Django Forms Workflows

Enterprise-grade, database-driven form builder with multi-stage approval workflows, external data integration, and cross-instance sync

Overview

Django Forms Workflows bridges the gap between simple form libraries (like Crispy Forms) and expensive SaaS solutions (like JotForm, Formstack). It provides:

📝 Database-Driven Forms — Define forms in the database, not code. 25+ field types including calculated/formula fields and spreadsheet uploads.
🔄 Multi-Stage Approval Workflows — Sequential, parallel, or hybrid approval flows with configurable stages and conditional trigger logic.
↩️ Send Back for Correction — Approvers can return a submission to any prior stage without terminating the workflow.
🎯 Dynamic Assignees — Resolve individual approvers at submit time from form field values (email, username, full name, or LDAP lookup).
🔀 Sub-Workflows — Spawn child workflows from a parent submission (e.g. one form creates N payment approvals).
🔌 External Data Integration — Prefill fields from LDAP, databases, REST APIs, or the Django user model.
⚡ Post-Submission Actions — Trigger emails, database writes, LDAP updates, or custom Python handlers on submit/approve/reject.
🔄 Cross-Instance Sync — Push/pull form definitions between environments directly from the Django Admin.
🔒 Enterprise Security — LDAP/AD & SSO authentication, RBAC, complete audit trails.
📁 Managed File Uploads — File uploads with approval, rejection, and version tracking per submission.
🧮 Formula Fields — Calculated fields that compute values live from other field values using a template formula.
🏠 Self-Hosted — No SaaS fees, full data control.

Key Features

🎯 No-Code Form Creation

Business users create and modify forms through Django Admin:

25+ field types: text, email, phone, select, radio, checkbox, checkboxes, multiselect, date, time, datetime, decimal, currency, number, URL, file, multi-file, textarea, hidden, section headers, calculated/formula, spreadsheet upload (CSV/Excel), country picker, US state picker
Field ordering with explicit order integer
Column-width layout per field: full, half, one-third, one-quarter
Validation rules (required, regex, min/max length, min/max value)
Conditional field visibility (show_if_field / show_if_value)
Custom help text, placeholders, and CSS classes
Read-only and pre-filled fields
Draft saving with auto-save support

🔄 Multi-Stage Approval Workflows

Flexible approval engine built on WorkflowStage records:

Each stage has its own approval groups and logic (any / all / sequence)
Stages execute in order; next stage unlocks when the current one completes
Conditional stages — each stage can carry trigger_conditions JSON; stages whose conditions don't match the submission data are automatically skipped
Workflow-level trigger conditions — entire parallel approval tracks are skipped when their workflow trigger_conditions don't match (e.g. only trigger a Finance track when amount > 10000)
Dynamic individual assignees — set assignee_form_field + assignee_lookup_type (email / username / full_name / ldap) on a stage to resolve the approver from a form field value at runtime; falls back to group tasks when the value cannot be resolved
Send Back for Correction — approvers can return a submission to any prior stage that has allow_send_back enabled without terminating the workflow; full audit entry recorded
Stage-specific form fields (e.g. approver notes, signature date) appear only during that stage
Configurable approval deadline (approval_deadline_days) sets due_date on created tasks
Email notifications and configurable reminder cadence (daily / weekly / none)
Escalation routing when a form field exceeds a threshold (e.g. amount > $5 000)
Rejection handling with per-stage or global rejection semantics
Complete audit trail on every approval, rejection, send-back, and status change

🔀 Sub-Workflows

Spawn child workflow instances from a parent submission:

SubWorkflowDefinition links a parent workflow to a child form definition
count_field controls how many sub-workflows to create (driven by a form field value)
data_prefix slices the parent's form data to populate each child
Triggered on_approval, on_submit, or manual
detached mode lets child instances complete independently of the parent
Parent submission status reflects aggregate child completion when not detached
Sub-workflows support the same send-back mechanism via handle_sub_workflow_send_back

See Sub-Workflows Guide for a full walkthrough.

🧮 Calculated / Formula Fields

Auto-compute field values from other field inputs:

field_type = "calculated" with a formula template string (e.g. {first_name} {last_name})
Live client-side evaluation updates the read-only field as the user types
Authoritative server-side re-evaluation on submit prevents tampering
Available in both regular form submission and approval step forms

See Calculated Fields Guide.

