InfoPath Dev

I've just learned of a workflow at my work, where employees are required to read a filled-out form and maybe make changes to it.

The form is filled out and then the xml file is send to the employee, however often the employee cannot open the xml file.

The idea is to mail the xml to the employee - then the employee sends it back, whereafter the xml can be saved to som fileshare.

I think the xml file is just mailed manually (by attaching the xml file directly to the mail).

Is this an incorrect method? Should the form instead be published to an email recipient?

I believe the problem is that some employees don't have access to the template, but what would be the correct way to establish the workflow?

Employess should not have access to the fileshare where the xml-files are finally stored.

Hi Jmi77 and welcome!

Yes, you need to publish it as an email form and you need to make sure it's security setting (file->form options) is set to restricted so that you can include the xsn as well when you send the initial email. This is a very popular pattern for surveys and other forms that collect data. Outlook even has support for showing the promoted properties in the folder and exporting the XML data to Excel. Pretty cool stuff.

We actually have a lab exercise in our training class on this.

You don't need a SharePoint workflow for this. Just publish the form in email. The form has an email data connection that sends it back to someone. The recipient has a separate view with a button that uploads to a file share or submits to a SharePoint site, for example. Mel Balsamo wrote a nice blog on this a couple years ago: http://www.infopathdev.com/blogs/mel_balsamo/archive/2009/05/19/using-e-mail-forms-to-communicate-with-external-users.aspx

It's a good pattern and one that is easy to implement.

Good luck!