Two of the more useful instruction models in HotDocs for dynamic interviews and variables are ADD and CLEAR, which go hand in hand to dynamically construct multiple choice variables. This is the first of two HotDocs tips, which will deal with the basic CLEAR/ADD instructions with “static” content. The next article will be about dynamically building a multiple choice variable in HotDocs with a REPEAT instruction.
Lets say we wish to ask for a client’s gender (CLI Gender MC) and their marital status (CLI Marriage MC). Because we have different language in our template that concerns married clients versus divorced or widowed clients, we need this variable. However, if a client is a widow/widower, there are two options based on their gender. Because our language content is the SAME for a widow or widower (with gender specific references), we only want ONE option to denote the widow(er) marriage status. Here’s how we do it. We create a computation (say, called build CLI Marriage CO)
ASK NONE
CLEAR CLI Marriage MC //always CLEAR before ADD, as ADD simply appends options to the multiple choice variable
ADD "Single" TO CLI Marriage MC
ADD "Married" TO CLI Marriage MC
IF CLI Gender MC = "Male"
ADD "Widow|Widower" TO CLI Marriage MC
ELSE IF CLI Gender MC = "Female"
ADD "Widow" TO CLI Marriage MC
ELSE
ADD "Widow|Widow/Widower" TO CLI Marriage MC
END IF
ASK DEFAULT
If the client is male, we add “Widow” as the option, but “Widower” as the prompt. That’s what the pipe | character is for. Anything BEFORE the pipe is the option. Everything AFTER the pipe is the prompt for that option, which is what the user sees. Note that because we chose “Widow” as the generic option for someone who’s partner has deceased, we don’t actually need a prompt for the female specific entry – the option IS the prompt. If there is no client gender specified, we run with a generic prompt, but the option NEVER actually changes for the widow(er) option. That means we lessen our code on the template end of things, because our option value is generic.
So now, we have a dynamic looking MC variable that will produce its own options based upon the gender of the client. No doubt, in the dialog that these variables appear on, you would have something like the following script:
IF !ANSWERED ( CLI Marriage MC )
build CLI Marriage MC
END IF
The dialog script basically says that if CLI Marriage MC is NOT answered, then run the computation that builds the options. This would likely be a part of a SHOW instruction, so that the variable doesn’t show up until it has options. Depending on your version of HotDocs, there may be alternate ways to structure this to ensure smooth running of the dialog.
And that’s all there is to it. This is a very simple way to use logic and the CLEAR/ADD instructions in HotDocs. It is far more powerful to use ADD in conjunction with a repeat, which we’ll be looking at in my next article.