InfoPath Dev

Hi all,

I have created a wonderful form in MS Infopath 2003, which needs to be made available to the users in the company. I was able to bind the fields to an MS Access 2003 database except the attachment field. The form should be able to attach files to be used effectively.

In MS Access I chose "OLE Object" as the field type in which the attachments should be stored. I was not able to bind this field to the MS Infopath 2003 form for some reason.

Could someone explain to me how to bind a "File Attachment" field in MS Infopath 2003 to MS Access database?

I also have no idea what web server should I use for this form.

I would be very grateful for your help. Thanks a lot in advance.

Welcome Tommy.

I have not been successful using Access for file attachments. I know SQL can store the Base64 file attachment that InfoPath produces but I do not believe Access can. 

Best practice would not be to use Access for a company wide solution anyway. SQL Express is free and is better designed for multi-user use.

If you want to have a real enterprise solution then I would recommend a web/sql server.  Check out the Database Accelerator which you can download and install for free.  Qdabra Database Accelerator Suite Version 2.0 - Developer

This will give you a whole suite of webservices on your server to interact with Active Directory and your backend database.  It allows you to host and store the forms in SQL and gives you granular access control.

If you have questions or would like to see a demo let me know.

I have setup Infopath solutions with Access and even SQL as the backend data repository but it is very difficult and you run into a lot of limitations and frustration. With Database Accelerator, and its web services, you do not have those limitations plus you get lots of additional features and tools which you can leverage.  I highly recomend it.

Hi Clay Fox,

Thanks a lot for your kind answer. I'll definitely try out what you have suggested and will come back to you :) Thank you, again!