InfoPath Dev

Hi InfoPath Developer Forum.

I#%92ve build a form from a XML-Schema. The form uses all fields from the schema here among several formed as drop down fields. The schema comes in a new version every month or so with new legal values to the dropdown fields. Until now I#%92ve handled this by changing the primary data source since the schema changed name, but we have stopped to change the schema name and just update it. Therefore the data source stays the same, but it does not update with the new values from the schema. After changing the primary data source I would delete the fields with new legal values and insert them again from the data source.

My question is if there is any way to automate this, so the fields would update dynamically when there is an updated schema?

Yours sincerely

Jeppe Christensen
Danish National Archive

Hi Jeppe Christensen and welcome to our forum!
I'm not sure I completely understand your scenario. Are you changing the schema for the form (XSD file) or the sample data file for it (XML file)? Your dropdown values should not be coded to values in the form's schema - rather, you should use some other data source to prevent problems when you have to update the dropdown values. Typically people populate dropdowns from secondary XML data sources, SharePoint, SQL, etc. If you really need to populate using an XSD file you can leverage InfoPath's import functionality which supports custom XSL transofrms on import to get the sample data out of a new XSD for your form. Unfortunately, this will require importing before filling out a form and is not a great idea. My suggestion would be to review your form's data architecture as something doesn't quite seem right, but I it's probably just because I am confused... Good luck!