InfoPath Dev

I have a drop down list that pulls information from a data connection.

the data connection gets information from a sharepoint list. The sharepoint list is a contacts libray. three fields from the contactsl ist are gathered from my infopath data connection. Name, City, and Email address.

to keep it simple for the users, i have chosen the drop down list to display the names from the list.

What I would like to accomplish, is to add a submit data connection, that will send an email to the person in that list. the data connection should automatically pull the information from the current value of the dropdown list.

so for example; If i choose john doe from the list, I would like to have a button that would submit via email to that person.

What i have so far...

the data connection to receive the information i need.
the data connection to send the data i need.

my problem.

on my drop down list, I can choose the receive from data connection, however i cannot assign a different Value from what is displayed. Which means when i create my submit email data connection it is only using the name from the drop down to insert into the "To:" address box within the data connection.


I hope that made sense. and i hope you can shed some light on my predicament.

Hi Jody and welcome to the forum,
You don't want a receive data connection - that's for prepopulating. Instead, create a rule (double click and go to properties) that sets a field based on the user that is selected. The e-mail data connection would then use this field to fill in the To: address. So, you'll need to add an e-mail data connection that uses the field that you set as the To: alias. I hope this helps!
Good luck,

Thanks for the info! :)

I have figured it out. what i wanted to have happen was the following.

a drop down list that populates from a sharepoint list, the list is a managers list, so the list changes often, this allows me to update via sharepoint my list of managers, currently 114 different people. My managers data connection receives the name email address and location columns from the list.

What i was having issues with was as simple as a click. I was clicking on the "sub directory" (i guess thats what it is called) of the data connection, instead of the root directory, so if the data connection was carrying over 3 rows of data i was only able to choose one.

I repaired my drop down list to gather information from the root directory of the data connection (this was where my original question was leading) so that i could set my values and display options, i set the value to the "email address", and the display to the "name". I then created a submit email data connection and have the to field of the data connection connect to the drop down list. that way when i am filling out the form i can choose different people from my 114 items in the list and have a button that will email the chosen person as well as save it to the sharepoint document library.

now my issue is getting the value to change back from the email address to the name.

In other words, I would like a text box that displays the name of the drop down instead of the email address, since the text box will only show the value of the drop down... lol im consufing myself. :)