InfoPath Dev

I have a form library that holds some infopath forms. These forms are enabled with digital signatures. I recently had to change the form (just added a couple of new fields) and when opening an excisting, already saved form it warned me that the form I was opening needed to be upgraded with the new template. And all the signatures would be removed.

So my question is, what is the correct way of updating the Infopath forms without affecting whats already in the form library.

TIA, Jovix

Hi Jovix,
Welcome to the board!

If you upgrade the schema for the forms then opening one of the old ones will require that the new schema nodes are added. You can do your own custom OnVersionUpgrade, but anytime you change the xml, it could require re-signing the document, since the signatures are protected with a checksum on the form and if the form is changed, the checksum no longer works.

One option would be to create another form library with the new version.

Patrick Halstead [InfoPath MVP]
InfoPathDev

I found a solution. If anyone else encounters this, all you have to do is go into the Form Options found under the Tools menu. Click the Advanced tab, under Form Version Templates you will find the On Version Upgrade field, set this field to "Do Nothing". It does also say the excisting forms might not work properly, but I've tested this and the old forms all seem fine for my needs.

Thanks for the info Jovix. We will also try to investigate futher with your Info and will post here if I come across anything interesting.

Agni
InfoPathDev India

This is potentially an enormous problem for us. If anyone has any info I would really appreciate the insight.

Hi Rilliam,
This is documented in our book, but in general, so long as you *add* fields, you should be able to automatically upgrade pre-existing forms. When you change the name of fields or delete fields is when you will encounter problems. InfoPath provides custom upgrade functionality so that you can do non-trivial upgrades for previous forms. In addition, you could just create a new form library for the newly designed form. In general schema drift isn't a huge problem because most people don't delete or rename nodes.

Patrick Halstead [InfoPath MVP]
InfoPathDev

Ok I checked and ya it looks like you can just add a field, save the form to the library and open an existing form up and the field is there. So COOL.

But what about populating the old xml with data in the new field? Can this be accomplished with scripting?

Maybe I am blind, but what book?

Hi Rilliam,
We have a tool to do this. Check out:http://www.infopathdev.com/webstore/detail.aspx?itemid=15

Patrick Halstead [InfoPath MVP]
InfoPathDev