InfoPath Dev

My form uses multiple repeating tables and sends all data to a single Sharepoint List. This is all working well but if the user leaves some fields blank, they are getting submitted to the list as well. So I'm getting a bunch of list items that are functionally empty. Is there any way to get Infopath/Sharepoint to ignore blank fields? Not sure if this is more of a Sharepoint issue or an Infopath issue.

chrisgee,

I might be misunderstanding your question, but when you add a list item to a Sharepoint list, the items will include all the columns. As such, if the user choses not to enter anything into a column, and that column isn't mandatory, then the list will indeed end up containing a blank field. You can't get Sharepoint to only display fields that aren't empty (well, not unless you implement something custom).

You could alter the validation rules on your InfoPath form, to prevent any user from not providing an entry in a given column - this would ensure that the Sharepoint column is always populated, but might not provide the functionality to meet your business requirements.

 I guess I'd ask you why empty columns are causing you a problem in your Sharepoint list?

 Hope this is in someway useful (and I haven't missed the point completely),

 Regards,

 Rob

No, you have it right, thanks! Looks like I need to do something on the Sharepoint side to filter out the blank entries. On the Infopath side I need to be able to let users skip some fields if it doesn't apply to them. I need this only becuase once the form goes out there will be thousands of users/entries so I'm trying to keep things as clean as possible. But since there are so many separate repeating tables in the form, I will need to add some complex filters to properly weed out the truly blank vs. the partially-complete entries.