📊 Spreadsheet Upload Fields

Accept CSV or Excel files as structured form input:

field_type = "spreadsheet" with accept .csv, .xls, .xlsx
Parsed and stored as {"headers": [...], "rows": [{...}, ...]} in form_data
Available during initial submission and approval step forms

🔌 Configurable Prefill Sources

Populate form fields automatically from reusable PrefillSource records:

User model — user.email, user.first_name, user.username, etc.
LDAP / Active Directory — any LDAP attribute (department, title, manager, custom)
External databases — schema/table/column lookup with template support for multi-column composition
Custom database queries — reference a named query via database_query_key
System values — current_date, current_time

⚡ Post-Submission Actions

Automatically run side-effects after a submission event:

Trigger	Description
`on_submit`	Runs immediately on form submission
`on_approve`	Runs when the submission is approved
`on_reject`	Runs when the submission is rejected
`on_complete`	Runs when the entire workflow completes

Action types: email, database, ldap, api, custom

Features:

Conditional execution with 10 operators (equals, not_equals, greater_than, less_than, contains, not_contains, is_empty, is_not_empty, is_true, is_false, plus date comparisons)
Automatic retries with configurable max_retries
Execution ordering for dependent actions
Idempotent locking (is_locked) to prevent double-execution
Full execution logging via ActionExecutionLog
Pluggable handler architecture — register custom handlers for new action types

🔄 Cross-Instance Form Sync

Move form definitions between environments from the Django Admin:

Pull from Remote — connect to a configured remote instance and import selected forms
Push to Remote — select forms and push to any destination
Import / Export JSON — portable .json snapshots
Conflict modes — update, skip, or new_slug
FORMS_SYNC_REMOTES setting — pre-configure named instances (URL + token)
HTTP endpoints protected by Bearer token for CI/scripted use

📁 Managed File Uploads

FileUploadConfig per form definition (allowed extensions, max size)
ManagedFile records with approval/rejection/supersede lifecycle
Version tracking with is_current flag

🔒 Enterprise-Ready Security

LDAP/Active Directory authentication with auto-sync of profile attributes
SSO integration (SAML, OAuth) with attribute mapping to UserProfile
Role-based access: submit_groups and view_groups on FormDefinition
Group-based approval routing via WorkflowStage.approval_groups
Complete audit logging (AuditLog — who, what, when, IP address)
UserProfile auto-created on first login with LDAP/SSO sync

Quick Start

Installation

pip install django-forms-workflows

Setup

Add to INSTALLED_APPS:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    # ...
    'crispy_forms',
    'crispy_bootstrap5',
    'django_forms_workflows',
]

CRISPY_ALLOWED_TEMPLATE_PACKS = "bootstrap5"
CRISPY_TEMPLATE_PACK = "bootstrap5"

Include URLs and run migrations:

# urls.py
urlpatterns = [
    path('forms/', include('django_forms_workflows.urls')),
]

python manage.py migrate django_forms_workflows

Create your first form in Django Admin!

Optional Settings

FORMS_WORKFLOWS = {
    # Branding — replaces "Django Forms Workflows" across all templates
    "SITE_NAME": "Acme Corp Workflows",

    # LDAP attribute sync on every login
    "LDAP_SYNC": {
        "enabled": True,
        "attributes": {
            "department": "department",
            "title": "title",
            "employee_id": "extensionAttribute1",
        },
    },
}

# Cross-instance form sync
FORMS_SYNC_API_TOKEN = "shared-secret"
FORMS_SYNC_REMOTES = {
    "production": {
        "url": "https://prod.example.com/forms-sync/",
        "token": "prod-token",
    },
}

# Context processor — injects site_name into every template
TEMPLATES = [
    {
        "OPTIONS": {
            "context_processors": [
                # ... standard processors ...
                "django_forms_workflows.context_processors.forms_workflows",
            ]
        }
    }
]


