InfoPath Dev

I am creating an employee on boarding form. The form is broken up into several approval sections, such as HR, IT, Accounting, Sales, Engineering and so on. Depending on the employee different section might be checked off.  Each section needs to be approved by the manager for that department.  A user opens the form and checks off only the sections that will need to be approved. The number and name of the persons approving the form will change from form to form. So the approval workflow will have to change according to what sections have been checked off. For example one form might only need to have HR approve it, while another form might have to go to Engineering and then Sales and then IT for approval.

Normally in my workflows I use a very linier approach where a submitted form goes from say, the employee to the manager for approval and then on to HR. To accomplish this I usually place calls to AD to pull the employee and manager names into the form and then used them to create a workflow that will eventualy send the form to HR. This is simple because the workflow is always the same, employee to manager and then HR. In this case the number of managers will change from form to form.

Does anyone have a suggestion on how to create a workflow that one time might go directly to HR and then another time might go from Sales to Engr and then IT depending on what sections were checked off in the form?

 Laura Rogers has a great book and online tutorials regarding a simple approval process.

http://www.wonderlaura.com/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?List=daba3a3b%2Dc338%2D41d8%2Dbf52%2Dcd897d000cf3&ID=138&Web=dbb90e85%2Db54c%2D49f4%2D8e97%2D6d8258116ca0

Thank you very much for your responce to my question.  Unfortunatly, while extreamly informative this type of workflow will not work as the approval process would be dynamic.  The people needing to review the form would change from form to form.  Her solution doesn't allow for that.  But thank you anyway.  I've booked marked her blog as I found several other topics she talked about that were very interesting.

 Her process would work with just adding that "dynamic" factor to it. I took her form and created a way to have an optional extra process' according to what the user chose.

So in the start of the form, the user could have a drop down of the services. For instance, the dropdown could be: Time Off, Supplies, Computer Issue. (Just getting 3 totally different items that would need different things).

Once the user choses the drop down, hidden sections show up for them to fill out that are unique to that service. Each of those services would have a unique Page View as well. So on your submit button, you would have a conditional that if this service is selected, then do a main submit, assign the task to a specific user, switch views to that specific service, email submit (set up in data connections) and some other statements I am sure I am forgetting about! LOL! So if you have 10 services, then your submit button would have 10 conditional statements.

The key here is the different Views that you create and the form can easily move between the them with different approvals with the submit button. Does this make sense? Without actually doing a flowchart, I know it is hard to explain or fully grasp all of the things that need to go into it.

 First off I have to thank you, I went out and bought the book and walked through the tutorial.  I understand the process much better now.  I got the approval process to work with the form.  My form has different sections in it. Each Section is a for a different department.  In each section it has check boxes for a users security access.  When a box is checked a rule writes the name of the manager who needs to approve the section to a hidden field.  I concatenate the names into one field and use that as the "APPROVERS" variable in the work flow.  Only real problem I run into is...

For the workflow to work the user must have InfoPath on their PC.  This is because to complete the task you have to click on the yellow prompt at the top of the application, this prompt only shows when you open the form in the application not in a browser. This causes a problem because not all users have access to the application, all of our forms are browser based forms.     

Marie,  is there some way creating a rule that would complete the task, approving or disapproving it, through the submit button on the form.  I was looking at  Approvals Workflow.  In SPD select ACTION --> TASK ACTIONS --> START APPROVAL PROCESS.  In Step 1 select the underlined "Approval".  This takes you into the approval workflow.  Under the Customization section there is a link to "Change the completion conditions for this task process"  Would know if it would be possible to add rules that would approve or disapprove the task when the form is submitted? or is this the wrong way to do it?

P.S. thank you very much for taking the time to respond to my post.  I was getting ready to drop this whole thing till I got your reply. 

 

  

 I am so glad I can help! I know how frustrating these forms can be. First question, in SP, how do you have the SharePoint Form Library Setting set up for the library on how the form opens? It should say browser and if not, change it to browser. Here is instructions if you need that - http://www.bizsupportonline.net/browserforms/allow-force-browser-enabled-form-open-in-browser.htm 

 Also, in InfoPath, make sure that everything you are doing is for browser only options. Here are the specs on why and how to do that - http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/infopath-help/introduction-to-browser-compatible-form-templates-HA010169339.aspx

This means that the form opens in the browser and the user never has to have InfoPath.

Now onto your other question. I am a little confused on exactly what you are asking so I am going to try to answer what I think you are asking. If you add a submit button to the form, you can add Rules and Code to it that can do anything you want it to. On my forms, I have the submit button changing a field that is called "Status". It goes through different stages such as: Pending, Unassigned, Assigned, QA, Edits, Customer Approval, Approved and Completed. So you would not use the normal SP workflow but a pseudo workflow through the form. I also have different submit buttons for different sections. You mentioned the hidden sections? Each of those can have its own submit button with specific rules only to that area. OR you can do conditional statements on one submit button. It all depends on how you want to code it. I usually have multiple buttons because it is easier for me when updating items.

Also, I am not allowed at my current job to use SPD so any advice I give will NOT include doing things in SPD. At first, when I found out I could not use it, I was upset but now, I have learned to do everything just in InfoPath and it actually made my life simpler and I don't miss it. LOL!

Sorry for the confusion about my question.  What I was asking was is it posible to have the submit button complete the built in SharePoint Approvel Procsess workflow.  When you start the Approval Process a task is assigned to each approver.  When an approver completes the task, the task is checked off as completed and eventualy (depending on the number of approvers) the form is marked as approved in the library.  The only way to complete the Approval Process is to open the form in Infopath and NOT a browser.  When you open the form in InfoPath a pop up link allows you to open the task from the form and mark the task as completed.  It's combersom and not very intuitive for the user.  On top of that the person filling out the form has to have InfoPath because the pop link to the taks dosn't appear in the browser version of th form.

