rails Initialize new object through associated search - ruby-on-rails

Question

In my rails application I would like to be able to search for a client from the nav bar and have it automatically provide the WorkOrderController with the associated client. The goal is to automatically generate some of the work order information before the user gets to the new view. I was hoping to do this by making the new work order path nested under clients, but I'm not sure where to turn the form submission into a find to return the client for use in the work order controller. Clearly I am missing a method somewhere, but I'm not sure where to put it and what exactly it is I need it to do.
As far as I can tell what I need to do is somehow have the form submit to some method, which would then redirect to the new work order page with the :client_id in the params.
Am I totally off base here or am I missing something relatively small? An hour and a half of searching didn't turn up much as most guides talk about the form_for functionality. This doesn't appear to be a full on search either.
#routes.rb
....
resources :client do
get 'schedule', to: 'work_order#client_schedule'
get 'archive', to: 'work_order#client_archive'
resources :work_order, only: [:new]
end
.....
#application.html.erb
.....
<form class="navbar-form navbar-left" role="search">
<div class="form-group">
<input type="text" class="form-control" placeholder="Enter client number">
</div>
<button type="sumbit" class="btn btn-default">New Work Order</button>
</form>
.....
#WorkOrderController.rb
....
def new
client = Client.find(params[:client_id])
#workorder = WorkOrder.new(client: client)
end
....
EDIT:
I made the following change and now when I attempt to load the page I get an error saying I am missing the client_id parameter, though I thought that is what I'm looking for in the first place
<%= form_tag new_client_work_order_path, :method => "get", class: "navbar-form navbar-left" do %>
<div class="form-group">
<%= text_field_tag :search, params[:search], class: "form-control", placeholder: "Enter client number"%>
</div>
<button type="sumbit" class="btn btn-default">New Work Order</button>
<% end %>
EDIT 2:
Was able to achieve my desired result by doing the following:
In work_order_controller.rb
....
def new
client = Client.find_by(clientnumber: params[:client_number])
#workorder = WorkOrder.new(client: client)
end
....
I switched the routes so that the new route was not nested under client and then changed the form to be:
<%= form_tag new_work_order_path, :method => "get", class: "navbar-form navbar-left" do %>
<div class="form-group">
<%= text_field_tag :client_number, params[:client_number], class: "form-control", placeholder: "Enter client number"%>
</div>
<button type="sumbit" class="btn btn-default">New Work Order</button>
<% end %>
I get the impression that I've created some other problem I don't yet see though, but I could just be paranoid

Answer 1

Scanning your code quickly, I don't see anything missing and while there's a number of ways to get this done, I think you're on the (a) right track.
Building things like this in Rails involves getting quite a number of components all working together at the same time, so in this case I'd focus on each step in turn (chronologically) to verify that it works as expected. Specifically I'd:
Watch the Rails console when I click that "New Work Order" button to verify that the client_id parameter is "seen" by the controller. (On closer inspection, according to your HTML, I don't see how this form would pass this parameter... or how the form would submit in the first place. Where's the form's action attribute?)
Use puts statements in the controller #new action to verify that the client object is initialized properly and that #workorder.client_id is the expected value.
Add output to the #new view template that prints out the #workorder.client_id to verify that the ID is carried over to the view. I don't see this view template in the above code snippets so I don't know what you expect to show up.
And so forth. Just breaking the problem into smaller steps so they're easier to figure out what's happening. Good luck!