InfoPath Dev

Hey guys,  I'm totally brand new to infopath and was wondering if you could help me im so desperate.

I'm currently using infopath 2003 at my university for a group project and never used it before in my life.

This is what the task says to do.

Write a library database using infopath for keeping track of library books. For each book in the library the system is to keep the following information:

a) Call number
b) Title
c) Author
d) Date of publication
e) Edition
f) publisher
g) purchase date
h) Book status - (in library, on loan, lost)
i) Due date
j) Borrowers name

The final database will be used to display the following information

1. A record for specific book (searchable by any field)
2. All books in the library that currently have a given status
3. all books that had a particular status in a given date range
4. all books borrowed by a specific person
5. the number of times a title has been borrowed in a given date range

you will also need to develop forms for

1. Adding a new book
2. Adding a new author
3. Adding a new borrowed
4. Changing a books status
a) book is loaned to a specific borrower
b) book is returned
c) book is lost
5. changing a books details
a) title
b) author
c) publisher

when adding a new book, the system should ask for duplicates.

Now I've been googling for days and I'm totally stiffed.
I can create a form and make it look good. I have no idea how to put it into action, how to link to or create an xml database using the program and this has left me totally confused.

my head is spinning can someone please help me with this?

Hello and welcome to our forum! I'm psyched to see that you're using InfoPath in college. I'm curious if using InfoPath was your choice or InfoPath was a requirement of the assignment.

In terms of your issue, it looks like you've hit one of the key limitations of InfoPath. To store data in a database from InfoPath you either have to start from the database side or you have to write a bunch of code.

Out of the box in InfoPath, you are required to first create your database in Access or SQL (or any ADO accessible DB). Then in InfoPath you select Design a Form and then select the Database option. From there you can select the table and it will infer the schema and create the data connection.

Of course most people do what you did (we do too)! In this case you end up having to write code to manually create the data connection in code b/c IP doesn't allow you to create a submit data connection directly to a DB from an existing form. Because of this limitation we created Qdabra Database Accelerator for InfoPath which allows you to take any IP form and map its schema to a SQL Server database using a GUI with powerful options.

We have a free trial/dev edition which i encourage you to download and use for your project. It will make your life much easier. http://www.qdabra.com/dbxl/

If this is off the mark on what you're trying to do please let me know.

Hey there. thanks for the reply!!

I'am trying to create library forms for university, and the deadline is in 24 hours.

Basically I have gotten a little grip on infopath 2003 since my last post so I will try and explain the structure of it a little better.
I have created a blank form, and I have named the main data folder in data sources to "Library". I have included 3 repeating subgroups - Borrower, Author.

I have added three views that I got working. but I still have questions.

In one view I have it set as "Add an author". People enter the author's name and click the add button in the "detail" table the author name goes into the master table (the xml database).
In the next view ("Add a book") I have the same thing for all the book details, but problem is when I enter the same ID number for two different inputs, I want it to detect the duplicate ID number and prevent from inputting a double into the master table but i dont know how to do that.
In the next view ("Add borrower") you just enter the student's ID number, first and last name and that gets input into another master table - thats ok.

Now here are my problems:

- I want to create a view that can search a specific book by any field - I dont know how.
- I want to create a view that can lend out a certain number of books to a specific borrower which means combining the data from books and borrowers - i dont know how
- I want to create a view that can search, find out about and change a book's status - I dont know how
- I want to create a view that can find out all books borrowed by a specific person - I dont know how
- I want to create a view that can find all books with a current status - I dont know how

If you guys can help me fix my problems id greatly appreciate it as I'm a total newb to this program

 cheers :)

To stop a duplicate ID numer being entered set the field in the database to not allow duplicates, that should stop the submit being successful.  One other point, for speed you might want to separate out the views into forms of their own, so one form for add an author, one form for add a book and so on.

