InfoPath Dev

Hello,

please forgive me, I am new to Infopath and just started picking it up.

Where can I find how to autofill a repeating section?  My form contains multiple fields (over 40, not a table) most of which will be the same when a repeating section is created.  Can I have the user hit the "Repeat Section" button and have the option to fill all the fields, or at the very least, fill them all automatically and have the user modify the few that need to be changed?

 OOTB (out-of-the-box,

•   i.e. with provided MS GUI tools, without hacking
  see for ex.,
  Gennady Vanin. Answer to question "How to submit data from repeatable table in infopath form to a sharepoint list?"
  or 3d party products),
  

in Infopath form template one can either/or

• auto-fill existing sharepoint list items as read-ony from secondary/receive data connection
  
• or create multiple new sharepoint list items only

The latter (creating multiple sharepoint list items from from an Infopath form)
can be done  only if one choose in Infopath Designer, on ribbon

• File > New > Sharepoint List > Design Form and during followed Data Connectin Wizard have chosen "Create a new Sharepoint list" and "Manage Multiple List Items With This Form" .

Note that this cannot be changed later if these options were not chosen during Infopath form (and simultaneously Sharepoint list) creation

 

Then you can create data fields in Main Data Source and drg'n'drop it on Design surface of Infopath template form. 

 

 Fug.1. "Sharepoint List" template in IPD

 

 

Fig.2. Create a New Sharepoint List Form in Data Connection Wizard to a sharepoint list 

 

 Fig.3. Manage Multiple List Items With This form (Data Connection Wizard in Infopath Designer to a sharepoint list) 

 

Fig.4. Creating Multiple sharepoint list items in repeating section of Infopath Sharepoint List Form   

 

 

Fig.5.. Result of (multiple) New Item creation in repeating section of Infopath form 

What would they be automatically filled with? That is, would the new repeating section have the same values the one before? Or would default values for the fields do the trick?

Thanks for your reply.  The repeated section would have a copy of  the values inserted in the previous section.

You can use defaults for this that use preceding-sibling. I've attached a sample form. There is a link to the form in the header of this post - right click and save as to save locally. Then right click and select design to open in design mode. From there you can preview and try it out. The fields in the repeating table all have default values.

Hilary,

Thank you very much for your reply and form. I have finally figured out why I was not able to get it to work...so simple, I was making it way harder than it needed to be.

Thank you VERY much.  I do not know how I could help you but I wish I could.  Thanks again.

I am so glad you are all squared away!

HI Hilary,

I wonder if you can reccomend a quick guide to Infopath...There are little things that I am struggling with... As an example, using preceding-sibling---if the field is an attribute instead of an element, how do I write the formula for that?

Eg, Logically I see it as ../preceding-sibling::my:Group[1]/my:Field/my:Element but this does not work... 

HI Hilary,

Do you recomend an Infopath quick quide or training course?

I am struggling with adding an attribute to the sibbling formula: ../preceding-sibling::my:group[1]/my:element works fine but ../preceding-sibling::my:group[1]/my:element/my:attribute does not.

Hilary Stoupa, "Complex XPath Expressions - September 20, 2012 Webinar"

Wanted to enclose an archive with Infopath XSN template and PowerPoint illustrations from it but got: " The maximum file size allowed is 256kB. Please select a valid file", so request it through Email