Create E-form Share

The Create E-form Share action turns an E-form document that already exists in the Record into a Shared E-form — a public link anyone can open in their browser, with no DocMgt login, to fill the form in and submit it. Their answers save back into the same document on the same Record. No new Record or Document is created, and no wrapper E-form or URL parameters are needed.


Use it when someone outside your organization needs to complete a form that belongs to an existing Record: a vendor W-9 on a Vendor Record, a signature page on a Contract Record, an intake form on an Application Record. The workflow creates the form, sends the link, and the outside user's submission lands exactly where it belongs.


The action is available in workflows and in Add-Ins, so a link can be minted automatically by a trigger or on demand from a button.

Requirements

  • The Collaboration license must be enabled (it is on almost all systems).
  • The Record's Record Type must have Collaboration enabled (Record Type settings, Security tab). Turning Collaboration off immediately kills every outstanding Shared E-form for that Record Type — it is the master switch.
  • The E-form must be marked External (Public) in the E-form editor's display settings. This marks the form as approved to leave the building.
  • The E-form document must already exist in the Record. This action shares an existing form; it does not create one. If the form may not exist yet, place a Create New E-Form action immediately before this one.


If any of these are not met the action fails with a clear message and the workflow stops.


Options

  • Active Document — When ON, the action shares the Active Document (the document being routed), which must be an E-form document. When OFF, use the E-form selector below.
  • E-form to Share — The E-form whose document should be shared. The FIRST document of this E-form found in the Record is used.
  • Password — Optional password the outside user must enter before the form opens. Supports variables, so the password can come from a Record field.
  • Expires — Optional date after which the link stops working. Supports variables. Leave blank for no expiration.
  • Single Use — When ON, the link stops working after the first submit. When OFF (default), the outside user can re-open and re-submit the form until the link expires — useful for "come back and finish" scenarios. A used single-use link can be re-armed with the Expire/Update Document Share action's Reset operation.
  • Revoke Previous — When ON (default), any existing Shared E-forms for this document are expired before the new one is created, so re-running the action rotates the link instead of leaving multiple live links in circulation.
  • Log Access — When ON (default), every open of the link is logged and appears in the Document Share Views report, including failed attempts and the visitor's IP address.
  • Notification Emails — Optional list of addresses (separated by ;) notified each time the form is opened. Supports variables.
  • URL to Field — The Record field that receives the generated link. Any previous values in the field are cleared first, so the field always holds the current link.


Sending the link

The action does not send email itself — it mints the link and makes it available two ways:

  • In the Record field named in URL to Field, where merge templates and later workflow steps can read it.
  • As the variables [FormShareURL], [FormShareName], and [FormShareID], available to the actions that run after this one in the same list. The usual pattern is a Send Email action right after this one with [FormShareURL] in the message body.


Seeing and revoking Shared E-forms on the Record

Once an E-form document has a Shared E-form, a share button appears on that document in the Record screen (and a View Shared E-forms entry in the document's overflow menu). It only appears when the document actually has one — E-form documents with no Shared E-form show no button at all, since these links are created by the workflow action and never by hand.


The panel lists each Shared E-form for that document with its created date, expiration, whether a password is required, whether it is Single Use, and whether it has been submitted (with a count when it was submitted more than once). From there you can copy the link, generate a QR code for it, or click the red Expire this Link Now icon to revoke it immediately. Expiring leaves the entry and its view history in place — it shows struck through — so you keep the record of what was sent and who opened it.


What the outside user sees

The link opens a clean page containing only the form — no toolbar, banner, or navigation. If a password is set, a password prompt appears first. The form's own features all work: instructions on the form canvas, Save for Later (the partial entry is kept in the visitor's browser until they return), file upload fields, and the form's configured After Save message or redirect URL. When the visitor submits, the E-form's normal save behavior runs — including Route On Save and any post-save Action Set — so downstream workflow fires exactly as if the form had been completed internally.


Security

Each link is a random token tied to one specific document. The visitor's session is locked server-side to that Record and document — a Shared E-form cannot be used to read or write anything else, regardless of how the request is altered. Links can be revoked at any time: expire them with the Expire/Update Document Share action, expire one directly from the Shared E-forms panel on the document, re-run this action with Revoke Previous ON to rotate them, or disable Collaboration on the Record Type to kill all of them at once. Shared E-forms never expose the document binary and standard Document Shares still refuse E-form documents, so the download and fill paths stay completely separate.