Use ASK Instructions to Control the Interview

In addition to using an ASK instruction to ask dialogs or variables, an ASK instruction can control whether variables and dialogs required to assemble a document are asked during assembly. Changing ASK instructions lets you work with answers behind the scenes—assigning values without displaying the variables to the users. Specifically, ASK NONE keeps HotDocs from asking variables or dialogs that would otherwise be asked automatically.

Ask automatically has replaced the need for using ASK NONE / ASK ALL instructions. However, they will still be available for this release.

See How Variables and Dialogs Are Asked for details on how HotDocs determines when to ask variables and dialogs.

Using ASK instructions is particularly useful if you need to repeat a dialog but you don't want the dialog to be asked during the interview.

You can insert an ASK instruction directly in a template or place it in a Computation variable and insert the variable in the template.

To change the ASK mode in a text template

  1. Place your cursor at the point in the template where you want HotDocs to control what gets asked.
  2. Insert an ASK instruction (see Control When Your Dialogs Appear). Once the instruction is inserted, replace the dialog name with one of the following keywords: ALL or NONE.

To change the ASK mode in a computation script

  1. Open a Computation variable for editing. (See Customize a Computation Variable.) The Computation Editor appears.
  2. Drag ASK DIALOG from the Instruction models list into the Script field.
  3. Replace DIALOG with one of the following keywords: ALL or NONE.

If you change the ASK mode in a computation, you should always change it back to what it was originally (ALL or NONE).

Â