When Building your front end with Betty Blocks, building pages often include forms. These forms connect to action steps that define what happens behind the scenes, like creating a new record or updating an existing one. Traditionally, any changes to a form required manual adjustments to these action steps, a process that could be tedious and error-prone.
That’s where action syncing comes in. With this feature, forms and action steps stay in harmony. Whenever you modify a form, such as adding a new input field or updating one, the connected action steps automatically adjust to the changes. This synchronization eliminates unnecessary manual work, helping you focus on the visual and dynamic aspects of building your application.
Action step synchronization
With Action Syncing enabled, the moment you make this change in the Page Builder, the corresponding Create or Update action step updates itself to include the new field. There’s no need to dive into the action step and reconfigure it manually.
This synchronization happens automatically for new Create or Update components added to pages and for templates that include these components. While Action Syncing flows effortlessly from forms to action steps, it’s important to note that the connection is one-way: changes made directly to an action step won’t reflect back on the form.
The benefits of using the synchronization feature
The key benefits of this feature are:
- Time-saving automation: Eliminates the need for manual re-mapping when form fields are modified, reducing setup and maintenance time.
- Error reduction: By automating the mapping process it minimizes the risk of human errors in updating action steps, leading to more reliable workflows.
- Improved user experience: Simplifies the development process for users, allowing them to focus on form design and functionality rather than action step configurations.
What changes are synchronized?
Action Syncing ensures that updates to forms are reflected in connected action steps under specific conditions:
When adding new form inputs:
- Property-based inputs: Value mappings are updated in synced action steps.
- Non-property-based inputs: No updates occur in the action steps.
- Property-based inputs within layout components (e.g., rows, columns): Value mappings are updated.
- Manually added value mappings: These remain untouched, ensuring your custom configurations are preserved.
When removing existing form inputs:
- (non) property-based inputs: the value mapping of action steps with syncing enabled are updated by removing all the assign rows where it was used
- Inputs removed via layout components: Value mappings are updated.
- Inputs used in multiple mappings: All instances are removed from synced action steps.
Non-synchronized form changes
Older forms can utilize this feature by manually enabling synchronization for each action step. Users can also sync multiple action steps to the same form or disable synchronization whenever needed. The platform provides real-time feedback and synchronization status, ensuring clarity throughout the development process. This feature streamlines form development, making it faster and less error-prone for all developers.
A pop-up appears in your page builder when working with a non-synchronized form, letting you know updates are available.
Future enhancements on action step synchronization
We are planning to enhance the action step syncing with the following future features:
- Toggle syncing per action step: Enable or disable form change syncing for individual action steps, making it possible to apply this feature to older forms.
- Batch activation: Turn on form change syncing for multiple action steps simultaneously, streamlining the process.
- Modifying input property option: Automatically sync action steps when modifying input property options (e.g., switching from property X to Y or clearing the property).
- Real-time sync notifications: Provide clear syncing status updates to users in the page builder when making form changes, such as adding or removing inputs.
These future updates aim to provide greater flexibility, efficiency, and transparency in managing action step syncing.
Conclusion
Action Syncing bridges the gap between form design and action step functionality, speeding up the development process for users. By reducing manual steps, reducing errors, and improving efficiency, it empowers you to build smarter and faster.
Keep an eye out for future updates to unlock even greater potential in your applications!