InfoPath Dev

I'm using IP forms in a SharePoint library.  I'm still new to both IP and SP.

From within the form, I use the 'submit' button to update the form data in the library.

On the SharePoint library, there is a 'save' command on the ribbon.

From within IP, I can configure the form (optionally, through the Form Options/Web Browser commands) to display either the submit or save options on the SharePoint ribbon (or neither).  But I can never get a 'submit' option to show up on the IP ribbon.

How do all these things relate?  Is a submit within an IP form the same as a 'save' on the SP library ribbon?  Is there really such a thing as a SP submit?  Do I even need a submit button on the form or can folks simply use the 'save' from the SP ribbon?

thanks so much for the help!

Hi - yes there is a SharePoint submit functionality in InfoPath. Are you using InfoPath 2007 or 2010? The latter has a checkbox at the end of the data connection wizard for submit data connections - you'd like to check that if you'd want to set your SharePoint submit as the default submit data connection. You can also go to File > Submit Options (or Data > Submit Options)  and set it up there, either via a single destination (email, web service, SharePoint, etc.), through rules or code.

Basically, what you'd want is to enable "Allow users to submit this form" - this will show a Submit button in both the client and browser ribbons. If you have this, then you won't need to create an extra submit button.

As for the Save vs. Submit options in the browser - saving allows users to 'temporarily' store the form in the library for further edits later before they actually submit. Saving doesn't perform actions as compared when actually submitting the form (workflows for example might not trigger when a form is only in a 'Saved' state but I'm not that certain).

Personally, I always disable the Save option in my forms simply to avoid version conflicts - for instance a user editing and submitting an old form stored in his/her local machine, submit overwrites a more recent version in the library --- you got data loss right there! You might be interested in Qdabra's DBXL Side-by-Side feature - here's an XTP with documentation for more details on that.

Hope that helps!

Hi Mel:

 Thanks so much for your feedback on this - I've been unable to find an explanation of the differences in any documentation on my own, and you've explained why the 'submit' option wasn't showing up on the Sharepoint ribbon.

Great feedback - thanks!

Mel Balsamo:

Personally, I always disable the Save option in my forms simply to avoid version conflicts - for instance a user editing and submitting an old form stored in his/her local machine, submit overwrites a more recent version in the library --- you got data loss right there!

What is the difference between Update vs. Save, then, I wonder?

Came to ask it due to :

•  Publishing template results in Save Conflict when modifying existing forms