Embed Ektron smartform in another Ektron smartform

Question

(Using Ektron version 8.6.1)

Say I have a smartform ContactInfo, something like:

<ContactInfo>
    <Name></Name>
    <Email></Email>
</ContactInfo>

I would like to create another smartform (e.g. NewsArticle) and "embed" ContactInfo inside

<NewsArticle>
    <Title></Title>
    <Summary></Summary>
    ...
    <ContactInfo>
        <Name></Name>
        <Email></Email>
    </ContactInfo>
</NewsArticle>

My solution thus far has been to include a Resource Selector field to add a reference to an existing smartform instance. I would prefer to make the association at the configuration level, to make the data entry workflow more intuitive.

I'm using Bill Cava's ContentTypes and generating classes from smartform XSDs, so it would also make the presentation code more natural and type-safe in that embedded fields could be accessed directly (rather than having to make another request based on a reference ID, which may or may not be an ID to the smartform I'm expecting).

I gather this is not possible out of the box; I'm not opposed to hacking Workarea code to make something like this work. Does anyone have experience with a scenario like this?

I heard from an Ektron rep that they are planning on elevating the role of smartforms in an upcoming summer release - can anyone offer some more info to that point? Perhaps smartform composition like I've described will be supported?

I found this http://dev.ektron.com/kb_article.aspx?id=16550 discussing adding custom toolbar buttons with Custom Dialogs - seems to be the first step in accomplishing what I've described above. Will post updates if I can make some progress. — kaveman, Mar 01 '13 at 18:34

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 09 '13 at 19:25

Currently it isn't possible to do smartform composition. Depending on why/if you actually need a second smartform definition, you could just define the contact info in the news article.

If the contact info smartforms are related to the news articles in a one to many or many to many fashion, then using the resource selector as you have is the only way that I know of to create the relationship you are looking for.

If the relationship is one-to-one or many-to-one, then I'd suggest doing away with the separate smartform definition.

If you can clarify the workflow you are trying to achieve for the content authors, I might be able to respond better.

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 26 '13 at 22:50

The Content Types would represent the data in the CMS. Suppose, as in your example, a NewsArticle contains a reference to a ContactInfo. Embedding the ContactInfo inside your NewsArticle might make sense from a presentation perspective, but it turns your ContentTypes into a one-way data model. You would lose the ability to construct a new NewsArticle and persist it into the CMS.

What might work well for you is to leave the content types as-is, with the id of the ContactInfo from the resource selector. Then create a NewsArticleDisplayModel... essentially a view model that contains the news article data plus ContactName and ContactEmail.

Now, if you need the contact info to be searchable, you could get really fancy with CMS Extensions and hook into the OnBeforePublish event to update searchable metadata with the name from the ContactInfo, so that the NewsArticle can be searched for using the values from the other "embedded" resource. That could get kinda tricky, though... ideally you'd have to also hook into the publish events of the ContactInfo objects in case something changes on that side, too. Then do you create a custom database table to track which NewsArticle content ids are using a particular ContactInfo?

Your solution can get as complex as it needs to, but I would keep the content blocks separate. If nothing else, you'll end up with a more maintainable and upgradable solution.

Embed Ektron smartform in another Ektron smartform

2 Answers2