InfoPath Dev

I'm very new, but I've already got a bunch of forms made with Infopath 2007 posted on my SharePoint 2007 server.

I'm guessing I'll need to use queries, but I thought it would be best to ask here for some direction.

We're going to want to gather specific data from multiple forms and have it on a new form, or a spreadsheet, or in a report.  I'm correct when I tell the boss it can be done, aren't I?

Also, is it possible to have a form that sends data to another form when its submitted?  A lot of our data will be redundant, I'm thinking I can start a form with the customer name, and when its submitted, it takes that name and creates another form that will have other information, but for the same customer.

Example:  I'm building a computer for someone, and my sales team makes the sale, and starts a "new sale form", and submits it.  I want the customer information to go into a new form, that will have a workflow set up that will alert production, which in turn has their own form to fill out.  Can this be done?

 Thanks in advance!

Hi:

Some of this has to be answered with 'it depends'. Are your current forms saving their data in SQL or Access? Or are they simply published to SharePoint?

If you have data in SQL, you can create secondary data connections to return that data to a different form. You can also connect an Excel spreadsheet to your data table, for reporting, and if you have SQL Reporting services installed, you'll be able to create reports. You can also do these things in Access.

If, however, you've got forms that are just published to SharePoint, and the data is kept only in the XML file there, you may start to run into some challenges. You can query a SharePoint list or library to return information, but that will be limited to the data that is stored from 'promoted properties' from your form -- fields you have promoted to the library the form is published to....

As far as the workflow goes, do you have SharePoint Designer? You can build custom workflows with that to alert production when the new sale form is filled out... your production crew could then use a form to select the correct new sale for the order, etc...

Thanks for responding Hilary.  This looks like some great news.  We do have our data in SQL, so everything I want to do should be possible.

I just tried today using SharePoint Designer for creating a custom workflow, and I must say, that is a powerful tool!  I discovered I could even base my workflow rules from specific fields in my forms.

So that answers my questions about 'IF?'.  Now I can spend my time figuring out 'HOW?'