InfoPath Dev

Hello,

 Our organiztion is now accepting my InfoPath work, and we are getting others to now develop.

I need to be able to have Source control.  We have SharePoint. 

We do not have a source control tool.  Is anyone using SharePoint for this?  If so, how?

 I have tried with Major and Minotr versioning and check in - check out, but SharePoint seems to

work differently than Word or Excel in this matter. 

Any suggestion for tools, or SharePoint ideas welcome. 

We are a major NGO and have very limited funding.

PAW

Hi PAW,

We use Team Foundation Server here and Visual Studio 2008. InfoPath projects are hard to share simultaneously because typically one developer will be modifying all of the files in a package at the same time. This is one of the big limitations with InfoPath.

On the other hand, you shouldn't be writing code in your InfoPath forms - that's a bad practice. If you need logic that isn't out-of-box, look at using a common library like Qdabra's qRules (or develop your own outside of InfoPath) or add logic to Web Services. Those can have their source controlled in any source control tool that supports Windows.

You can use Check-in / Check-out for XSNs but you have to do it manually. SharePoint should just treat the XSN as a separate file.

Patrick,

 We don't do any special coding, just need source control as we now have 3 developers, and don't want to lose work.  I am hoping to look at Qdabra once I get approval from bosses.

We are going to try SharePoint.  I noticed when I check out the .xsn from SharePoint it doesn't put it in SharePoint Drafts. 

 Is this what you are referring to when you say you have to do it Manually?

 Thx!

PAW

Hey PAW,

Well, pretty much anything will work. There are free open source systems that work fine. We use Microsoft's TFS and it works well. I don't think SharePoint is going to be a good system for you though. It isn't meant to be a source control system. It just handles document versioning plus checkin/checkout.

A meager 2 cents here ...

Patrick,

Thanks for advice.  Been playing with SharePoint, and that is not the way as you said.

I have my DBA looking into Microsoft's TFS.  That may be the answer.

 In the meantime, will check on one of these free ones until we can establish best practive for us.

Thx again!

 PAW