InfoPath Dev

Hello everyone!

As many of you may know if you want to enter BDC data into the document information panel you need to add the primary key value into the field ( Business data column ) for it to be able to select data. This is unlike when you are editing properties of a document ( or uploading documents ) as you get to use the Business Data Picker form where you can search for entities and select the one you want.

I want to create or make use of the existing Business Data Picker so we can use it in the Document Information Panel in Word ( or figure out a user friendly workaround ) There are a couple of problems I can think of so far though:

1, You can only customize the document information panel if you create a content type

2, You can't add BDC data columns to content types

Creating a custom field type that allows BDC columns to be used site collection wide (as in beta2) might have been an option but you can't enter data for Custom Field types in the DIP anyway!

Anyone else got any ideas?

Thanks!

Atli

Welcome Atli.

Have you considered using a SQL database with webservices?

I have seen people running into a lot of these usability issues with BDC's.  I do not believe they were intended for any heavy applications.

We use SQL, since that was what it was designed for, and web services for complete data integration in InfoPath.  You can also send the data back to SQL tables so that you can have aggregation and reporting across the form data.

I realize now that my question can easily be misunderstood :-)

 I am talking about Sharepoint 2007, the business data catalog and the word document information panel in regards to that.

this can be done by making a bdc column for the content type...the native form will work, but you might need to adjust the dimensions to look better...which you will need to do in IP