InfoPath Dev

Hi,
I am building an infopath form linked to an access database to track machines which are assigned to people.

The "machine" group (which is a subgroup of the "people" group) has a field called "assignedTo", which I related to the primary key field of the people group, i.e. specified in the "add relationship" section when adding/modifying the data connection to the access file.

When i try to edit the (data)assignedTo field in a repeating table, it lets me change the value, but then when i click submit, it says that there is no new data to submit, and changes it back to the value it had previously. why won't it let me submit my changes?

Any help would be very much appreciated.

I'd bet that since you are using assignedTo to create your relationship to another table for which it is the primary key, IP is undoing your changes. The primary key and foreign keys are what IP uses to identify records in the database and tells it which one to modify based on your form changes.

Do you need to have these tables related in your form? That is, are you going to be making changes to the 'people' table and the 'machine' table in tandem?

It seems to me that would want to build your form off the 'machine' table, and add a secondary data connection to the 'people' table. Then you can put a drop down on your form that is bound to 'assignedTo' and use the information from the 'people' table for your drop down list. That way you can be sure that 'assignedTo' in the 'machines' table is a valid selection from the 'people' table.

hi, cheers for the response

 not too sure what you mean by "in tandem", but both people and machines will need to be editable (tho not at the same time). having "people" only on the secondary connection would mean that i couldnt have any kind of submit connection to them (for some reason infopath wont allow 2 submit connections where both are to an access database, and i cant have both "people" and "machines" in the main (Submit AND Recieve) connection without them being linked.

to be honest, the only thing i can think of would be to do what you suggest, and then build a whole separate infopath project for editing "people" details. which seems pretty silly. surely there must be a way of doing this? am I missing something big?

No, I don't think you are missing something big, I think you running into InfoPath limitations with DB bound forms. I think if you  structure your database differently, it will allow you to do what you need. Perhaps instead of using the assignedTo value as your key (since it can change) you could add an auto-incrementing Id (not sure what they are called in Access -- in SQL I can add an int field, set it as an Identity and have it auto-increment) to your People table as the Primary Key, and add a column to your Machines table that uses that number for its foreign key.

Hilary and Pinapple23, there is an auto increment key in MS Access. 

 I try to ignore it. Not sure how to grapple with the key though.

But how would PIneapple23 and myself use this feature in the form?