Suggest an Answer Source for Dialogs

You can suggest an answer source (a list of answers for the user to choose from) for a dialog. Users open the list when answering questions in an interview and pick an existing set of answers instead of entering them manually. For example, if you have a large number of attorneys in your firm. Rather than enter a specific attorney's information each time you need to assemble a document, you can enter this information once and then retrieve it on a document-by-document basis.

An answer source file contains sets of answers for one or more variables in a dialog. For example, a dialog may require information about an attorney, such as a name, address, and telephone number. If there are multiple attorneys in a firm, all of this information for each attorney could be saved in an answer source. During an interview, the user opens the answer source, selects the appropriate attorney, and that information will be merged into the document.

You must group all of the variables you want answered by a selected record in the same dialog. If your template contains variables that must be answered by different records, you can group all the variables to be answered by one record together in one dialog, all the questions for another record in another dialog, and so on.

If you are integrating HotDocs with another program you can also specify a DLL file as an answer source that will link the dialog to the third-party program. (Contact your HotDocs sales representative for more information about using the HotDocs API.)

To create an answer source

  1. Edit or create a dialog that contains the vari­ables you want to associate with an answer source file.

Remember that variables in each dialog can be answered by only one record. If you have variables that must be answered by a different answer source, place those variables in a different dialog.

  1. Click the Options tab. The window changes to show several custom options.
  2. To select an existing answer source file, click the Answer source drop-down button, or create an answer source by typing a file name with a three-letter extension, such as .ANX or .HPL, in the Answer source field. (To use an existing answer source, click the Open button and then search for the file.)
  3. If you are linking an existing answer source to a dialog, and the variable names used in the answer source do not match the variable names in the dialog, click Map Variables to associate the variables so they can share information.
  4. Click OK to close the Dialog Editor.

Once you have created an answer source, a Select button appears on the dialog during the interview. The user clicks this button to select an answer or enter new answers, and the answers are saved to the answer source file you specified.

Be careful when using an answer source with a dialog other than the one for which it was created. Each variable in the answer source must have a corresponding variable in every dialog with which it is used. Otherwise, if records are added or deleted, the records are added or deleted incorrectly and existing records will be damaged. You can write a script that uses the HIDE instruction to hide variables so they won’t be visible in the dialog. If you don’t want them to be visible in the answer source record, use either the CONCEAL or OMIT instruction in the same script.

When associating an answer source with a repeated child dialog, the child dialog cannot be repeated as a spreadsheet on the parent. If you do this, the Select button will not appear in the interview.