Passing Data from Tasks to Forms

Passing data from a task into the app form

This guide explains how to pass data from a task into the action application form.

Prerequisites

Scenario

Let’s look deeper at the scenario from the Complex Tasks Tutorial where we have an ANC follow-up task which recurs eight times, and we want to ask the user different questions on the first and last follow-up.

Developing the task

From the Complex Tasks Tutorial, here is the task.

const { DateTime } = require('luxon');

module.exports = {
  name: 'pnc-after-pregnancy',
  icon: 'icon-follow-up',
  title: 'task.pnc_followup',
  appliesTo: 'contacts',
  appliesToType: ['patient'],
  appliesIf: function (contact) {
    const userIsChw = user.parent && user.parent.contact_type === 'chw_area';
    const isDead = contact.contact.date_of_death;
    const isMuted = contact.contact.muted;

    if (userIsChw && !isDead && !isMuted) {
      const mostRecentPregnancy = Utils.getMostRecentReport(contact.reports, 'pregnancy');
      const calculatedLmp = mostRecentPregnancy && Utils.getField(mostRecentPregnancy, 'g_details.estimated_lmp');
      this.lmp = calculatedLmp && DateTime.fromFormat(calculatedLmp, 'yyyy-MM-dd');
      
      return this.lmp && this.lmp.isValid;
    }
  },
  events: [12, 20, 26, 30, 34, 36, 38, 40] // follow-up weeks after LMP
    .map(weekAfterLmp => ({
      id: `pnc-week-${weekAfterLmp}`,
      start: weekAfterLmp > 30 ? 6 : 7,
      end: weekAfterLmp > 30 ? 7 : 14,
      dueDate: function () {
        return this.lmp.plus({ weeks: weekAfterLmp }).toJsDate();
      }
    })),
  resolvedIf: function (contact, report, event, dueDate) {
    const start = Utils.addDate(dueDate, -event.start).getTime();
    const end = Utils.addDate(dueDate, event.end + 1).getTime();
    const pncInWindow = Utils.isFormSubmittedInWindow(contact.reports, 'pnc_followup', start, end);
    const assessmentInWindow = Utils.isFormSubmittedInWindow(contact.reports, 'assessment_followup', start, end);
    return pncInWindow || assessmentInWindow;
  },
  actions: [{
    form: 'pnc_followup',
    modifyContent: function (content, contact, report, event) {
      const followupCount = this.definition.events.findIndex(e => event.id === e.id) + 1;
      content.t_followup_count = followupCount.toString();
    }
  }]
};

modifyContent

Let’s take a look at the actions section and specifically the modifyContent attribute. This modifyContent attribute allows the task to pass data from the task (in JavaScript) into the action app form (xlsx). The content object is the object which binds to the inputs section in the app form. You can pass data into the app form by assigning values onto this object.

This function calculates t_followup_count to be the index of the event which is being completed. So the first task event (which appears after 12 weeks) is followup 1, and the task event after 34 weeks is followup 5.

The action form

In this sample app form survey, the value of t_followup_count is listed in the inputs section and the CHT binds the data passed by the task onto this hidden variable. An example calculation is_first_followup demonstrates how to use the value in the form’s logic. is_first_followup will be true 12 weeks after the LMP date, and false on all other followups.

type	name	label	appearance	calculation
begin group	inputs		field-list
hidden	t_followup_count	Data from task
end group
calculate	is_first_followup			if(${t_follow_up_count}=‘1’,true,false)

Last updated on May 5, 2025

Querying Task Documents