Newbie Questions

Re: Views vs Rules

Teddybeardog — Tue, 02 Apr 2019 23:40:52 GMT

Thank you DerekS for the example and analogy. Both help me learn. Thank you Hilary as always.

Re: Views vs Rules

DerekS — Tue, 02 Apr 2019 20:10:39 GMT

To add to what Hilary stated:

Using formatting rules to hide/show sections leaves less overhead, and it's less moving parts for you to think about/deal with. I had an order request form created that had a different view for each vendor (Staples, internal ordering, etc.) and it was just a huge headache. All told it was like 9-10 different views (including approval steps). Going with one view for the submission stage made it a ton easier. Plus, in my case, if someone accidentally pressed the wrong button, then they'd have to start over. This way, it's just a check mark.

Think of it like this. Views are the pages of a book. The rules are the words on the page. You need the words to get to where you want to go. Ok, that was lame, but I hope you get my point.

Sounds to me like your Form Load rules are good, but your sections may need to have rules created or refined. Rules for certain fields/sections *may* carry from view to view as well, so even if you're changing the view, you may still have rules in place that show all sections, or there isn't rules in place to hide those sections on the Requested view.

Re: Views vs Rules

Hilary Stoupa — Tue, 12 Mar 2019 17:59:34 GMT

So - one reason to use formatting rules on sections rather than views is that you can't switch views on a field change. So, say you want to show one set of controls if the user selects "Orange" and another if the user selects "Apple" at the beginning of the form - you would have to make the user click a button to switch to the Orange or Apple view. :-) With conditional formatting and sections that show / hide, the form can display the right controls based on whether the value of that field is Orange or Apple. As to why your sections that you don't want to have show are showing, usually it just means the conditions aren't what you expect, or something isn't the value you expect. Sometimes I change my formatting rules to set the color of the section (or button or whatever) while I'm testing to help me see what's going on.

Views vs Rules

Teddybeardog — Tue, 12 Mar 2019 15:24:35 GMT

So I know from reading that you can create a long form with rules for each section to hide the sections based on a status. But if you create views, why do you still need those rules? I'm working with InfoPath 2010 and SharePoint 2013 list form. I had a form but created several views. I decided to just delete the sections and submit buttons that I didn't need on the various views to save space and to me seemed easier. However now, I have my default form showing all my sections. I tried created a form load rule with the condition when the status is equal to Requested switch to the Requested view. The new form that is shown has the status as Requested but all my sections are showing. I obviously am missing something on the difference between views and the rules. Please enlighten me.