InfoPath Dev

We are implementing barcodes on our forms at my company & I'm wondering if there is an easy way to do a mail merge on InfoPath forms.

 We have over 300 employees & 300 clients who are paired together in various, constantly changing, combinations and I need to figure out a way to get both their names pre-printed on their timesheets so they can be routed appropriately when they are turned back in.  If I create an excel (or a SharePoint list since we have it) with one column of our clients and an adjacent column with the appropriate staff, is there a simply way to merge the two onto my timesheet form using InfoPath?    Thanks for any help!

Hi:

So, when the timesheet opens, you want the full list of clients for the employee copied in to the main data source for the form? I'm confused when you mention barcodes, as I don't understand how the barcodes fit in with your other requirements?

Or should the Client and Staff be things that a user can select from a drop down?

InfoPath can display data from other data sources in a form, if that is what you are asking. It has no built in capability for copying data from a secondary data source into a main data source (qRules can help with that, but I'm not sure if that is what you are trying to do...)

Maybe you could provide a little more information on what you are envisioning....

Thanks for the quick response.

 What I would like to have happen is for InfoPath to print out the 300 or so timesheets we need ever two weeks with the appropriate staff & client already filled-in.  In a perfect world I could just maintain a list of the current staff-client pairings in SharePoint & when I wanted to print timesheets Infopath would simply reference the list, row by row, printing the timesheets according to the pairings indicated in the list (I think this is called a mail merge in word). 

The barcode component I mentioned is just an ActiveX control that encodes the field (or fields) to which it is bound, in my case the staff & client names, so the document can be automatically routed to the appropriate library once it is turned back in.

 Thanks for any help!

 -Brian

 

Hi Hilary, I figured I try to touch base real quick since you were so helpful with my last (very simple) problem...Did you have any suggestions on my mail merge thing?  I tried to make the Word 2010 mail merge solution work but I can't bind my barcode Active X control to the client & staff names as I need to (I would like the barcode to encode something like Company.Timesheet.StaffName.ClientName).  I have found a possible solution in Excel, involving code--not my strong suit, and I thought I would check in with you to see if any clever InfoPath solution had popped out at you since your last post.  Maybe not, but I figured it was worth a shot before trying the coded solution!

Thanks so much for any input.

 Best,

 Brian

Hi Brian!

If you have a table with an employee and a customer on each row (I think you do), then:

1. Create a print view with a repeating section based off your table.
2. Customize the contents off the repeating section so that it looks like a timesheet (with expression boxes / calculated values for customers / clients).
3. Put a page break (Insert > Page Break) at the bottom of the repeating section -- make sure that it is inside the repeating section.

And you're done! Print the view!

Hope this helps!

Thanks very much for the response!  I have done (I think) everything you mentioned.  A couple question though--and these will likely expose my inexperience:

1.   I put the timesheet (Including Staff Name, Client Name, Active X barcode control, page break etc.) into the repeating section & connected the Staff Name text box & Client name text box fields to my SharePoint List with all the staff/client pairings...was this what I was supposed to do?

 2.  How do I make it so that when I hit print, it prints a timesheet with each of the pairings, that is, prints a timesheet for each client/staff pairing? 

 We are in an industry that *requires* original signatures on the timesheets--so we have to print these things out--thus the need for the dynamic barcoding (for when we scan the 300 timesheets back in).

 Thanks so much!  Hope this is a softball!!

 Best,

 Brian

Hi Brian,

What is your repeating section bound to? It should be bound to the repeating group in your datasource that contains your staff and client fields. Ex:

sharePointRepeatingSection
 clientName
 staffName

I don't do much with ShP, but if it is a secondary datasource, this repeating group would probably be found by changing the selection at the top of the Data Source taskpane to the name of your connection. Your fields can be directly dragged from this taskpane as well.

Once you put the timesheet in the correct repeating section, it should print out with a new copy on each page. I can give you a sample if you need one. I hope you can get this figured out!

Qwerty

Qwerty,

 That solution worked great!  The timesheets are printing out according to the list & look just like they are supposed to.  Just one last thing--I can't get the repeating information to update the barcode ActiveX control.  I'm sure there's a way to do it, but if I keep the barcode in the repeating section InfoPath throws an error that says that the barcode cannot repeat there, & I cannot connect it directly to the data source (there's just an error saying it cannot be bound to that field).  Possibly I should I try making another repeating section inside the first repeating section with the barcode in it? 

 Thanks again for all your help!  I wouldn't have gotten here without your advise!

 -Brian

Hi Brian,

Sorry it's taken me a while to get back to you. I'm assuming that your barcode is an Active-X control, but if it's something else, well... anway:

Try

• deleting it and inserting it directly into repeating section.
• to get its location in your datasource into the same sharePointRepeatingSection that I mentioned in a previous post.
• inserting it in its own repeating section (if you can find one that it works in) and basically position that repeating section side-by-side with the repeating section containing your timesheet (probably using a layout table). Then you would have to insert a page break at the bottom of that repeating section as well.

Also, you may want to repost this question in the general forum for the rest of the community to look at. I hope you get this solved!

Qwerty

It is possible to achieve this by using a ActiveX barcode control. take a look at the ActiveX barcode infopath tutorial. It may help!