InfoPath Dev

Greetings!

Forgive me if this is explained somewhere else (I AM still digging around)...

I am completely new to InfoPath in a SQL Server/Sharepoint environment.

We are running SQL 2008, Sharepoint Enterprise 2007, Infopath 2007.  I am the portal/sql admin.

I am recreating several PDF forms in Infopath and saving the resulting input to SQL Server.

One of my forms is a Supply Requisition form.  I would like to enhance this form substantially with some custom functions and I am unsure what to look for here or elsewhere for advice.

1.  I would like to save all data to SQL Server, but also kick off an entry to SharePoint for a Workflow to run. 
What would the best method be to do this? 

2.  On the request, the user must enter various items they wish to purchase.  Some of these items come from FEDLOG a 2 million row database that I would like to have the user select from.
I have made a similar function in SharePoint using a tool - BDC Meta Man, but I don't see a similar capability in InfoPath.
How can I have four or five repeating fields receive input from a popup window with search capability against a secondary Data Connection?

Hi and welcome to the InfoPath Dev Forums.

I would be happy to talk to you on the phone about your project.  What you want to do with InfoPath and SharePoint is totally possible although if you do it yourself it is going to require custom code to handle parts or much of what you want to accomplish.

We have developed products that will help with all the areas you mention.  These are tools that you can use that don't require code.

Our Database Accelerator (DBXL) product includes the ability to submit to SQL, submit to SharePoint and also to query a DB.  If you were to use the native InfoPath data connections to connect to that 2 million row DB InfoPath might quit responding, never open or fail because it would time out as it would try to return the entire data set.  But with a Webservice like DBXL you have the ability to filter and parameterize your queries so that a user would only pull back the records that they need for the DB (the query can be done on the server side resulting in a much smaller dataset being returned to InfoPath).

To populate the repeating fields in your form you should also take a look at our qRules tool which has some really nice features related to working with tables.  Some table features in InfoPath require code and qRules can help you out.

As I said above I would be happy to talk to you and understand your project a bit more and explain in more details why our tools are probably something you should seriously consider as they will save you time and effort in your development process now and in the future.

Ted