InfoPath Dev

First, I'll say what I want to do. I have a form where I want to have two drop-down list boxes. I already have a data connection that receives information from a form library in a Sharepoint portal. I can pull normal data in an populate a drop-down list box with it. From this box, I want to select one of the options listed there and then have the second drop down box be populated with information from a specific field within a repeating section from an infopath form referenced by the first drop-down box. Did I lose anyone there? Does anyone have any ideas how to get that second drop-down box going? I've been hammering away at it for some time and I just can't quite get it to work. Is there a certain way to set up the form that this one is pulling it's data from (the one with the repeating section) so that I can access the fields? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-Michael Anstadt

This is known as a cascading list. Do a search on InfoPath Dev for the word "Cascade". This should help you find what you need.

Greg Collins [InfoPath MVP]
InfoPath Dev

I have got the cascading down for the most part, but my biggest difficulty is in grabbing the data properly from the forms in the Sharepoint library. I have attempted to promote all the necessary fields, but the ones within the repeating sections that I want to get the data from aren't coming through right. Is there a special way to promote fields within repeating sections to Sharepoint to make it easier to manage later on? Should I make a hidden field elsewhere in the form and merge it together myself? I tried promoting the fields and having Sharepoint merge them, but a space (" ") seems to wind up being the delimiter and that is extremely silly. Is there a way to change it to something more intelligent, such as "|" between different fields?

Essentially, the form I am working on now, is pulling data from another. In the second form, it contains repeating sections with information multiple machines. In the first one, I would like to be able to have drop down boxes where I first select a company, and then that will automatically populate the second list box with the various machines from the form for that company.

-Michael Anstadt

Hi Michael,
Yes, the hidden field approach is something that you have to do for merged fields. This is a limitation with SharePoint property promotion. You can't change the space delimiting that the SharePoint prop promo does, but the hidden field approach can be set up as an OnSubmit or OnSave event handler to calculate the merged value when you upload in the form. Then, you just promote this value instead of the others.

Have you looked at the Merge support that comes with InfoPath? You can define A->B workflow in the InfoPath form using Merge Forms functionality. There is a good example of how to do this in the SDK.

On the other hand, I'm not sure I understand your scenario. Can you explain this a little more clearly so I understand what form A and form B are doing? Thanks!

Patrick Halstead [InfoPath MVP]
InfoPathDev

Form A:

Contains general information on a group at the top. A few text boxes. Below this, it also has a repeating section, which contains more information that is specific to certain servers owned by a group.

Form B:

At the moment, it just contains two drop town list boxes. It pulls the data from Form A's Sharepoint repository and propogates the first box right away with all the groups that have a form filled out with Form A. After the company is selected, I would like the second drop-down box to display all of the server names (a field in Form A's repeating section) so that I can select one. The next step would be to then add a few more text boxes to display the rest of the information pertaining to this server from Form A along with more text boxes specific to the tast of this form.

Essentially, Form A contains information that is common throughout many forms and is to be used in multiple places.

-Michael Anstadt

One solution is to use a SharePoint list adapter pointing to the form library of the Form A forms. Provide some kind of OnClick or OnAfterChange event handler for a button or the dropdown, respectively. In the event handler, load the data from the selected form. You can use Import to do this or just write your own code. I hope this helps. Let me know if you need an example and we may be able to provide the code to do this. We have done this for a prior project but I need to look around.

Patrick Halstead [InfoPath MVP]
InfoPathDev