InfoPath Dev

After lots of research and direction from these forums, it seems that the best solution to query data in Sharepoint lists is to use a web service. I'm quite new to all this and I'm after a querying solution without coding if at all possible. If that's not realistic, please let me know as it would save me from going in circles, and I'm already getting quite dizzy :)

I simply need to query a large SP list based on a number of fields in drop-down list boxes that users will be selecting from, just like one would do in a form tied to Access as the data source. That's not my problem and I know how to do that and filter the data, etc. The difficulty is with querying based on those fields. If you establish a data connection to a SP list, you get the whole enchilada. That's not what I want obviously and after further reading, I found pieces of information that led me to believe that using the "lists" web service would do the trick. See the following site:

http://www.developer.com/tech/article.php/3104621

My first question: Would connecting to the Lists web service and using GetListItems do the trick? I was able to connect to some of the services such as the GetListCollection and GetList (I don't know how to use them and I don't think they're what I need), but I have been unable to connect to the GetListItems. I'm attaching a screenshot that explains where I'm stuck. If I can get a data connection with query fields and data fields for the columns I need (all of the ones in the list), then I'd know how to proceed. I read several posts with this same issue but they all seem unresolved. I'm hoping this is not a dead end. Thanks in advance!

Hi,

Please go through this blog to know how to connect to GetListItems.

http://www.infopathdev.com/blogs/agni/archive/2006/05/15/Query-for-Items-in-SharePoint-Form-Library-Using-GetListItems-Web-Method.aspx

Thanks, I had seen this before but didn't realize that it talked about not being able to use the GetListItems method directly. So it sounds like there's a long-winded way to get there, but I'm not sure how this will work (not sure what needs to be done) with existing lists. This example is specific to a form library but I want to query a specific table that already exists. Does anyone have any pointers on how to do that?

If I understand correctly, you are running into the issue where InfoPath can't easily use the GetListItems. The blog entry above shows how to write code that can access the GetListItems call, using code to work around the InfoPath limitation. You can do this with an existing list. It does require you to figure out the arcane way that SharePoint names columns and specifies queries. The blog entry has some examples of how to specify the query (select) xml and other SharePoint query properties.

We will be providing a wrapper web service in DBXL that provides clean way to get to the data in a SharePoint list, but it is not ready for release just yet.

Thanks for the update Tom. I'll be interested to see how this functionality will work once released. We need something that enables us to build forms that query Sharepoint lists as easily as we can query an Access database. We need a solution that we can implement ourselves and not require special coding and updating.