## Architecture

```mermaid
graph TB
    subgraph UI["User Interface"]
        FB["Form Builder<br/>(Admin)"]
        FV["Form Viewer<br/>(End User)"]
        AU["Approval UI<br/>(Approvers)"]
    end

    subgraph Core["Django Forms Workflows"]
        FD["FormDefinition<br/>+ FormField"]
        WF["WorkflowDefinition<br/>+ WorkflowStage"]
        PS["PrefillSource"]
        PA["PostSubmissionAction<br/>+ Executor"]
        SYNC["Sync API<br/>(Push/Pull)"]
    end

    subgraph External["External Systems"]
        AD["LDAP / AD"]
        DB["External<br/>Databases"]
        API["REST APIs"]
        SSO["SSO<br/>(SAML/OAuth)"]
    end

    FB --> FD
    FV --> FD
    AU --> WF
    FD --> PS
    FD --> PA
    FD --> SYNC
    PS --> AD
    PS --> DB
    PA --> DB
    PA --> AD
    PA --> API
    SSO --> Core

Use Cases

HR — Onboarding, time-off requests, expense reports, status changes
IT — Access requests, equipment requests, change management
Finance — Purchase orders, invoice approvals, budget requests
Education — Student applications, course registrations, facility booking
Healthcare — Patient intake, referrals, insurance claims
Government — Permit applications, FOIA requests, citizen services

Comparison

Feature	Django Forms Workflows	Crispy Forms	FormStack	Django-Formtools
Database-driven forms	✅	❌	✅	❌
No-code form creation	✅	❌	✅	❌
Self-hosted	✅	✅	❌	✅
Multi-stage approval workflows	✅	❌	⚠️	❌
Sub-workflows	✅	❌	❌	❌
Post-submission actions	✅	❌	⚠️	❌
External data prefill	✅	❌	⚠️	❌
Cross-instance sync	✅	❌	❌	❌
LDAP/AD + SSO integration	✅	❌	❌	❌
Managed file uploads	✅	❌	✅	❌
Audit trail	✅	❌	✅	❌
Open source	✅	✅	❌	✅

Requirements

Python 3.10+
Django 5.2+
PostgreSQL, MySQL, or SQLite (PostgreSQL recommended for production)
Optional: Celery 5.0+ with Redis/Valkey for background task processing
Optional: openpyxl for Excel spreadsheet field support (pip install django-forms-workflows[excel])
Optional: django-auth-ldap for LDAP/AD integration (pip install django-forms-workflows[ldap])
Optional: WeasyPrint for PDF export (pip install django-forms-workflows[pdf])

Testing

cd django-forms-workflows
pip install pytest pytest-django
python -m pytest tests/ -v

The test suite covers models, forms, workflow engine (including dynamic assignees, conditional stages, multi-workflow parallel tracks, sub-workflows), sync API, post-submission action executor, views, signals, conditions, and utilities — 298 tests.

Contributing

We welcome contributions! Please see CONTRIBUTING.md for details.

License

GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 (LGPLv3) — see LICENSE for details.

Support

Roadmap

See docs/ROADMAP.md for the full prioritized roadmap with rationale and implementation notes.

✅ Delivered (v0.35)

🚧 Near-term (next 1–3 releases)

REST API for programmatic form submission and status polling
Webhook delivery on workflow events (submit / approve / reject)
Dashboard analytics (submission counts, approval times, bottleneck stages)

📋 Planned (medium-term)

Signature field type (drawn or typed)
Form versioning — immutable snapshots with diff viewer
Advanced reporting and bulk export (Excel/CSV with field filters)
Multi-tenancy support (organisation-scoped form libraries)
Plugin / custom handler marketplace

Credits

Built with ❤️ by the Django community.

Special thanks to:

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 272 Commits
.github		.github
django_forms_workflows		django_forms_workflows
docs		docs
example_project		example_project
scripts		scripts
tests		tests
.gitignore		.gitignore
.pre-commit-config.yaml		.pre-commit-config.yaml
CHANGELOG.md		CHANGELOG.md
CONTRIBUTING.md		CONTRIBUTING.md
LDAP_TLS_CONFIGURATION.md		LDAP_TLS_CONFIGURATION.md
LICENSE		LICENSE
MANIFEST.in		MANIFEST.in
README.md		README.md
RELEASE_CHECKLIST.md		RELEASE_CHECKLIST.md
RELEASE_GUIDE.md		RELEASE_GUIDE.md
manage_dev.py		manage_dev.py
poetry.lock		poetry.lock
pyproject.toml		pyproject.toml
ruff.toml		ruff.toml

Folders and files

Latest commit

History

Repository files navigation

Django Forms Workflows

Overview

Key Features

🎯 No-Code Form Creation

🔄 Multi-Stage Approval Workflows

🔀 Sub-Workflows

🧮 Calculated / Formula Fields

📊 Spreadsheet Upload Fields

🔌 Configurable Prefill Sources

⚡ Post-Submission Actions

🔄 Cross-Instance Form Sync

📁 Managed File Uploads

🔒 Enterprise-Ready Security

Quick Start

Installation

Setup

Optional Settings

Use Cases

Comparison

Requirements

Testing

Contributing

License

Support

Roadmap

✅ Delivered (v0.35)

🚧 Near-term (next 1–3 releases)

📋 Planned (medium-term)

Credits

About

Topics

Resources

License

Contributing

Uh oh!

Stars

Watchers

Forks

Releases 195

Packages 0

Uh oh!

Contributors

Uh oh!

Languages

Packages