InfoPath Dev

Hello to everybody! I'm a new user of Infopath and I'd like to understand if I'm doing things in the right way. I have a Sharepoint 2007 site, called 2012. Under it there's a library called Activities in which I have published my form TemplateActivity. During the 2012 my users filled out the form and, with a Save button, they submitted the form to the location 2012\Activities. For the submission I created a connection data that points to 2012\Activities and converted in .udcx file, called SaveActivity.udcx (saved in a data connection library). Now I have to set up the same for 2013 and I'm going to do in this way: create site 2013 and under this the library Activities. open the TemplateActivity in Infopath Designer and save it as TemplateActivity2013. Create a new data connection SaveActivity2013.udcx that points to 2013\Activities and substitute this one in the Save button. Publish TemplateActivity2013 to Activities (2013). In this way my users will be able to start filling out the forms for 2013, but they should still be able to modify some of 2012. The problem is that I have read that this situation could raise some problems regarding “Form Template Conflict”. I think that TemplateActivity and TemplateActivity2013 have same ID and also they are published on two libraries that have the same name. I can't change the name of my libraries because there're other applications making queries on them, showing to the users their own activities in a custom shape. On the other hand I don't want to recode the template from beginning just to obtain a different ID. I would like to know how to avoid this problem or when it happens in order to understand what I can/can't do, before saying my users to start using 2013 site. Thank you very much! Ely P.s.: Sorry for my unperfect english, it's not my native language.

If your form template has the same ID, you are correct that your users will be prompted to replace it in their cache - but you can change it. If you are using InfoPath 2010, on the File backstage, Info category, to the far right you'll find a button "Form Template Properties" - you can click that and change the template name which should also modify the ID. In IP 2007, I believe this was under the File menu - there is likely a form properties item there. If you can't find it, let me know - I have a machine w/ IP 2007 and can go find the correct menu option.

Thank you Hilary, so if they are prompted to update the template, after that, they won't able anymore to make updates on 2012\Activities, right? I followed your instructions but I noticed a strange behaviour and I'd like to have some explanations to better understand. I opened TemplateActivity2013, found the button you suggested (I'm using IP 2010 with compatibility 2007 browser-enabled form) and changed the name (that was TemplateActivity) to TemplateActivity2013. The ID changed accordingly to urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:infopath:TemplateActivity2013:-myXSD-2011-04-14T16-03-46. Then I published TemplateActivity2013 to 2013\Activities. I was looking at the Sharepoint list settings, Advanced settings. By clicking on the link Edit Template I reopen the published version and I saw that the ID is urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:infopath:Activities:-myXSD-2011-04-14T16-03-46. The template ID took the name of the sharepoint list in which it was published! If I look, in the same way, at the ID of the template published on 2012\Activities, it is the same ID, because the name of the library is the same! This doesn't matter for “Form Template Conflict” problem, so I mean in same way IP knows that the templates are different (that they became different because the ID was changed using the Designer? It is maintained somewhere?) ? Thank you again!

You have two different sites? One is named 2012 and the other is named 2013? Is Activities the name of the form library? If you are no longer getting the message about replacing the template (form conflict) I guess I'd assume that since the URL is different IP is keeping them straight some how - but I hadn't realized that IP was going to change the name on you when you published. When you re-open an existing XML, it will have the location of the template from which it was created in the processing instructions (open one of your submitted XML in a text editor and you'll see an href attribute w/ the template location) - so those will open correctly and thus submit correctly - when you were checking to see if you no longer had the form conflict issue, did you open a new form from each library?

Yes, I have two different sites 2012 and 2013,both having a form library called Activities. When you say “When you re-open an existing XML...”, you mean a filled form instance that I can download from the library on my local drive and open in a text editor? I'll try but unfortunatly I can't make other attemptes now, my services are not working after some hour. For the other problem is that I have notice this: When I publish the two templates (after making the change of the name in one of them, using the “Form Template Properties”), I look in both libraries and click in the link Edit Template. In both templates opened, if I go again in the “Form Template Properties” I see the Name is now Activities (name of the Library) and the ID is urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:infopath:Activities:-myXSD-2011-04-14T16-03-46. If instead I open the templates that I have saved on my PC, they have still the Name and ID I have set up before publishing, two different ones. Maybe it is not a problem but I was wondering why about it, just to make sure that the users could work with both 2012 and 2013 form libraries and the modifications they will do in forms of 2012, won't be instead submitted on 2013 (because of the apparently same IDs, looked from inside the libraries).

I did mean download a filled in form (which is an XML file) and look at it in a text editor, yes.

The template you have saved on your PC is not the same file as the published file template that resides on SharePoint. Publishing creates a copy of the template (among other things) - and name being the same in both of your libraries is why I am concerned about form conflicts.