InfoPath Dev

I have an infopath form for tracking action items.  The user can assign the action item by selecting a person from a infopath drop-down list (action_POC text field).  I want the action_POC field to map to a SharePoint column created using the Person or Group type.  When I try to accomplish this while defining the properpty promotion I get the error "the data type of the selected site column does not match the data type of the field to promote". 

I took an alternate approach and had InfoPath promote action_POC to a SharePoint text field and then used a workflow to copy the text value to a Person or Group field.  Worked when the workflow is manually started but fails when it automatically starts. 

Is there a standard way to accomplish this?  I've also got DBXL so I can use the AD services to pull in whatever info I need from the user account, I just can't figure out how to get it into a Person or Group field in SharePoint.

thanks

Jeff

I know that to update a person or group in a list using the UpdateListItems web method, I have to have the user's ID, a semi-colon, a pound sign, and then the alias:

12;#hstoupa

for example.

And if I don't know the ID, I can use -1 and ShP will look it up for me:

-1;#hstoupa

However - it doesn't seem like this would cause the issue with your workflow - since it works manually but fails when it runs automatically. Any info on the failure?

I'm not surprised by the message on the property promotion - I don't think IP has a data type equivalent to person or group (even though the people picker likes to pretend)

Hilary - I'll give that a try. As for the workflow, it's a simple 1 step workflow to set a person or groups field value from the value of the text field. I've tried a few different options to formatting the username text - i.e. jeff.sopko@company.com and DOMAIN\jeff.sopko. Both work fine when the workflow is manually initiated. If it's set to run on new items, it fails with a status "workflow failed to start (retrying)" and never completes. I've been chasing the problem from that side as well as apparently that's a pretty common and generic SP error. thanks Jeff