InfoPath Dev

Hello all-

 I apologize for basic questions.  I'm new to Infopath and I am not a programmer but I can usually follow along and like to teach myself new skills.  I've been tasked with seeing if Infopath is a suitable tool for a potential project and from what I can tell it is, but with my limited knowledge I keep hitting stumbling blocks.  I don't need to get a final product myself (we would hire a programmer to do that) but I'm trying to get as close to a working proof-of-concept as possible.  I am just hoping for advice to steer me on the right path.  Here is the situation:

1. We are trying to make a basic authorization system

2. We will store all of the data in a SP list.  For the sake of example let's say we have columns for Region, Market, Quarter, Approved Amount, Current Amount and Difference (calculated field).  Obviously it forces you to have a Title field but I don't need that and won't expose it to the user.  I could always default it in some way to something like "Approval".

3. I created a form that had drop-downs to choose the Region and Quarter that were linked to unique values in those columns in the SP list.  I then had a repeating table set up that had columns for Market, Approved, Current and Difference and an approve button

4. When the user chose a Region and Quarter the table was successfully populated with only the matching rows

5. At this point the idea would be that if the current was greater than the approved then they could click the button which would set the approved field to the current field amount and write back to the SP list.  I could set the approved field to change when you click the button in the form but not write back to the SP list.  As far as I could tell from my reading this is not possible without code.

At this point I found qRules.  I downloaded the trial and went through the instructions.  However, I got stuck right away by the fact that when I am doing the mapping I can't choose the SP data fields as my repeating group.  I tried just creating a new repeating table in a blank form with the same columns as the list but not actually linked to the SP data source.  I then went through all of the steps in the instructions and ran the form.  I just typed "Test" in the Market field and clicked submit but nothing happened.  I assume there are many issues I need to resolve.

Again, I apologize for coming to you with what I am sure is a very basic issue, but I don't want to spend time going down the wrong path as I have to teach myself every step of the way.  My questions would be:

1. Can what I'm trying to do be done? 

2. Is qRules necessary or the right tool to do what I am asking or can it be done without coding straight in Infopath?

3. If qRules is the right tool, should my repeating table not use the SP daqta connection to populate?

Any other advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Hi,

As far as qRules is concerned, you'll want to display the Error, Success and Result nodes in the view, temporarily. These fields will tell you whether there is an issue with your command.

I don't fully understand your scenario, but someone else should be able to reply with more information. You're in the right place.

Thanks.

 I guess the main concise question is about populating a repeating table from a SP list and then allowing the user to update and submit changes.  In the documentation it discussed being able to update a row in a list by typing in the ID from the list but no one is going to know the ID of a row.  I would like to see the actual list in the form when they open it and then let them update the existing entries.

Thanks

The ID is automatic. You just have to have it in your main data source (schema). You can definitely do what you want. Have you read the blogs on SubmitToSharePointList and RefreshListItems? 

 I'll definitely read them now.  I'm brand new to all of this and sometimes just searching returns so many items that don't apply.  Thanks!

Well I started over with the simplest form I could think of.  I wanted to try it without worrying about populating the grid from sharepoint and only writing to it.  I created a new list with Name and Amount.  I went through the steps, previewed the form and typed in "Dave" and "5000" and clicked submit.  A new row was added to my list but the columns were blank.  Any thoughts?

I have been having intermittent success,  However, ultimately for my project I think the issue I am having is that I can't map to the data that I originally pull over from SharePoint.  In my original form I create a repeating table by dragging over the Secondary dataFields node.  This populates the table with the sharepoint list data.  However in the qrules mapping form I can only select from the Main node which doesn't have any fields.  Ideally I would want to be able to map the same SP List back to the fields that I pulled over from SP in the first place (if that makes sense).

Thanks

p.s., I tried the route of creating the CAML file as an alternative to qrules and that actually worked fine for me but I could not make it into a repeating table that was laid out in columns and I have no idea how to get it to auto-populate...

Hi King5555,

Jo-Anne's document describes how to use Insert to copy repeating tables from a secondary data source into your main data source even when they structure or field names are different.

 Thanks!

Before I give this a try, will it also work for a repeating table (as opposed to the repeating section in the pdf)?