InfoPath Dev

Hi everyone,

I'm trying to do something that seems pretty easy to me (maybe i'm wrong abount this) but I can't find any post tackling this issue.

I'm developing a form to be submitted when a new employee is hired. The form needs to implement the following workflow :

1) HR fills basic information then submits (email) the form to the department manager based on selection of a department combo

2) The manager fills up the missing info on the form and then submits (email) the form to the department director

3) The department director approve or rejects the form and then submit it. If the form is approved, it goes by email to our networking team so that they can begin setting up the user. On the other hand, if the form is rejected, it needs to be sent back to the manager so that he gets informed that his request has been rejected.

Question is: is there any way to email the form back to its original sender? How do I know which email adress to send the form back to?

Any help would be appreciated.. this is my first InfoPath form so i'm still exploring the possibilities : )

 Thanks!

Hi Phil. Welcome to the forum.

There are several keys to a form with workflow.

1. Identify the user.  Use an Active Directory Web Service or Code or mechanism to identify the person opening the form.  This allows you to ID the person for auditing and tracking purposes.  Validate that the correct person, the one who it has been assigned to, is opening the form. Lastly, you can automatically access there name, department, email, location, etc to use in the form.

2. Track the form state.  Have a field in your form which gets updated at each step so that the form can show the appropriate view or elements depending on the state of the workflow.

3. Track each participant.  The requestor and each approver should be logged in the form so that you can reference them again as in your case. 

I would recommend submit these forms to a central location for safe keeping since email can tend to be lost.

I do forms with work flow all the time so if you would like to see some specific examples send me an email.

Hi Clay,

Could you provide me a example of a form that sends email to notify users, not that it needs to submit via email, but just send an email to let them know they need to do something.  Also if it has code to get the users email addy that would be good to.  I am using 2003 version.

that would be a great help.  thanks! 

 [email protected]

Hi Phil,

I just created a form with the same features as yours.  As Clay said, I used a checkbox (Approved and Disapproved) which became my basis for the rules in the Submit Options.  By the way, my form requires two approvals so I created two sets of these checkboxes.  Then I created rules in the Submit options.  If the first approved checkbox is true, the form will be submitted to the final approver.  When the 2nd approved checkbox is true, the final approver will submit the form to MIS.  You need to set the email addresses of the approver in your rules so your form will be submitted to the correct person.

I hope this helps.