Newbie Questions

Re: Expense Report question

Patrick Halstead — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 22:33:58 GMT

Hi Elon2000,

You certainly don't need Access to do this, but Access could do it. Really, it depends on what you feel comfortable with. I don't like Access because I don't really have much experience with it.

We use SQL instead of Access. You could certainly map your forms to SQL and create a nice Excel report to aggregate them - that's the default demo we do when we show people how our DBXL Web Service works. It allows you to easily map your expense reports to SQL and then you can just create this simple Pivot Table and chart to show the aggregate info. Takes maybe 15 minutes. That's probably your fastest route. Install the DBXL v2.4 Web Service on your local computer (for the local version you will need to download the free version of SQL Express from our YouSendIt site and install that first).

I am guessing you could have this all installed and working in 1-2 hours max. Could take less time. Ted Fitch can show you a quick 10-15 minute demo of the approach and point you to the download sites. Send him email if you are interested. Just e-mail Support at Qdabra dot com and we'll call you and do a live meeting.

Best regards,

Re: Expense Report question

elon2000 — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 20:03:49 GMT

What I’ve done is created an InfoPath expense report where each month, our folks can go to our SharePoint site, open up an expense report, fill it out, hit Submit and it automatically sends it as an email to me as well as updates our SharePoint site with a copy of it. What I’d like for it to do is have the capability to take all the expenses submitted for a particular month of a particular year, add it all up and just give me the actual totals in detailed expenses for each month. For example: Bob has an expense report for January 2011 - $100 for lodging, $50 for meals and $75 for transportation.Susan has an expense report for January 2011 - $150 for lodging and $100 for meals.Jack has an expense report for January 2011 - $25 for transportation. Just get one report that says January 2011 expenses: $250 lodging, $150 meals, $100 transportation I know you can merge forms, but it doesn’t put the detailed expenses together as one number for each category. It goes as: Lodging: $100Meals: $50Transportation: $75Lodging: $150Meals: $100Transportation: $25 Instead of: Lodging: $250Meals: $150Transportation: $100 Make sense?

I’m wondering if I have to get someone to build an Access database for me to do what I want it to do….

Re: Expense Report question

Patrick Halstead — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 19:56:21 GMT

Confused. InfoPath allows you to calculate all of the values at once in the form without code - just use xpath expressions.

Re: Expense Report question

elon2000 — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 19:04:50 GMT

Not what I'm looking for. Maybe I need to build an Access database, link the InfoPath file to it so it can compile and calculate all of the numbers I need at once. Thanks.

Re: Expense Report question

Hilary Stoupa — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 18:03:09 GMT

Well -- Add a secondary data connection to your form library where you have your submitted expense reports.

You can then use expression boxes to show the aggregated data. I've got a sample here that shows how to do this -- not by month, but the logic would be similar. The sample is also browser compatible, in case you need a browser form.

Re: Expense Report question

elon2000 — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 17:37:04 GMT

Yes, the first option is what I'm looking for. Where can I find instructions on how to do something like that? I want it to be able to take several submitted expense reports for a particular month and put it all together in one report so I don't have to open each one, add up all the numbers and risk making a mistake...

Re: Expense Report question

Hilary Stoupa — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 17:23:00 GMT

If you are promoting properties from your original form that has the info you need, you could use another form (or another view in this form) that uses the library your forms submit to as a secondary data source, and then aggregate the promoted data there....

EDIT: or you could also modify a view in your form library to show the aggregated data as well...

Re: Expense Report question

elon2000 — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 16:46:34 GMT

Am still waiting on a response to my question, thanks.

Re: Expense Report question

elon2000 — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 13:23:30 GMT

Hey warrtalon,

Thanks for your response. What I've done is created an InfoPath form for my colleagues to use on a monthly basis and when they submit the report, it's updated to a SharePoint site so that we at least have a record of it. However, we have a lot of people who submit reports on a monthly basis, so it'd be nice to be able to have the capability to "grab" all reports submitted for a certain month and compile it together into one nice, clean report to use instead of having to get each report, add everything up, make sure we've got the right numbers, etc.

Does that make sense?

Re: Expense Report question

warrtalon — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 00:34:39 GMT

Do you really need it to be in another report? Is this using SharePoint or just InfoPath standalone? If using SharePOint, you just create views with summed columns so that you can see the totals for all relevant values by slicing and dicing the metadata. If it's standalone, then I don't know how you'll consume all that data into one form unless the data resides in a database to where you can create receive data connections.

Please clarify your environment, because InfoPath has tons of capability, but much of it depends on your environment.

Expense Report question

elon2000 — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 16:22:28 GMT

Does InfoPath have the capability to take information from several forms and put it all in one clean form? For example:

Bob has an expense report for January 2011 - $100 for lodging, $50 for meals and $75 for transportation.
Susan has an expense report for January 2011 - $150 for lodging and $100 for meals.
Jack has an expense report for January 2011 - $25 for transportation.

Is there a way to get all of that information together in one report where it says...

January 2011 expenses: $250 lodging, $150 meals, $100 transportation

...instead of having to get all three reports together, add it all up and submit the expenses?

Thanks!