URN Solutions: How to Deploy Extranet Forms that Interoperate (Via E-mail) with Your Internal SharePoint Site

2006-04-24T23:46:00Z

Prerequisites: To create an MSI in Office 2003, the SDK needs to be installed.

There are a lot of times when we want someone not logged into the domain to be able to edit a form which needs to be submitted to SharePoint. This can be solved in the following manner. Let's say that "User A" is a person who works inside the domain and therefore has access to submit to SharePoint and "User B" is a person who is working outside of the domain. The steps would be:

User A will create an MSI of the solution.
1. Creating an MSI on Office 2003 machine (Needs SDK installed – see above).
  1. The SDK contains a tool called regform.exe that creates an MSI.
  2. For help on command used to create the MSI, the InfoPathDev Regform Command Line Generator Form can be used. See picture below for details on the form:

Figure 1. The InfoPathDev Regform Command Line Generator Form

Once all details are entered, click on Build to generate the command that needs to be run to create the MSI.

Creating MSI on Office 2007 machine.
1. There is an option in the Publish Wizard (available when File -> Publish is clicked) called As An Installable Form Template which will create the MSI.

User A will then install this MSI on their machine.
Then User A will open the installed the installed form in design mode.
In the InfoPath window, they will then go to Tools -> Form Options.
In the form Options window, go to the Security tab and uncheck the Automatically determine security level based on form's design (recommended).
Then select the Restricted radio button and click on OK.
User A will then click on File -> Send form as attachment and send this form as an attachment to User B. Please note that this will require Outlook or Outlook Express to be set up on the machine.
User B will then save the XSN sent and open it on their machine. Please note this is important, as it will put this solution in InfoPath cache of this machine. This step will have to be done on all machines that User B wants to use to edit the InfoPath XML files.
Now both User A and User B can edit the same XML files. When User A wants to send a file over to User B, they will send it via email.
User B can then open the XML file directly. If the InfoPath cache for some reason was cleared or if this specific solution was removed, User B will get an error and can get past that error by doing Step 8 again.
User B will make any edits that they want and send the file back in email top User A.
User A can now open the file and submit it to SharePoint.

Create Custom Task Pane for Password

2006-03-24T22:43:00Z

Password fields cannot be created in the InfoPath forms. Therefore, the password fields should be set in the custom task pane.

In this task, we will create a custom task pane HTML file in a text editor and add it to an InfoPath form. We will add a Submit button and also put a function on this button to switch views in the InfoPath Form. After getting the password into a password variable, access database to validate your password.

Copy the following code into a text editor and save the file as Password.html.

<html>
    <head>
        <script language="javascript">
            var thisXDocument = null;
            function initialize()
            {
                thisXDocument = window.external.Window.XDocument;
            }
            function changeView()
            {
                var userName = tbUser.value;
                var password = tbPassword.value;
                /*Access your database to find out if the logged in user is a valid user or not.*/
                thisXDocument.View.SwitchView("Main Form");
            }
        </script>
    </head>
    <body onload="initialize()">
        <table>
            <tr>
                <td>
                    Username:
                </td>
                <td>
                    <input type="text" name="tbUser" id="tbUser" size="15">
                </td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td>
                    Password:
                </td>
                <td>
                    <input type="password" name="tbPassword" id="tbPassword" size="16">
                </td>
            <tr>
                <td></td>
                <td>
                    <input type="submit" value="Submit" onclick="changeView();">
                </td>
            </tr>
        </table>
    </body>
</html>

Add the HTML file as the Resource file:

Open InfoPath, click Design A Form, select New Blank Form in the Design A Form task pane.
Choose Form Options from the Tools menu.
Switch to the Advanced Tab, select Enable Custom Task Pane check box, and then click Resource Files.
Click Add, locate the Password.html file that was created above, and then click OK.
Name the task pane Password (as shown in Figure 1), and then click OK to close the Form Options dialog box.

Figure 1. Adding the Custom Password Task Pane.

Create a second View and name it as Main Form.
Click on the View Properties in the task pane to open View Properties window.
Uncheck the check box Show On The View Menu When Filling Out The Form under General tab.

Figure 2. Add a second view, Main Form in the Views Task pane.

Preview the form and enter the Username and password in the task pane, as shown in Figure 3.
Click on the submit button, The form shifts into second view, Main Form.

Figure 3. The Completed Task Pane applied to the InfoPath Form.

Figure 4. The form switches to the second view when submit button is clicked.

Shanthi Reddy

URN Solutions: How to Deploy Extranet Forms that Interoperate (Via E-mail) with Your Internal SharePoint Site

Create Custom Task Pane for Password