HotDocs Interviews Overview

Interviews Defined

Once you automate a template, HotDocs can generate an interviewA series of dialogs, each containing one or more questions which HotDocs generates from the variables you add to your template. The template's user must answer the questions in the interview before HotDocs can assemble a custom document. You can view the interview by clicking the Interview tab of the assembly window. The left pane of the assembly window displays an outline of the interview. As the user answers questions, the outline tracks the user's progress through the interview. from that template. A HotDocs interview is a series of dialogs, each containing one or more questions which HotDocs generates from the variables you add to your template. The template's user must answer the questions in the interview before HotDocs can assemble a custom document. Once a person completes the interview, HotDocs assembles the final customized document from the template by merging the interview answers into the template text. You can view the interview by clicking the Interview tab of the assembly window. The left pane of the assembly window displays an outline of the interview. As the user answers questions, the outline tracks the user's progress through the interview.

Choose an Interview Type

When you assemble a document from a template, HotDocs displays either a default interviewThe interview HotDocs automatically generates based on the order variables are asked in the template. or a custom interviewA script that controls how and the order in which variables and dialogs are asked during an interview. The template developer creates this script. to gather the data needed to assemble the final document:

• Default Interview: HotDocs generates a default interview by asking the variables it encounters in the template. When you link a variable to a dialog, HotDocs asks the dialog. For most templates, this default interview is sufficient.
• Custom Interview: If you need control over the order questions are asked in the interview, you can create a custom interview componentA computation script that defines how a custom interview will look and function. An interview component usually includes ASK instructions to ask all of the dialogs/variables in the interview. The script frequently includes other instructions, such as REPEAT instructions and INSERT instructions as well as conditions for using these instructions. The name of this component is defined at the Component File Properties dialog box.. A custom interview is defined by a computation variableA type of component that performs calculations or executes other instructions within the template. Computation variable scripts are created using the HotDocs scripting language. script in which you use a series of ASK instructionAn instruction that forces a dialog to be asked at a specific location in the script or template. Frequently, ASK instructions are used when creating an interview component. They allow developers to control the order in which dialogs are asked during the interview.s to ask the variables and dialogs in your template. A custom interview can also contain other scripting, such as IF instructions and REPEAT instructions.

HotDocs interviews are dynamic, meaning that each time the user answers a question HotDocs updates the entire interview to reflect any changes caused by that answer. In more complex templates this update may take longer than expected as HotDocs must process each field. Using a custom interview you create a script that asks these components and processes only once. This can improve assembly speed considerably.

Understand the Interview Generation Workflow

In generating an interview from a template, HotDocs follows the following workflow:

1. HotDocs first checks to see if you created a custom interview for the template

   1. If you created a custom interview, HotDocs inspects the interview's computation variable for the presentation order of the variables or dialogs in the interview.

2. If there is no custom interview, HotDocs generates a default interview, containing the basic dialogs necessary to present the template variables as questions to the end user.
   1. HotDocs generates the default interview by scanning through the template, starting at the top left corner and finishing at the bottom-right corner, just as a person would read through the template.
   2. When HotDocs locates a variable in the template, it presents the variable as a question in the interview.

If you linked a variable to a dialog, HotDocs displays the dialog in the interview.

2. 3. As it reads through the template, HotDocs also processes and executes any instructions you added to the template (for example,  IF, REPEAT, and INSERT instructions).
   4. If you want to decrease the number of dialogs the user has to click through you can choose to combine default dialogs.

To reduce the amount of dialogs generated in a default interview HotDocs combines variables into as few default dialogs as possible, if you would prefer to have one variable per dialog you can turn off this feature at Component File Properties

Complex templates require more script processing, which can slow interview interactions. You can use a custom interview to minimize the amount of script processing and increase interview responsiveness.

Implicit Asking Versus Explicit Asking

When HotDocs encounters a variable as it scans through the template, it uses one of two means to determine whether to add the variable to the interview:

• Implicit Asking—HotDocs checks to see if it has already added that variable in the interview; if not, HotDocs adds the variable to the interview. HotDocs only adds a variable again if instructed to do so by an ASK instruction in the Interview Computation variable.

If you have linked the variable to a dialog, HotDocs adds all variables on that dialog to the interview and considers the dialogs' variables "asked" as well; HotDocs does not add to the interview again.

• Explicit Asking—An ASK instruction within the template; this causes HotDocs to add the asked variable or dialog to the interview, regardless of whether HotDocs has included it before.

Use ASK instructions carefully to avoid duplicating variables in your interview.

Previous versions of HotDocs used the ASK NONE instruction to stop HotDocs from building interviews using implicit asking. This instruction has been known to behave unpredictably in desktop HotDocs and differently in browser interviews. Therefore, we now recommend using the Ask Automatically feature to control the interview.

Have HotDocs Disable Irrelevant Variables in Interviews

When creating dialogs for an interview, you frequently need variables within a dialog to be dynamic. For example, you may want to disable some questions in a dialog until a user answers a different question in the dialog a specific way. You can either write a script to disable a dialog, or you can have HotDocs automatically hide or disable variables, based on whether they are used in the document.

For example, say you have a dialog that asks (using True/False variables) whether a client has any pre-existing health conditions. If the client does, he or she must enter an explanation for each health condition. You can set variable preferences that keep the explanations from being asked unless the corresponding True/False questions are answered affirmatively. Then, if a dialog contains only inactive variables, you can create a script to keep HotDocs from asking the dialog from in the interview.

When you start an assembly, HotDocs processes the templates to determine (based on the interview's answers) which variables are referred to in you instructions. If a variable is unused it will be grayed or hidden. Once HotDocs has checked for unused variables, HotDocs does another pass through the template to generate the interview.

Interview Templates Defined

In addition to creating interview components to use with existing HotDocs templates, you can create an interview template for gathering common information (such as court, attorney, or client information); then save the answers as an answer file for use in assembling other documents.

An interview templateA template that contains a series of interview questions designed to gather information about a person (or persons) or matter. Answers are saved in an answer source file, which can then be linked to a dialog in a template that requires the same information. Generally, interview templates can be used to create a list of possible answers so users have more options to choose from is a component file that contains the variables for which you need to get answers. Users can select an interview template for assembly just as they can any other template. Unlike Text and Form templates, however, HotDocs can only use an interview template to generate an answer file, not to assemble a completed document.

 

A common use for an interview template is to create an answer source file. For example, you can create an interview template that gathers a list of information about attorneys in a law firm and have that information saved in an answer source file. You can then link a specific dialog in your template to that answer source so that when users view it, they can select answers from that list rather than enter them manually. You can use command-line options to lock the answer file so users cannot edit it.