InfoPath Dev

In infoPath I have for the default of a field; xpath for If me - "string1" else - "string 2". Here it is: concat(substring("Supervisor", 1, (../my:preferredName = "myName") * string-length("Supervisor")), substring("Technician", 1, (not(../my:preferredName = "myName")) * string-length("Technician"))). I want to cover all the supervisors, so "myName" or "hisName" or "herName". When I try just using "or" and adding names like that it stops working. It gets put in without error messages but it spits out "Supervisor" even if I misspell all the names. Any way to get an "or" statement into a boolean in xpath? Thanks p.s. I think I have a work-around using a sharePoint calculated column to get a default value (sharepoint calculations are easier), but it seem resource-heavy (a whole extra column, recalculated every log on). p.p.s This work-around is not working either.

I would probably get all of this outside of the form / list and into its own list. Like - a list that has two columns, one for "Role" (string or choice) and one for "Person" (person or group). You'd have entries like:

Role	Person
Supervisor	Jane Doe
Technician	John Smith
Technician	Sue Jones
Supervisor	Bob Roe

Then, in your form, instead of having to do this kind of conditional logic, you could simply compare to the Role in the list. I'm not quite sure I understand how you are using this default - but if you can take a more data-driven approach, you won't have to deal with this sort of work-around.

Thanks, I see how an outside list with all personnel and their roles would work. However I don't have a list of all technicians. I only know who the supervisors are. So I still need a function for "IF( A or B or C..)" or "IF(A in (B,C,D))". The rules in infopath could use something like that to change a field, but not to set its default. For our purposes, for now at least, its probably prudent to just require users to enter their position.

OK, here's what will work: Set the field's value in infoPath rules (which allow "If a and If b ..." etc), but have one of the conditions be "if the field is blank". That is the equivalent of setting a default for the field. I never would have thought of it without your help. gran

slight modification needed: A form load rule sets the value to 'supervisor' if preferredName is SupervisorA or SupervisorB or SupervisorC, and otherwise the control's default value sets it to 'technician'. In retrospect, I may go back to manual entry just for stability and simplicity given the minimal extra convenience automation gave