How do I use the Visibility Area?

One can adjust the visibility and editability of items at each step of the workflow. The differentiating factor of Droplet vs a standard digital form is workflow enablement and a lot of that power is derived by showing different assignees different materials and allowing different assignees to update different fields.

Available Visibility Permissions

Three different states can be assigned to components at each workflow step using the component ID:

• readonly - the component is shown but it is not editable at that particular stage in the workflow.
• hidden - the component is not visible to the user at this step.
• editable - the component can be adjusted by the user at this step.

Inside the visual builder you can simply click "Visibility" at the top of the right-side tool bar, click on the component of interest, and then shift your gaze to the left-side tool bar where you'll see a list of all workflow steps and the option to choose what state that component will be in at each step in the process:

Right-Side Tool BarLeft-Side Tool Bar

Generally, when you build your layout within the Visual Builder, Droplet will add the component ID to the start step and declare it editable. If you would like a component to be editable at any other step or to be a different state at the start step, you'll need to update it in the visibility layer. 

Note: You can make a component editable in one or more steps in the workflow. Actions, or the buttons available to move the submission through the workflow, can be hidden or shown in the same way as any other component.

Visibility Permissions Warnings and Errors

The default state for components is readonly so if you do not declare permissions for a component ID in a step, that component will be read-only for that step. You will likely see warnings in the side panel of the Visibility layer telling you which components are undeclared in any step. If you want these components to remain read-only for the entire duration of the submission's lifecycle, you can leave them undeclared and ignore the warning.

Some components, such as sections and text components, cannot be made editable and should instead be readonly or hidden. Only components that allow input can be made editable. If you aren't hiding these components at any point, they will show as a warning in the right-side panel along with any other undeclared IDs. If you attempt to make an ID editable that cannot be, you will see an error message in the right side panel and will be unable to save until the ID or permissions are corrected.

Visibility Permissions Best Practices

Use Descriptive Component IDs

Being able to recognize which ID goes with which component on your form layout will help you work more quickly while setting up Step Permissions. 

Hide Groups of Components

Another way to save time and make declaring visibility permissions easier over the lifetime of this form is to use section, group, or tile component IDs to hide multiple components at once. 

Sections, groups, and tiles can have IDs just like any other component, and declaring one of these IDs as hidden will hide all components it contains.