Sunsetting of Microsoft Word-based Form Builder

Approximately 4 years ago, Microsoft announced the discontinuation of ActiveX controls, which are used by Process Director within MS Word to provide the PD control functionality, in addition to providing the mechanism for importing forms into our platform. The sunsetting of ActiveX Controls means that any BP Logix customer using MS Word-based Forms will no longer be able to upload updated and/or new versions of those Form definitions.

In 2018, BP Logix developed a new tool for creating Forms called the Online Form Designer, which was announced and released a short time after Microsoft’s announcement. We also created a conversion tool at that time, which transformed MS Word-based forms into the Online Form Designer format with some restrictions.

The  v5.44.906 release of Process Director includes an improved Word to OFD conversion tool, which makes it even easier to convert MS Word developed Forms into the new format. You are strongly encouraged to convert all MS Word doc-based forms you have using this new version of Process Director. The Word to OFD conversion tool is invoked by pressing the “Convert to an HTML Form” button on the form definition’s edit page. If you run into any issues or need help with the conversions, please contact support and we will be happy to provide Direct Assistance.

Existing Word-based forms will continue to work correctly in Process Director - you will NOT lose any functionality using your existing forms. Your users will still be able to access them normally and create new form instances. However, you will not be able to check-in any changes to these Word-based form definitions, once Microsoft has completely removed the ActiveX functionality from your environment.

The retirement of Internet Explorer and the depreciation of ActiveX technology therefore brings support of the BP Logix Microsoft Word Form Builder to an end.

Note:

We highly recommend testing all your forms once converted. Every effort was made to test available form controls. However, due to the large number of controls, several of the lesser used controls were not thoroughly tested. In some cases, configuration options may not be saved in the conversion. Additionally, there may be some situations where, in order to preserve the configuration data, the corresponding control tag format is used. In our own conversions, we have found most forms convert without issue. If you run into any problems, please don’t hesitate to contact us.