InfoPath Dev

Hi all,
I am creating a form that needs to be filled out with contact information, and I am wondering if I can set up quick select templates for people to fill out.

By this I mean if one person's profile may show up on 10 different forms, how can I create a drop down list so someone can select a name and the form fills out autmatically.

Thanks for your help in advanced.

You can do this a number of ways. The best way is to create a separate XML file which has the "person records" with all their extra data. Then add that as an additional Data connection in your form.

Then have your dropdown get it's values from that secondary source name field.

Finally, write a rule on the dropdown with multiple actions to set a field's value. The value set is from your person records secondary data source field and set to your main data source field. You will have to create multiple rules.

Note when you select the node for the source data in your secondary data connection you need to "filter" that for instance where the name node matches what is selected in the dropdown.

Alright, thankyou Shiraz, sorry about the long wait for the respond, I went for lunch.
I was able to figure that out, and it works but I am wondering if a new name is ever added is there a way to update this without going into the xml file?

You're welcome. You have two options. When you use the method I suggested it stores the XML lookup in the XSN template. Instead you can also consider storing that XML file on a server so it's queried each time the form is opened and so would get any updates. Or you can instead use a SharePoint list to store the data and do you secondary lookup there. Again it would be queried OnLoad and so would always be recent as the data changes. Lastly, if you have this data in an Access or SQL database you can make a data connection to there instead.

Ideally the database or sharepoint list is the method to use so you can keep that data organized and updated it easily. Alternatively you can just use the XML file stored in a shared location and create another InfoPath form just for creating that "person records" lookup file. :)

Thanks again!
Sharepoint was excatly where this was going to go, the only problem is I don't know how to work sharepoint, but other people in the office do, they are just busy right now. I will show them what you put once they have time. Thanks a lot.

You're welcome. :)