InfoPath Dev

 Hello,

 A quick brief of my process:

 I am fairly new to SharePoint enterprise 2010, SharePoint workspace and Infopath 2010. I work for a passenger ferry company and have been asked to provide a process to enable ships captains to complete forms offline when they do not have a wifi connection (mid sailing) which will then syncronise to a SharePoint site once the wifi reconnects in there arrival port. I decided to use a SharePoint site as the main repository for the results from the forms and workspace to be installed on each of our boats for the captins to complete the InfoPath forms in.

The problem I have is that I need to use the receive data connection type to provided the latest data from another one of our systems within a drop down selector on my InfoPath form.  This process works fine when a form is opened using workspace and a wifi connection is present and can still be completed / submitted etc when the connection drops, but when a new form opens and with no wifi connection it still tries to refresh the data in the dropdown menu. My question which I would appreciate any help with is, Is there anyway to stop the form from refreshing the data 'IF' wifi is not available so that the last set of data received could be used for multiple form uses when offline and then only refresh it when wifi is available again?

 Many thanks in advance

 Lee

Hello Corkylee,

and welcome to our forum.

In short words: You have to cache your "Secondary data connection". A description with a good descriptive example will you find here:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/infopath-help/configure-a-secondary-data-connection-for-offline-use-HA010156904.aspx

Hope that helps. If you have further questions please ask...

Regards, 

 Hi,

 Thank you for the speedy response. I have checked and my secondary data sources are set to store a copy of the data in the form template which I assumed would make it available to all foms opened whilst offline however once I complete a form and submit it I get the following error message "Some external data was not received. the form will load without the requested data" I am not sure why it appears to be trying to open a new form as I have the submit options set to leave the form open ?? When you click ok on that message it then says "The form was submitted successfully". Then when I open a new form (still offline) the drop down menus do not seem to be using the cached data and are blank?

 Any ideas? 

Cheers Lee

Hello Lee,

... now I have to ask you a little bit. Do you have a "Form library" or a Sharepoint list" which you will use offline. I asked this because you can´t use form libraries as they do NOT sync through Sharepoint workspace. To use InfoPath form library templates offline, they have to be Filler forms where the data connections have been configured to work offline and you have to allow for the SAVE action in the toolbar. User click NEW while connected, Save the form (XML) to their machine, go offline, work on the form, come back online, and use Submit to push to the form library.

Regards,

 Hi Karsten,

I am using a SharePoint list to store the results within SharePoint on our server, I have then created an InfoPath form which I have uploaded to the SharePoint list and then Synchronised with the SharePoint workspace client on the boat. I do not have any instance of SharePoint itsellf on the PC on each boat except for the workspace client. The SharePoint workspace seems to hold the form data ok when offline and auto sync it when reconnected its just the cached data bit the seems to be failing.

I hope this makes sense but if not I could maybe upload or email a diagram showing the set up I have and how what I am trying to achieve. 

Regards

Lee