So what I was asking was if it was posible to add rules to the browser based form so that when you clicked submit it would open up the related task and complete it for you.  

I can understand the confusion though, if you are not using SPD then not much of that would make sence.  How do you make your workflows if you are not using SPD?  I totaly understand what you are talking about by creating a workflow through the form.  I have been doing that for years.  And I agree, as we use browser based form there are many things that just work better that way.  But it's combersom when writting data to lists or sending emails as compaired to using actual Workflows. 

For instance what I am trying to do with this workflow... Create a dynamic list of form approvers that will change from form to form.  It may have to be approved by one person one time and five the next.  And it has to be approved consecutivly, one after the other.  I can't see any way that workflows from within a form can do that.  That's how this thred started was I was hoping there was a way to do just that from within the form.   

Anyway thank you for pointing me in the direction of the InfoPath

I don't use any workflows technically. I just have the tasks change status (a text box value gets updated) and it just looks like there is this workflow happening. I would email Laura (wonderlaura.com) and see if she can help you. She is great and does respond to people.

Laura Rogers is definitely a treat and ya just gotta love that book she wrote with Darvish Shadravan

Yet I feel saddened by the fact that ....

you have not even checked out our more detailed, more relevant and more recent YouTube webinars!!!

• InfoPath and SharePoint Workflows - June 27, 2013 Webinar: http://youtu.be/65z-Wu5Wma0 
• InfoPath Forms and Task Lists - January 31, 2013: http://youtu.be/4oQ7QdpYdx8

What's up with that?

We've been dispelling the SharePointy doodoo for years ...

Where's the lovin'!?

:):):)

Patrick, do you have any idea how I can do this with in InfoPath. I need to create an approvel process. The workflow would be dynamic, meaning who the form would go to would depend on what was checked off in the form and might change from form to form.  This is an Employee On Boarding form. The form has about 15 security sections to it. Depending on what section is checked off by the user, the manager for that section needs to approve the request. Marie, was kind enough to point me in the direction of the built in SP approval process and Laura Rogers wonderful book, but her solution is not usable in browser based forms.

Here is part of what the form looks like.  https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=F4226716C0FFA06F!245

The form is broken up by sections, each section has check boxes. You check off the permissions you need for each section, if any.  Each section then has a manager who needs to approve the request.  If any box in a section is checked off I write the manager responsible for that section to a hidden field.  I then concatenate all the hidden fields to one field so this can be used in the workflow... "ManagersName1;ManagersName2;ManagersName3".  This part I have done and works fine.

What I do not understand how to do is create a workflow inside of InfoPath that would send the form to this list (the concatinated field) of users, one after the other, i.e. first to Manager1 then Manager2 then Manager3, especality when that list will change from form to form.  It might be 1 Manger or it might be 15 .  There has to be some way to handle this from within InfoPath, I cannot be the only who has ever attempted this. Sorry but I'm at my whit’s end! Please if you can think of anything...

What you need to do is create a SharePoint list with all of that data that you showed in the screenshot. Then you add a data connection and pull in those fields you need. Then you can rules that filter by the checkboxes on the screen and add the email address to a text field. Then that submit button would add that to the email chain.

This way, the filter is really by the responsibility and not tied to the email address. If the SP list gets updated, the form is automatically updated as well.

Hi Steve,

Sounds like you want to do this serially. From manager1 to manager2, etc. To do that, you just insert the managers into a repeating group which has a column for workflowStep which starts at 1. Then, the form just increments that on save. The form doesn't need to write to a list for this. The form just promotes the value of the nth item in the workflow? How? Use a single field called currentAssignee and set this field based on the xpath filtered for the manager equal to the step. The currentAssignee field is promoted so a reusable workflow can send email to that person since it has access to fields.

If you'd rather do this in parallel, just store the link to the form in the form and create separate tasks for each manager. You'll need someway to prevent multiple users from editing the form at the same time - I recommend our CheckinCheckoutXTP (from last week's webinar).

In both approaches you're going to use a table in which you insert the managers. Now this table will have 20-30 blank rows (whatever max approvers could be) - use default values to add blank rows. I imagine that you would just set a dummy column equal to the manager of the section - this sets all rows to that manager, which is fine. You have a rule that runs on the rows that checks the workflowStep column (blank initially). If it's blank you set the assignee to the value in the dummy column and stop processing rules. This has the effect of adding a manager to the table every time someone checks a checkbox for a section. 

The problem with the above set is that it fires whenever they click a checkbox but maybe they change their mind (so it should not add two). In this case, you can have a bunch of rules at the end that insert the rows and set the managers on submit (i.e. it iterates through them).

In either case, I recommend that you have the task list (or reusable workflow) send the email. In the former case, you can use our QdTask XTP from the June 28th webinar. We also show how to create a workflow in that webinar.

I'd be happy to spend an hour or two stepping you through this in an online meeting. I do conduct training on workflows every month and while your scenario is slightly more complicated, it's not that bad. Just let me know if you want to do this option. You get a free hour of personalized support if you get qRules or take our InfoPath training class (online space still open for 8/12). Otherwise, the support packs can be purchased here: http://www.qdabra.com/webstore/p/43/pay-as-you-go-support.

Marie, Thank you for the advice, you have been very helpful, but I think i'm over my head at the moment and I'm going to take up Patrick.  Besides I'll probably learn alot in the process. 

Patrick, I'm getting authorization to purchase two hours of your time.  I'll let you know when it goes through and we can schedule something. Thank you for your help on this.  You have helped me with several other forum issues in the past so I'm looking forward to finaly talking to you.  

Patrick I purchased a two hour block of support...

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Please contact me at [email protected] when you have time. 

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