InfoPath Dev

Hi i am new to infopath and this forum an i am trying to figure out if infopath has the ability to work for our needs.

I work with a construction company and we generate a considerable amount of similar forms over and over (i.e. applications for permits, request for various services and etc.) where basically very few fields change from one form to the next. I understand the infopath can be linked to a database to store and share the information people enter but, does infopath have the ability to dynamically enter information that we have entered in one location to  predesignated locations on multiple forms (i.e. our contact information, job location & description and etc.) which don't change whether we are filling out permit applications or a scope of work document.

I hope i have explained our position in an understandable manner and if I need to clarify any thing please let me know.

Thanks in advance,

Dane 

If, for example, you have your forms saved to a SharePoint site, you can certainly write code to pull up a list of saved forms... the user could select which one they want, and then have code use that form's data to populate the field in the currently open form.

There'd be a bit of code-writing to make it happen, but you could do this.

The other option is to create another form, based off the same schema, but repeating--and use that as a source XML file to do the same thing. Then you only have to maintain a single source XML file -- but this could get very big very fast too.

Essentially, you'll have to write code to do what you want to do, but it is possible to do it.

Hi Dane,

As Greg said you can certainly do this.  I have a couple of additional suggestions:

1) If you have SharePoint you can create a list that houses all this information.  The list is easy to change you can connect to the list without code.  This will be a flat file type data structure but depending upon the static data you need the form to auto populate with it might be a good way to do this.

2) If you are not using SharePoint another easy way to do this is to either connect the forms to an Access database for this information or to create a data file in Access with all your information and then save it as an XML file and use that as a resource file in all your InfoPath forms.  For example you could create resource files for "general company information" "job locations" "contact information" etc.  Each of these "secondary data sources" in your InfoPath form could be used to auto pop the fields in the form you want filled in automatically.

However you do this InfoPath is a good solution for what you want to do.