InfoPath Dev

First and foremost, I've never built a workflow before and I know very, very little about it.  I also know nothing about code so if the end result is, "Get your IT department involved", I can live with that.

Ok, so I've built an "Employee Status Change Form" in InfoPath and want to do a bunch of different things with it.  I know this is a tall order but if anyone could at least point me in the right direction, I'd be greatful.

• I'd like for the form to be web-based and located on a SharePoint site
• Have workflow integrated with the form.  I have empty text-boxes for "Approval Level 1", "Approval Level 2", and "Approval Level 3".  Basically if somebody enters the e-mail address of 1 to 3 people in the "Approval" section of the form, once submitted, the workflow kicks off and is sent to 1st level and once 1st level approves it, it gets sent to 2nd level, and then 3rd., etc. etc.  Once all approvals are in, it gets sent to the person who completed the form.

Any suggestions or places to point me would again be appreciated.  Thanks.

Hi Ryan,

Your requirements are pretty simple and I think you could easily manage this via either workflow in your InfoPath form or via SharePoint workflow.

There may even be a built in (default) workflow in SharePoint that handles your scenario out of the box, I recall there be a three tier workflow or something that you could just enable on your form library.

Here is a good resource for using SharePoint designer to build workflows:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-designer-help/create-a-workflow-HA010100591.aspx

You might find using InfoPath workflow just as easy and perhaps more powerful than SharePoint workflow, we have a free trianing module online that you can follow that is similar to your scenario, see this link here: http://www.infopathdev.com/blogs/mel_balsamo/archive/2010/12/12/free-training-using-infopath-workflow.aspx

If you need any assistance Qdabra does offer consulting services to help you with your InfoPath work, you can send me a private message via the fourm if you are interested in learning more about that but we help people all the time with projects like yours.

Ted

Thanks, Ted.  I guess my question at this point is let's say in my InfoPath form I have three empty text fields that relate to the workflow.  So once somebody clicks the "Submit for Approval" button on my form, the form is sent in "serial" fashion to 1st Approver, then once it's approved it's sent to 2nd Approver, then from there, 3rd Approver and if that's the final approval, it's sent back to the author.  Is this doable through InfoPath and the workflow status still maintained through SharePoint?  The only reason why I can't use the SharePoint workflow is because the "approvers" will change with every form.

Thanks.

Hi Ryan, yes totally doable through InfoPath.

What you do is maintian the workflow status fields in the InfoPath form and change the status as the form moves through the workflow.  Promote that workflow status filed to SharePoint when you publish your template and that field will show in SharePoint.  No SharePoint workflow needed here at all.  The status will not be "SharePoint" workflow but InfoPath workflow.

I am pretty sure that if you spend some time you can probably figure out how to get the SharePoint workflow working so that the right person is sent the email, probably not out of the box SharePoint workflow but I can't imagine that being too hard to figure out.

Ted