Newbie Questions

Re: Sharepoint 2010 + Infopath 2010 = Confused 2012 :)

Chris_K — Fri, 03 May 2013 22:00:27 GMT

No Kidding! This one has been on my list for way too long!

Re: Sharepoint 2010 + Infopath 2010 = Confused 2012 :)

Hilary Stoupa — Fri, 03 May 2013 21:54:17 GMT

Hooray! Great way to wrap up the week - I'm so glad you got it sorted out!

Re: Sharepoint 2010 + Infopath 2010 = Confused 2012 :)

Chris_K — Fri, 03 May 2013 21:47:50 GMT

Hilary Stoupa:
Have you tried the same steps w/ a different workflow form? Just to try to rule out whether it is the specific form that is an issue? Can you attach a screenshot of the pop up you get about the new fields that asks if you want to refresh the data source?

An obvious test that I did not do due to lack of experience way back when. Testing on a different form worked as expected! Back when I first attempted this I believe I had added fields through the SP site and not through the workflow in SP Designer. I went in and removed all of the fields that weren't associated to a content type from both the task list and the workflow form list. I saved everything and republished. This is where I got a clue, an error appeared saying the schema was invalid!

Thankfully I saved a backup of the .xsn. I made sure no custom fields were added and published it. Publish went successful. I then closed InfoPath and published the entire workflow again. This time no errors and no *(update needed)!!! I then re-opened the workflow task form from within SP Designer and it opened successfully this time, no schema error. I closed the unmodified task form.

Now at this point I think everything was sync'd up properly and I was back to square one. All I did now (and this is where I believe the problem started since I did not do this correctly the first time) was open the workflow, open the workflow task, and add a field to the workflow task fields on the top right in SP Designer. I saved the workflow task. Opening the task LIST, I saw the new fields were added automatically. Not sure if there is a link behind the scenes but I wouldn't be surprised.

After closing the workflow task FINALLY things were looking good, the *(update required) appeared next to my form. I clicked it and the popup appeared, "One or more fields in the workflow form have changed. InfoPath will now update the set of available fields..."

And viola! I see my new fields!!!

TL;DR - Basically by improperly adding fields through the SharePoint site via web browser and not through the Workflow Task using SharePoint designer I broke the schema for that form causing it to be out of sync and unable to update. After cleaning up all the test fields I added this way, everything started working again!

Thanks so much Hiliary for all your help. You got me pointed in the right direction eventually leading to the solution! Couldn't have done it without you.

Re: Sharepoint 2010 + Infopath 2010 = Confused 2012 :)

Hilary Stoupa — Fri, 03 May 2013 16:57:28 GMT

Have you tried the same steps w/ a different workflow form? Just to try to rule out whether it is the specific form that is an issue? Can you attach a screenshot of the pop up you get about the new fields that asks if you want to refresh the data source?

Re: Sharepoint 2010 + Infopath 2010 = Confused 2012 :)

Chris_K — Fri, 03 May 2013 16:52:41 GMT

Hilary Stoupa:
Where are you looking for the new fields? In the fields pane? (Sorry if that sounds super patronizing - but just want to be clear that I don't think the fields will appear on the form's layout until you add them...)

Yes I'm looking on the right side where all the fields are listed to try to drag onto the form, but the new fields do not appear...

Re: Sharepoint 2010 + Infopath 2010 = Confused 2012 :)

Hilary Stoupa — Fri, 03 May 2013 16:45:54 GMT

Where are you looking for the new fields? In the fields pane? (Sorry if that sounds super patronizing - but just want to be clear that I don't think the fields will appear on the form's layout until you add them...)

Re: Sharepoint 2010 + Infopath 2010 = Confused 2012 :)

Chris_K — Fri, 03 May 2013 16:32:00 GMT

Hilary Stoupa:
So - and I apologize for the trouble I'm having following / understanding this thread, but it is Friday and my brain feels a little broken right now - can you please summarize what you need to do with the form template you sent me that you can't do? The original post was simply about adding a checkbox - and I can see on opening the form that we can't do that via the schema, it is locked. Since this is a workflow form, you need to actually add the fields in SharePoint Designer (although you can open in IP for design changes, adding rules and so forth). This thread seems to describe the process.

Yes I think I'm on the right track with that. So I open the workflow in designer, then edit the associated task. I see all the fields there so I add my new fields, save the task, and publish the workflow. I also go into the workflow task list, which has a content type that matches the name of my .xsn template. I add an existing field here which is the one that I added in the task for field. I save and publish.

NOW, everything looks good up to this point. When I go back to the workflow it shows the .xsn with an asterisk and (needs update) trailing!!! Perfect, so I open the template, and InfoPath tells me the form has new fields and it will update the fields now, and that I may have to add/remove them to the form. Also great news. I click OK, and the new fields don't appear... It's as if something is not properly updating.

