InfoPath Dev

 Hello all,

I am new here and to Infopath so I hope to get this off to a good start. I think the best way to pose this question, because I may not even be asking all the right questions, is to simply describe what I have, where I am, etc. and where I would like to get to. Please let me know your opinions and thoughts?

I have a multi-tab Excel spreadsheet that a internal employee will select from a drop down on the introduction (first) tab if they work in group A or group B (this is pass-worded). Once this is done the internal employee will fill out the second tab with all of their group information. Tab 2 and 3 is just two different versions (group A and B) of the employee tab. It is then saved and emailed to a external customer to fill out 2 other tabs (tabs 4 and 5) that are always constant and always viable. Once completed the customer emails it back to the originator who reviews the information provided and if approved they go back to the introduction (first) tab and selects a 3rd option from that pass-worded drop down. This 3rd drop down is called "Go to Build" and once selected and the password entered a new tab is made viable that is just an accumulation of all of the information entered from all other tabs (with some calculations done here and there) and presented in the correct order as needed by the person who will be reading it as instructions to build a widget.

Honestly this, Excel works well because it has to be portable, completed offline, emailed between different people, etc.This probably screams database but I am not a DB programmer and getting the resources will be a no go, I have to do this, like I did the spreadsheet, on my own.

What am I trying to solve and does it warrant using something different from Excel. I think there are 3 things I am trying to solve for...

1. When something changes and a new version of the Excel spreadsheet gets released we still see old one's being used for weeks

2. Central repository for completed the information. Right now all of the completed spreadsheets go into a SharePoint folder so if someone needs to look up and see how something was configured 3 months ago for a customer, anyone can search the folder and find it.

3. Something that just looks a little more progressive then the spreadsheet for the end user, customer.

 Any advise, even if it is to stay with Excel, etc. would be great!

Great question.

Yes, InfoPath is a better solution since it:

1. Automatically updates the template when a new version is published - assumes they are using a form from a SharePoint form library.
2. Provides the central form library for the data and you can map the data to SharePoint lists to export to Excel for search, aggregation and reporting.
3. Looks like a form

Existing Excel data can even be batch-mapped to this InfoPath approach.

InfoPath does work offline so long as people have it installed on their computers. It also works online via a web page so they don't need to have it installed if they are accessing from a smart phone or tablet device which doesn't support Windows.