Re: Advice For a Small Infopath Project

Clay Fox — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 14:47:00 GMT

Hey Kevin. Welcome to the forum.

This is a great solution for InfoPath.

1. I believe you would need SQL, I do not think you can write web services on Access, its at least not best practice for an enterprise solution.

2. You will need web services. You should evaluate the Database Accelerator package which includes the web services you would need right out of the box. Qdabra Database Accelerator Suite Version 2.1 - Developer

3. The Database Accelerator includes a form viewer, similar to InfoPath Form Services, which you could probably use for simple data collection.

If you would like a demo of a similar solution let me know.

Advice For a Small Infopath Project

kevin_l — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 02:51:13 GMT

Hi everyone,

Just a little background on what I'm trying to do here. I'm currently creating a couple of Infopath forms for job application. The office currently has a stack of written job applications we've accumulated, and I've managed to create an Infopath form to key in the data and store it in an Access database. (Forms are directly connected to the Access Database)

Database structure isn't that complex -

[level 1] job_applicant
[level 2] academic qualification (foreign key is job applicant id)
[level 2] professional qualification (foreign key is job applicant id)
[level 2] employment history (foreign key is job applicant id)
[level 3] employment projects (foreign key is employment history id)

Forms I have now -
1. Job Application form that allows submission to database (insert rows in the 5 tables where applicable)
2. Job Application query that allows the manager to search all applicants via name

Well for internal use, this is sufficient I guess since we have copies of Infopath. The next goal I'm hoping to achieve is to publish a single form for job application on the web (a sharepoint server running Infopath Forms Services is a must?), a browser-enabled form that anyone accessing the internet can access.

I don't really have experience in this area so I've been reading up a little, but all these related components is kind of confusing to me, and I'm trying to take it step by step.

1. Can my database remain as an Access database? Or do I need to convert/upsize it to SQL Server instead?

2. I'll have to create a web service so that my browser-enabled form can submit/retrieve data from my database? When I had a form that's directly connected to my Access database, it could easily insert rows into the tables and they are automatically linked via the primary keys. Would appreciate any help I can get to achieve this using a web service, as my web method can currently only insert a single row into a single table in the database.

3. Which do you think should be my next step if I manage to get the web service working?

Appreciate any help I can get in pointing me in the right direction!! I'm pretty new to this and all these information can be a little overwhelming at time.. Thanks once again!

- Kevin

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Re: Advice For a Small Infopath Project

Advice For a Small Infopath Project