InfoPath Dev

Hi Everyone, I was given a task at work to update a workflow tool we're using and a connected Infopath form. I noticed that in the SharePoint site we have duplication (sometimes triplicate's) of a column: Example; Employee Name, Employee Name, Employee Name, State, State. When using views, some deals have Employee Name visible in one column, others in the second and others in the 3rd. Same with State column. When I publish the new Infopath form (same form just refreshed, didn't touch any of the promoted columns) whilst the form holds State and Employee Name correctly, the SharePoint shows empty in Employee columns but visible in the 3rd. Is there a fix for this, somehow merging columns? I've never seen this issue before and this would have significant impacts on reporting, especially now that we're moving it to Power BI. Had a read online but couldn't find anything addressing this issue. Appreciate any guidance.

 Th easiest way I know of to re-populate promoted fields is to:

1. Open the library in Internet Explorer
2. Click on the option to view in Windows Explorer (where you'll find this depends on whether you are using modern lists / libraries)
3. When the library is open in Windows Explorer, select all the form files and copy them
4. Paste them into a local folder

That's it. During the process of copying each file from the library to the local folder, SharePoint ends up updating the metadata.

As to why / how it happens - I've mainly seen this when a form is published to one library then back to another - so, you have a dev library for example, and publish there - the internal IDs (in the form files manifest.xsf) has the GUID for the dev library SharePoint column. Then, publishing back to prod that column can't be found so a new one gets created. In terms of cleaning up the columns no longer associated with the form, I think that can be done via PowerShell or SharePoint Manager 

Thanks Hilary, I went to Library > Open with Explorer however explorer opens and it states "This folder is empty." This is SharePoint 2013 (online) and is a Doc library. You're spot on with the scenario though - the form was published to a test environment, many changes made (aesthetically predominantly) with some new fields that were not promoted. Once it got the tick of approval, it's been re-published back to the Live site. To your point regarding the manifest.xsf, I saved a copy of the form and renamed to .cab and extracted. I read the .xsf but it was a big beyond me to understand what columns were the ones to keep (very scared to touch as there is some critical data that goes back years associated to these columns).

Doc library or form library? How many files? I don't recall if you see that if the library is over the list threshold and try to open in explorer....

Apologies - Form Library. I am not sure how many forms are in there (first time I dealing with this side of SharePoint).

Hi Hilary - so unfortunately I don't believe there is a fix for what I am trying to achieve based on what I have been researching online which is a real shame but I guess it's one of the many limitations. Thank you for your help regardless, you're always so quick to reply and it's greatly appreciated.