InfoPath Dev

My company has created a SharePoint portal and we are currently starting to convert Lotus Notes applications to Microsoft solutions. All of our development so far has been done using custom ASP.Net code and sharepoint.

The current lotus notes app is a safety tracking system. Basically a user created a new report, fills out about 50 fields, can add sub reports (a employee incident report form of which there can be many for a specific incident) currently by clicking an add button. Also vehicles involved etc (Which i see as a repeating table because it is less complex then the employee incident report).

Basically my question is, is InfoPath right for this, or should I continue in ASP.Net. I like the validation of InfoPath, but am new to it and currently can't get it to do everything I want it to. If you have an opinion of if InfoPath is the right direction for this project and many down the road like it I would love to hear it.

Thanks

Andrew

Hi Andrew and welcome to the board!

InfoPath will reduce the time it takes to migrate the Lotus Notes forms. However, there are some requirements. For example, you will have to either install InfoPath for all users or buy a downlevel viewer product like DViewer (ours) or InfoView (UniqueWorld's).

Do you have a lot of custom logic in your existing safety tracking system? If so, it will make migration more work.

If you can describe the scenario for your existing system more, I might have more feedback.

Cheers

Patrick Halstead [InfoPath MVP]
InfoPathDev

Hi Patrick, thanks for the quick response,

The existing system does not have a lot of custom logic, but definitly some, but other applications which will be converted later have extensive custom logic.

Basically I don't want my current lack of knowledge i InfoPath scare me away from development in it if it is a better solution. For example In the form I need to display a list of all employee incident reports pretaining to the Safety Incident report. Currently they are displayed in a, embedded view in notes, and so the user clicks a row and the specific report pops up. Also there is a button to add another report which pops up a window with a blank form to fill out and submit.

To do this in ASP.Net I would use a datagrid and on selection of a row it would link to the display form.

I have been able to insert a repeating section to display the quick reference data for the employee Incident in InfoPath, but then adding the details link to another form I havn't been able to accomplish yet.

I'm not sure if i'm describing the scenario well enough, but if not, my general problem is I can do this conversion into ASP.Net very comfortably, but like the validation (to save time) in InfoPath. Are there any well known downsides to InfoPath vs ASP.Net.

Hopefully something I have said makes some sence,

thanks,

Andrew

Hi again,
The details link is easy. There should be a sample on how to do this.

Here are some pros/cons for using InfoPath vs. ASP.NET
- Pro: rapid prototyping - less coding
- Pro: data validation for free
- Pro: customizable
- Con: deployment is trickier than webform
- Con: can be slower than webforms
- Con: requires InfoPath
- Con: not all controls are supported

Hope this helps!


Patrick Halstead [InfoPath MVP]
InfoPathDev