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Introducing Spreadsheet Forms and Smarter Condition Routing

· 5 min read

Spreadsheet Layouts, Now Workflow-Ready​

Some forms make more sense as rows, columns, totals, and calculated cells. With Spreadsheet Forms, form creators can now build workflow forms in a spreadsheet-style grid while still using OSPROV validation, workflow routing, submission history, viewer mode, and XLSX export.

This release also updates the Condition task with a visual condition builder and branch merging, making workflow routing easier to configure and easier to read.

What Are Spreadsheet Forms?​

Spreadsheet Forms let you create grid-based forms with cells, rows, columns, and multiple sheets. Instead of dragging standard form components onto a page, you build the layout directly in a spreadsheet-style editor and bind selected cells as form fields.

This works well for:

  • Claim forms with line items, subtotals, and totals
  • Budget, quantity, rate, or scoring forms
  • Checklist-style forms where each row represents an item to review
  • Forms based on existing spreadsheet templates that can be rebuilt in OSPROV
  • Submissions where reviewers need to see the completed layout exactly as it was filled

Named Cells Keep the Spreadsheet Structured​

In a normal OSPROV form, every input component is already a field. In a spreadsheet, most cells are just grid cells: titles, labels, instructions, formulas, totals, spacing, or user input.

That is why Spreadsheet Forms use named cells. A named cell tells OSPROV which exact cell should become structured submission data, what field name to store, what label to show, what type to validate, and whether the value is required.

Unbound cells still stay in the full spreadsheet snapshot, but only named cells become fields for validation, reporting, query output, protection, and export behavior.

Built for Spreadsheet-Style Capture​

Spreadsheet Forms support:

  • Multiple sheets
  • Static text, labels, instructions, and formulas
  • Text, Number, Date, and Dropdown field types
  • Required field validation
  • Cell formatting such as fill color, text color, bold, alignment, supported borders, and merged cells
  • Custom single-cell dropdowns and date pickers
  • Draft saving and final submission
  • Read-only submission viewing
  • XLSX export

The exported workbook preserves supported sheets, values, column widths, merged cells, styles, and compatible Number, Currency, Percentage, and Date formats.

Custom Dropdowns and Date Pickers​

Spreadsheet Forms bind individual cells, not entire columns. To keep controls scoped correctly, OSPROV uses custom single-cell dropdown and date picker behavior.

Dropdown fields show only the options configured for that bound cell. Date fields use an OSPROV calendar picker and store values in a normalized YYYY-MM-DD format while displaying dates as DD/MM/YYYY.

Where Spreadsheet Forms Are Supported​

Spreadsheet Forms are supported in the desktop web application for:

  • Form creation and editing
  • Form preview
  • Internal workflow submissions
  • Public workflow submissions
  • Draft and submitted edit flows
  • Workflow action queues
  • Bulk action flows
  • Workflow prefill flows
  • Read-only viewing
  • XLSX export

Spreadsheet Forms are not currently supported in the mobile/PWA app, and API submission of spreadsheet snapshots is blocked because the API submission path expects the standard form submission structure.

Condition Task Improvements​

This release also updates the Condition task in the Workflow Builder.

Visual Condition Builder​

The Condition task now supports a structured visual builder. Each condition row includes:

  • Field - the form field to evaluate, with smart-tag picker support
  • Operator - such as equals, does not equal, greater than, contains, is empty, or is checked
  • Value - the comparison value, hidden for operators that do not need one

Multiple rows can be combined with AND or OR. String values are auto-quoted, so form creators can type values naturally without manually writing expression syntax.

Advanced Mode for Complex Logic​

For conditions that need grouping or complex logic, Advanced mode remains available. It supports strict comparisons, logical operators, parentheses, strpos(), and smart-tag field references such as:

[amount] > 1000
[department] === "IT"
[forms.1.approved] === '1' && [amount] < 5000
[risk_score] >= 75 || [expedited] === '1'

Branch Merging​

Condition branches can now merge back into a common continuation point. This helps avoid duplicating downstream tasks when the true and false paths eventually need to continue through the same task.

For example:

Condition -> [true] Task A --+
          -> [false] Task B -+-> Merge Task -> ...

The merge task continues as soon as either branch reaches it, and the workflow proceeds normally from there.

Getting Started​

Form creators - go to Forms -> Create New Form, select Spreadsheet Form, build your grid, and bind each input cell that should become submission data.

Workflow builders - open the Workflow Builder, add a Condition task, use the visual condition builder for simple rules, and switch to Advanced mode only when you need grouped or complex expressions.

Documentation​

Full documentation is available now:

Ready to build spreadsheet-style workflow forms? Start with the Spreadsheet Forms documentation.