Progress Gates

Introduction

You can use a progress gate to prevent a user proceeding past a section in a form until they have satisfied a requirement(s). That is controlled using under-the-hood formulas that the Progress gate looks at.

The message to the user can be configured.

Here is an example:

 

Progress Gate formulas

The output needs to be True or False

Progress Gates formulas output true or false (aka Boolean). That is different from most formulas, compare the different types of output below:

A formula with Numeric output

TOP!B + TOP!D + TOP!F

A formula with Text output

IF( TOP!G="", "" , VLOOKUP(TOP!G,"HR - Employees",3,0) )

Some formulas that output True or False

1=1  (true)

1=2  (false)

TOP!M="Yes"

Note: If your formula does output a number then 1 is interpreted as True, and 0 is interpreted as False.

 

Building blocks

Progress Gates formulas do some kind of check, like seeing whether a percentage is over 80, so they usually use one or more of the following operators and functions. That can be in combination.

Conditional Operators

Operator	What it does
=	equal to
<>	not equal to
>	greater than
<	less than
>=	greater than or equal to
<=	less than or equal to

Logic functions  

AND(expression1, expression2, ...)

Returns TRUE if all expressions evaluate as true, FALSE if at least one does not. 

OR(expression1, expression2, ...)

Returns TRUE if at least one expression evaluates as true, FALSE if all evaluate as false.

NOT(argument)

Reverses True and False. Can also be used to make sure one value is not equal to another one.

Hide the formula

Progress Gates formulas are normally hidden, using their Hide setting. If you are troubleshooting though then make it visible while you are doing that.

 

Section Settings

In the settings of a section you can:

• Turn ON that section being a progress gate
• Enter a message. It usually begins with words like Before proceeding, please
• In the “Gate Condition” dropdown list you can choose a formula from within that section.