InfoPath Dev

Hi

i have an infopath form that have about 8 dropdowns that retrieves the options form a sharepoint lists

i would like to deploy the infopath to multiple servers and diffrent sites.. but the thing is the dataconnections urls to the lists are hard coded

and i want to make the deployment process very autmated

i have read some articles talking about creating dataconnections files and saving them to a document list inside sharepoint ... but that doesnt make any sense scince the document list url will still be hard coded

 others talked about saving the infopath file as a source and opening the manifest file and change the hard coded values

 i am just wondering isnt there any better solution for all that ... this scenario must have faced others before ... what is the best practice for that ??

Cheers

/Abdel-Rahman Awad

Hi Adel-Rahman and welcome,

You should definitly use Data Connection files. With Data Connection files you have 2 options:

• Relative
• Centrally managed

Have a look at the centrally managed option, this allows you to define all the data connection files in Central Admin.

The Data Connection Library of Central Admin can be found in Application Management > InfoPath Forms Services > Manage Data Connection Files