InfoPath Dev

We collect monthly activity reports from 8 groups including project name, project leader, date, and status (can be several paragraphs long). We would like to be able to publish these reports via the web with multiple view capability (e.g., by group, by month, by project lead etc). Reports must be reviewed and approved by a group manager and senior manager before they are visible to our customers.

Is this scenario something that InfoPath can help with? Maybe in conjunction with SharePoint?

Yes, I am doing a similar thing. Info path can allow users to fill out a form, submit it and automatically forward to management for approval. The manager approves it and the form is sent to a database (or sharepoint form lirary) on submission. The dynamic web site can then display the data. Different views can be achieved by having different pages with different layouts and sql queries.

It is important to note drawbacks of this though. Infopath cannot submit long data types to databases. In some activity reports user may want to provide a commentary. However infopath can only submit fields with a maximum 255 character length (quite limited).

Alternatively you can use online forms to submit, however they sometimes lack some of the inherent functionality of infopath (although some of this can be scripted if you have the time and skills).

-- Jay Whittaker --