InfoPath Dev

 I have a form that I have designed for an evaluation process. The auto populate works when filling out the form however when its saved as a xml file and imported to excel it shows only the ID number of the table field. I am going to store the data in an an access. Please look at the controls and bindings and see where I am loosing my logic. I have only been messing with infopath about 3 weeks so you will see probably a lot of errors. Any Help is appreciated Greatly. Usage of form: 1. click the drop-down on "Team Member"  and select one. 2. you will see the "Shift","Department","GMIN" fields all fill in. 3.Click Drop-down for Group Leader choose one and their information fills in. Issue seems like it is not able to save whats in the boxes???

Hi - if you look at the properties for the drop downs, you'll see they are set to store ID (value) and display a different field - so what is stored in the XML is the ID - which as you mention is less than helpful when exported to Excel. You'd see the same thing if you opened the XML in a text editor.

You have some choices - you can change the drop downs so the value is the same as the display, or you could include additional fields in the form (that you don't put on the form itself) and when the drop down changes, you could populate those fields with the display value, so that you'd have both in your XML.

Hope that helps!

OK, I changed from the ID to the individual items in each field this actually killed the auto populate function. I really only want to use the "name" fields to populate all of the other employee fields in the header. I used drop-down in all because it was the only way "I" could get it to work correctly. When it did work is when I figured out that it was not saving all the data. I hope the form worked that I provided. Please anyone with any idea would be great

 The rules that populate the other fields are probably using the ID as a value in a filter - changing that to use the name instead may help with this. Or, conversely, you could leave the drop down storing the ID as the value and add another field that has the name - simply set it like you do the other auto-pop fields.

 Here is an updated version, Still cannot get it to work right zipped all files see where I am going wrong. Tried everything.

 Any chance you can provide a little more info? So, your issue is still that you want the things that are displayed in the drop downs to be present in your XML?

 Also - I'm not sure if this is intentional - you seem to have a lot of controls bound to the same fields?

 That was the only way that I could get it to populate the fields correctly. I goal was to be able to pull down the team member drop down choose a name have it then fill in the GMID,Dept. and shift. Then pull the Group leader name and fill his or her GMIN  in. the rest are just selection fields and they work great. The ultimate goal this was to have it submit into access into a table and append each new form filled out. OR have it save in XML and manually import the data into a spreadsheet. This is where I saw that it was not bringing in the data that was showing in the header fields into the XML.then import that table to access, so I can get reports from the data we receive. hope you follow that.

 Okay. I've attached a copy of your form with some minor changes. Can you save the file locally, right click the file, and select design, then select Preview to preview the form. From there, could you take some screenshots that show what the data in the secondary data sources (the repeating tables I added) looks like so I can get an idea of what your source data is?

 This is a Powerpoint zipped up hope you can view it

 Yup, super helpful - thanks! I'll make some changes to your form later today (my morning is a little busy, so may be afternoon) and put up a copy for you to try.

 Okay - here's another test form to preview and see where we are.

 Is this the same form from my last sample? Because I added rules and changed some of your drop downs to text boxes, etc - I don't see that in the screenshot in your slide. Can you send a screenshot from trying the form sample I last attached?

 You might check the file you sent because it is identical to the first one. all drop downs on all fields. gives me the exact same results as before Yesterdays. I downloaded it twice and yup it is the same as before.