fields to those objects to add it to this list.

13. Click Save Changes when finished.

2. Smart Restriction Usage

The following rules clarify how Smart Restriction rules are applied. These are particularly important when multiple Smart Restriction rules are applicable.

1. The last Smart Restriction to be applied overrides previous Smart Restrictions. For example, if you have 2 different Smart Restrictions applied to the same fields to Restrict, the last Source field’s Smart Restriction rules you apply will be applied to the fields to Restrict.
2. Smart Restrictions don’t cross subform boundaries, or subform rows. Smart Restrictions within subforms only apply to the row the source(s) and fields to restrict are on. And source/fields to restrict outside of a subform can’t impact behavior with source/fields to restrict within a subform.
3. Smart Restrictions are applied across steps of a workflow. Source(s) in a previous step can impact fields to restrict values in subsequent steps.
4. Smart Restrictions with more Source fields override Smart Restrictions with fewer. For example, if you have an Smart Restriction with three source fields affecting fields to restrict A and it's being enforced, a later Smart Restriction with only two source fields affecting fields to restrict A cannot override it.
5. When a fields to restrict value is selected by a user, the fields to restrict values always include the selection regardless of any applicable Smart Restriction rules. This means if the user selects a fields to restrict value early in a workflow and an Smart Restriction based on other selections later enforces a rule that would normally trim the fields to restrict values to not include the selection, the selection will remain until manually changed. At that point it will be removed from the list of possible fields to restrict values due to the Smart Restriction being applied. This rule is enforced regardless of the previous four rules.