Summit the Peak!

Tasks help you monitor progress towards goals. SharePoint task lists provide a central location for “To Do” lists across your team site. From your task list, it’s easy to add tasks, assign resources, update progress and view status towards milestones. SharePoint workflows tie tasks from all lists and libraries on your site back to your central task list repository. Your task list is your central hub for To Dos on your team site. Simple and effective!

So, what’s the catch? Only SharePoint’s built-in workflows can automatically create the tasks which means your users need to navigate away from InfoPath to view status. For in form viewing of workflow status you need to pull tasks into the view and when a user clicks approve, submit them back to the task list. You’ll want tasks that are associated with your individual forms so that you can display them when the form opens.

Out-of-box Solutions

SharePoint comes with several options for power users:

• Map your task items to the Task list using CAML
  • Pros: no code
  • Cons: very tricky configuration, doesn’t work for parent-child, brittle when things change
  • How-to links:
    • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oQ7QdpYdx8
    • http://www.ilikesharepoint.de/2012/08/sharepoint-2010-u2u-caml-query-builder/
• Write custom code to submit your data to Task list
  • Pros: set up complex mappings
  • Cons: developer needed and likely a brittle solution not flexible when things change
  • How-to links:
    • http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc162745.aspx
    • http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7613058/submitting-repeating-infopath-table-to-sharepoint-list-in-browser-enabled-form
    • http://jaliyaudagedara.blogspot.com/2011/03/submitting-data-to-sharepoint-2010-list.html
    • http://blog-sharepoint.blogspot.com/2009/07/infopath-update-repeating-elementsnodes.html

More Flexible

To reduce cost, complexity and enable flex when your form’s data changes, you’ll want to look beyond hardcoded solutions that are not dynamic:

• Tasks XTP Plugin
  • Pros: no code, customizable, reusable template across all forms; lets you view the tasks in the form
  • Cons: Need to configure rules when XTP is injected to the InfoPath form template
• Use Qdabra’s qRules to map task items to the Task list
  • Pros: no code, complex mapping support
  • Cons: need to buy a license, but it’s inexpensive
  • How-to link:
    • http://www.infopathdev.com/blogs/hilary/archive/2012/05/30/qrules-submittosharepointlist-walkthrough-for-v4-2.aspx

Learn More

Qdabra offers short video tutorials and in depth how-to hands-on-labs. Check out the following links:

• YouTube Video highlighting the above techniques:
  • More Flexible – Tasks XTP Plugin
    • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oQ7QdpYdx8
• Qdabra Toolkit includes detailed how-to instructions and sample templates:
  • http://www.qdabra.com/webstore/p/61/qdabra-webinar-kit-task-xtp-for-infopath-integration-with-sharepoint-tasks