InfoPath Dev

Hello.

I have been struggling with a problem for a while now and would like to see what ideas others with more experience might have.  I have an existing Form Library that is being used by the business today in SharePoint 2010.  The form works great and no one wants to change the form or the process around the form.  I have been tasked with creating a report using Report Builder that will summerize the data.  The problem I am facing is that the form has repeating tables.  This means in SharePoint 2010, when you view the Form Library, the data found in the repeating tables is merged into a single cell.  However, the report I need to write needs to work against this merged data but because it's merged into a single cell, I can not perform the reporting logic needed to fullfill my requirements.

 What options might I have in order to work around this issue?  I would rather not rework the original form and form library due to the impact that would have on the business. Ideally, I would like a way to 'view' the data in the existing SharePoint list broken out by a particular column in the repeating table, but I have not found a solution like that yet.  I also don't see a way to split the merged data in Report Builder.  How about creating a new list based on the existing list but with different columns?  Is that a path that I could follow, I know my way around C# well enough.

Just hoping for ideas that I have not yet considered that might bring me to a solution.

Thanks
Brian

Hi Brian,

Which Report Builder is this, the one created by Qdabra Software?

I am using Microsoft SQL Server Report Builder ... version 3 I believe. Thanks Brian

I think unless you find a way to report on the XML files themselves (and I am not seeing anything in a quick web search), you'd need to save the repeating data off to its own SharePoint lists - as you've seen, IP merges it (or sums it, or selects first or last) when promoted.

 

If you want to query repeating table data with Microsoft SQL Report Builder 3.0, SSRS, SSIS, Excel, Access, or Performance Point be sure to check out http://infopathdb.codeplex.com

Over the years I've tried many InfoPath reporting options with PowerShell scripts, Scheduled Tasks, code behind, and multiple submit data connections. Having a real-time web service to merge XML data for easy query works well and I published that in case it can help others too.

Thanks Jeff,

Qdabra also has a product that does everything InfoPathDB does and much much more. It's called DBXL. Here's a link: http://www.qdabra.com/en/products/WebService.aspx

Main benefits are that you don't have to be a developer to deploy and use it and it's extremely inexpensive (free trial).

And, the small proceeds we get go to help keep this forum going. :)