InfoPath evaluates the User Roles in top-down order, as they appear in the Manage User Roles dialog box. But there is no built-in way to reorder these roles. Manually editing the manifest.xsf file is the only way to accomplish this. Here are the steps:

1. Extract the form files to a folder, and then close the InfoPath designer. InfoPath places a lock on the files it uses. Thus you can't modify the manifest.xsf with the form still open in InfoPath.
2. Use a text editor to open the manifest.xsf file, and then locate the <xsf:roles> tag.
3. Cut-and-paste each <xsf:role/> tag into the order you want your roles to be evaluated.
4. Save the modified manifest.xsf file and close the text editor.
5. Open the saved InfoPath form and test your changes.

If a user belongs to two or more roles, InfoPath will stop evaluating at the first match. If the Open Rules use the User Role as a condition, let's say for deciding which view to switch to, this can lead to anomalies unless taken into account. To fix a scenario such as this, the Roles will have to be ordered in such a way as to alleviate this, or more Open Rules will need to be added to take this into account, or code will need to be used in place of Open Rules depending on how complex a scenario is required.

©2004 Greg Collins. All rights reserved. Licensed to Autonomy Systems, LLC for display on InfoPathDev.com.