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Component Grouping Overview

The Component Grouping drop-down enables you to choose to have HotDocs display multiple True/False variables or child dialogs as single items in interviews, or to group their individual interactions together as a single control. If you decide to group them as a single control, you have a further option to limit the user to choosing a single option from the list (Single Select), or to select as many options as desired (Multiple Select). In addition, you can also provide the user with an option to choose None of the above.

Options

Component Grouping enables you to select one of the following options:   

  • None—Causes HotDocs to ask all True/False variables, clause components, or child dialogs separately
  • Single Select—Groups True/False variables, clause components, or child dialogs together and replaces each item's selection control with a radio button so users can choose only a single option from the group of variables
  • Multiple Select—Groups True/False variables, clause components, or child dialogs together and replaces each item's selection control with a check box so users can choose from several options

Booleans

To include boolean type items (items that have only two states–true/false, yes/no, etc.) in a component group, the Contents tab of your dialog must list the boolean items together. For example, if your contents tab list includes three True/False variables in a row, then a child dialog (when shown as buttons on your parent dialog), then a Text variable, followed by two child dialogs and a final True/False variable, and you choose either Single Select or Multiple Select, you'll get two component groups divided by the Text variable. The items are not grouped by variable type. If the Contents tab also lists a boolean item singly (not contiguous to any other boolean item), and you choose a component grouping, HotDocs also treats that single item as a component group. In this case, however, you wouldn't want to choose Single Select because HotDocs would display that single items as a single radio button, which does not enable a real choice for your users.

None of the Above

Placing a None of the above option next to each component group on the dialog, enables the dialog to appear answered, even if the user did not select one of the other options. When you set the Component grouping to either Single Select or Multiple Select on a dialog, and that dialog is not the first dialog in your interview, then in the interview outline, HotDocs shows the dialog as unanswered. However, as soon as the user selects that dialog and that dialog loads in the interview, HotDocs marks all options as false, which tells HotDocs those variables are answered. This is because there are only two possible states for the component group (yes/no), so there is already an answer by default. The user viewing the dialog, however, sees no visual cue that these options are now set to false (and therefore answered), so they might not understand why the answered status in the interview outline changes. To avoid this situation (and possible confusion for the end user), you can add a third possible option by selecting None of the Above. Providing a None of the Above option means that HotDocs doesn't have to automatically change the group control's state to answered, and gives your users a chance to answer a question without selecting any of the options you have presented. This is especially useful if you choose single select, since by nature at least one radio button must be selected. In such a case, if the user chooses None of the above, they're not marking the options in the radio button unanswered, they're marking them all false.