Everything was working fine with my dynamically generated combo box (thanks again for the help on that one). I wanted to add CSS styling to the xform, so I followed the instructions in a post to open the xform file in the text editor and make the changes. The CSS worked fine, but now my combo box doesn't return any values and my process fails.

I looked at the XML in the NotifyTaskCompletionRequest - and sure enough it is empty. I opened the form in the form editor (losing my CSS changes, but that's OK) and added another combo box (static, to make things easy). It appears that I don't get any output from that second combo box either. I double checked to make sure that I was setting the input/output properties to in-out (I also tested at out only - no difference). I reviewed the form.xsd file - it looked right and as far as I can tell the xform looks right.

I update the xform in the bpm by dragging/dropping it onto the map, using the takeAct for People Activity and then deleting the create/complete tasks created (I am sure there is a better way, but this seems to work as I am seeing the new form, without the CSS styling).

I read a post about how modifying the .xform can change the input/output behavior, but all I did was to add a single line of styling in the head (which has since been removed of course). Any ideas as to why the combo box has stopped returning results - or am I misinterpreting the NotifyTaskCompletionRequest information.

The slightly bigger picture is that I start an instance, the form shows up for the first user and they choose an item from the combo box, which controls the flow to the next step. However, the exclusive data gateway fails because the combo box is returning an empty value that is not expected. (At least that is what appears to be happening)

To see the XML, I open the TaskManagementProcess associated with my instance. I then choose the Data tab and click on the SubProcess_* and then click on notifyTaskCompletionRequest.

<notifyTaskCompletionRequest xmlns="http://www.intalio.com/bpms/workflow/ib4p_20051115">
<b4p:taskMetaData xmlns:b4p="http://www.intalio.com/bpms/workflow/ib4p_20051115">
....
</b4p:taskMetaData>
<taskOutput xmlns:b4p="http://www.intalio.com/bpms/workflow/ib4p_20051115">
<output xmlns:xs="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xxforms="http://orbeon.org/oxf/xml/xforms" xmlns="http://example.com/takeAct/xform" xmlns:fe="http://example.com/takeAct/xform" xmlns:f="http://orbeon.org/oxf/xml/formatting" participantToken="...removed for brevity..."
taskId="4b79322096ec6b13:55b8f2e3:11d02c17146:-7fcb192.168.2.1753014657" user="examples\mollycfo">
<Test />
<Acts />
<Subject>Testing for post to Intalio</Subject>
</output>
</taskOutput>
<b4p:status xmlns:b4p="http://www.intalio.com/bpms/workflow/ib4p_20051115">OK</b4p:status>
</notifyTaskCompletionRequest>


Attached are the xform and xform.xsd files in a zip file (I was too stupid to figure out how to attach multiple files :) ).

Thanks so much for any guidance!
RB

Did some further testing and found one interesting piece of data. If I select any value in the select list other than the first, everything is fine (that is to say, the output XML looks like <Acts>Some value</Acts> and my process works. However, when I select the first item, then the situation is as described earlier - <Acts> is empty, the process fails. It's almost as though the combo box doesn't realize that a choice has been made.

I will try the hack of putting in a dummy first element (e.g. "Select One...") and see if that provides a workaround.

Enjoy,
RB

Yup, it looks like some problem with the combo box not recognizing that the user has made a selection. Using the dummy value worked, as did selecting the first value in the list, then selecting the selecting the second (to force the onChange event) then selecting the first (the one I wanted).

Again, this all appears to have been triggered by my editing the .form file directly to add styling.

Specific questions (if anyone is listening):
1. How to refresh the bpm file after changing the .xform? (As explained in my first post, I do a drag/drop, then delete the items created - works fine, but there must be a cleaner way)
2. Is the right way to style the .xform to edit the file directly - or was that a bad thing to do?

Thanks,
RB