InfoPath Dev

Thanks in advance for the help. I've developed a form in InfoPath 2007 that we use for RFQ's. The user fills out the form, clicks a button that does 2 things: 1/ submits the form to Sharepoint (2005) 2/ emails the form to various vendors (looks up a list based on various fields) When vendor e-mails back a quote, the user then opens the form back up from Sharepoint, enters the response date and quote $$ and attaches the quote (almost always comes in as a pdf). I recently made some changes to the form, and we're having some problems with the vendors being able to read the e-mails. The drop-down fields show the data correctly, but none of the text fields are visible. The vendors aren't able to open the attached .xml file either (I'm guessing that it is because they don't have the template). What is going to be the best way to get around this problem? I like the form due to its simplicity, so I'd like to keep the general functionality. Thank you all very much.

Hi USAComp2k3 and welcome,

Greg Collins recently blogged a technique we use to send around forms: http://www.infopathdev.com/blogs/greg/archive/2009/04/23/create-a-split-public-private-form.aspx. The key thing here is creating two versions of the form. The first version is a restricted URN based solution and you just attach the XSN and send it. Then, you take the same form and upgrade it to be your SharePoint form (but keep the name the same as the URN one). So, when your staff opens XML that are sent from the external field, it downloads the more recent SharePoint published version. Now when your external folks open an XML, it will find the old version and present a warning. Should not be a problem though so long as there were no incompatible schema changes between versions.

Good luck! Please let us know your success here. We have this working in house. If you want to donate some $ to have us work with you directly on the problem, just donate what you think it's worth in terms of your time multiplied by your hourly salary and we'll contact you. I'm sure we can do it for cheaper than you can... Here's our PayPal donation button: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=5038435.

Otherwise, the forum is ABSOLUTELY FREE. We'll try to respond quickly. Thanks for your patience.

Thank you for the reply. Unfortunately, I was hoping for a simpler solution. I don't need the external people to be able to use the form, I just need someway for an e-mail to be sent to them with the information that is on the form. It is almost working now, just that the only information visible in the e-mail are the drop-down fields (very curious to me). Just having them be able to see the text boxes also is what I need. I might be able to post a screenshot explaining what I mean if that would be helpful.

The text fields I have found are formatted oddly when sent in email, especially via email clients that don't handle XML data well.  Anytime I have used Outlook to send (via Exchange), it always looks and works well.  Even when viewed through Gmail, for example.  If however we send the same form and the end users email client sends it out via their IMAP connection, all the formatting is stripped out, and it comes across looking pretty pitiful.

NateHarris:

The text fields I have found are formatted oddly when sent in email, especially via email clients that don't handle XML data well.  Anytime I have used Outlook to send (via Exchange), it always looks and works well.  Even when viewed through Gmail, for example.  If however we send the same form and the end users email client sends it out via their IMAP connection, all the formatting is stripped out, and it comes across looking pretty pitiful.

That was my thought too. However I'm sending them out from Outlook 2007/Exchange. I actually just went back and looked at some of the old one's that I thought were working right, and the specific fields are missing there too. I'll have to check some of the settings to see what's up. I wondering if the border changes things or the fact that the field is populated by an external data source in a rule. Oh well. I'll let you know if I can solve this specific issue.