Re: Sharepoint 2010 + Infopath 2010 = Confused 2012 :)

Hilary Stoupa — Fri, 03 May 2013 14:57:03 GMT

So - and I apologize for the trouble I'm having following / understanding this thread, but it is Friday and my brain feels a little broken right now - can you please summarize what you need to do with the form template you sent me that you can't do? The original post was simply about adding a checkbox - and I can see on opening the form that we can't do that via the schema, it is locked. Since this is a workflow form, you need to actually add the fields in SharePoint Designer (although you can open in IP for design changes, adding rules and so forth). This thread seems to describe the process.

Re: Sharepoint 2010 + Infopath 2010 = Confused 2012 :)

Chris_K — Thu, 02 May 2013 21:23:30 GMT

Hi Hilary, Template emailed :)

I found something interesting today in my eternal digging for the answer to this seemingly simple question. It looks as though the template files are not in the default location. I'm wondering if they were built in Visual Studio or something like that, pre-SP 2010...

When I go into SP, go into the task list, list settings, form settings, I can pick the content type that the task form is associated with. Then I can click edit form. But when I do so it comes up completely different than the actual template. Fields are missing, and the theming has changed. Just as a test I made some tweaks and published it and sure enough I was able to edit/add new fields! But after doing so I lost other things. There is a "Consolidated Comments" field that looks like it's being shared with other task forms. Also before publishing my test, if the task was not complete, opening it would take you directly to edit mode. Completed tasks would take you to view mode. After uploading this new template it reverted to typical SP functionality; clicking on the task form would pull up a view, and now show a ribbon with Edit Item, that was previously hidden. It also seemed to break my form buttons.

Also, it was now publishing the form to a different location, in short, Workflow Name/Content Type/template.xsn instead of Workflow Name/Content Type.xsn...

In the end I found out how to revert, and it was to go into the Task associated with the infopath form in SharePoint Designer and revert the display form and edit form.

1) Open workflow
2) Open workflow task
3) Under content types, click the corresponding type for this form
4) Edit display form AND edit form to: _layouts/WrkTaskIP.aspx
5) Clear New form (no value)
6) Save content type

I'm starting to wonder if this whole workflow was built by a 3rd party and imported into our environment...

Re: Sharepoint 2010 + Infopath 2010 = Confused 2012 :)

Hilary Stoupa — Thu, 02 May 2013 19:45:35 GMT

Yes - sorry, it is much easier for me to understand if I can see the template.

Re: Sharepoint 2010 + Infopath 2010 = Confused 2012 :)

Chris_K — Thu, 02 May 2013 17:24:43 GMT

Hi Hilary, I'm back at it again. :-S Would the .xsn file suffice?

Re: Sharepoint 2010 + Infopath 2010 = Confused 2012 :)

Chris_K — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 00:45:33 GMT

Right-clicking and choosing the Drop-Down List Box Properties shows that the data source is from an sharepoint-generated data source called "Choices Data Connection" (from what I've read) as opposed to a dynamic Sharepoint list. I can add a new data source, point it to sharepoint and get my new field, but I would rather edit the existing data source somehow so that everything matches up.... Hopefully this helps and doesn't make things more confusing :)

Re: Sharepoint 2010 + Infopath 2010 = Confused 2012 :)

Chris_K — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 00:42:16 GMT

An existing dropdown in my form. "Choice9" is the name of the field. It's a non-repeating control, whatever that means... All I am trying to do is add another checkbox/dropdown to my existing form! Seems so simple...

Re: Sharepoint 2010 + Infopath 2010 = Confused 2012 :)

Chris_K — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 00:40:09 GMT

List of various forms tied to workflow that I see in SP Designer. I want to edit the first one. Clicking on it opens Infopath editor. See the fields screenshot above, that is what I see when trying to get the updated SP list field values.

Re: Sharepoint 2010 + Infopath 2010 = Confused 2012 :)

Chris_K — Thu, 06 Dec 2012 00:34:08 GMT

So basically we have a sharepoint workflow, which has a series of tasks, and each of those tasks has an infopath form to be filled out by various departments. As a department completes an infopath/sharepoint form, it gets passed onto the next department. I think the original creator of these forms compiled(?) the datasource from sharepoint so now it's static, meaning the changes I make on sharepoint don't seem to matter. The infopath form's datasource for the form is a choices.xml file as opposed to a direct link to a sharepoint list. If I had to guess it was set up as a template or something and then published, and not initially tied to sharepoint... I added a new datasource, that connects directly to my sharepoint list, which allowed me to access my new fields, but I'm wondering if there is a different way to do this. Posted above, it makes sense that I have to rebuild the list form from Sharepoint to recreate the choices.xml datasource but I don't see an option for that... Hopefully this info helps.