Answering your questions in tern:-

1. Add a new view/form, insert text boxes for your fields but bind them to the queryfields in your database, then add a button and set it to query the main datasource and switch to another view after the query has completed to show the results
2. On your fourth view/form to borrow a book have a drop-down list link it to your borrowers table so that once a borrower has been entered they can then choose themsleves off a list.  To stop them taking out too many books have a field that COUNTS the number of books borrowed and add validation to stop people requesting more than say 4.  For the books have a repeating table linked to Books, if you were intersted you could add filters that would limit the repeating table to only display "Horror" books for example.  I can give you more info on that.  Then in the repeating table have a tick box to borrow that sets the borrowed field to 1 that way it can be counted.  You could aslo combine the query view so they could search for the book to borrow.  All can be done depends on how you want to implement it
3. I think I have covered that in 1.
4. First you would need a new table to record each person who borrows a book that is linked on the many side of a one-to-many relationships to both Borrowers and Books then add a query field linked to the new table that joins the borrower to the books
5. For this add a field in books for status then have a drop-down list queryfield to select what type the person is interested in.  Then add a button that queries the main data source for all book of that status and display the results in a repeating table bound to books, job done.

All in all this is quite a lot of work so best of luck

Cheers

Hey adam

thanks for your swift reply.
some of the functions of the program do confuse me so im not sure exactly how to do the right settings on it.
If you have msn, I can show you what I have done - do u have msn?
 

Sorry

but i do not have MSN can you explain which parts of my solutinos are causing you issue then I can go into more detail

Cheers

Thats cool mate.

Here's the first problem. Say I've got the add a book perfect. Ive made a new view for "Find a book" and I add a text box from a field called query, I add a repeating table for the "Books" data fields, and I also add a button named "Search".

This is gonna be used to search by call number. I want to enter in the call number in a blank field once ive entered in the details and I want to click the search button and have the data come up in the repeating table below. The repeating section for the query text box and the search button is set to detail and the table below where results are displayed is set to master.

How do i go about hooking the query field to the button and setting up the search to display in the master table?
 

OK

If you wanted to search by call number you have to have the queryfield from your database called call_number (not the datafield).  Then your search button is to search the database for any datafield containing the queryfield, this can be enacted by just querying the datasource on the click of the button.

Your repeating table to dispaly the results has to be linked ONLY to the datafields so that it shows the result of the query to the datasource.  That should do it.

cool, figured it out, I needed to click on the "Filter data button" in the repeating tables section to fill everything.
couple more questions.

1.when i create a button and sit it next to the query's text box/field (not the actual data field) how do i arrange it so that when i hit enter and / or when i click the button, the search executes?
2.another one is, how do i set a certain type data field so that when I try to input duplicates, it doesnt allow it? (etc, cant enter 2 records with the same ID number)

 Also:

My data source structure is like this. (RG - repeating group, NR - Non repeating)

Library: (main)
- call_number
- borrower_ID
<will enter more if I need more query fields>

Authors(RG)
- authorFullName
Borrowers(RG)
- firstName
- surName
- borrowerID
- bookQuantity
- borrowerFullName
Books(RG)
- callNumber
- title
- author
- status
- pubDate
- publisher
- purchaseDate
- edition

Anyway that is my structure and I'm having a problem with setting up a "borrow a book view"
How do i associate a borrower with a book, and have all fields display in a recorded table?
Also I want to make it so they can borrow 2 books at the most each time, and I want the book status to change to - On Loan and When I look up books, I want them to show who is borrowing them, and when i look up borrowers I want to see what book(s) they are borrowing.

is there any way through instant messaging or a detailed explanation I can do this?
Still confused on this part
 

OK

Questions first

1. Make the button "Rules and Custom Code", then add an action to the rules so that it quesries the main connection.
2. If you didn't want to worry about speed etc then you could run a rule that sets the queryfield linked to ID field, query the dataconnection, then return that value into the datafield ID.  Your input data field would be called something different for this to work.  Then validate on the other datafield.  More simply you can make the ID an Autonumber in Access or iterate it in SQL

To the last one, add another table to the database below all three other linked to each.  This will be your table to record who has borrowed what by which author.  This table will be represented on the form as a repeating table with drop-down boxes to select author, book etc.  On the end of the repeating table have a check box to borrow the book.  The value that the check box returns is 1 when not blank and 0 when blank.

Then have a field in Borrowers that counts how many times that box has been ticked and validate it so that if it is greater than 2 is errors.

To supply the information to the drop-down boxes add your main data connection back to the form as a secondary datasource.

Keep posting here with more specifics as things progress and we will soon get this sorted

Cheers