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Re: Filtering Secondary data source based on Field value in a Repeating Section - with a twist in the tail!

merley72 — Fri, 06 Apr 2018 13:01:17 GMT

Hi Hilary, I think I'm giving up on this because I've thought of a couple of problems with this button approach. Firstly (and for the first instance of the Repeating Section) you can successfully filter the repeating secondary data source OK once you click the button - great - however what then becomes clear is that when you choose an alternative drop-down options which might use a different OverallLevel number, of course it has the results from that same Keywords List data source but only has the value of the filtered elements to choose from, and of course it fails turning the OverallLevel field blank. I overcame that by adding two extra rules onto the OverallNumber field to reset the filter of Query to blank and re-ran the Keywords before the calculation. That fixed it nicely and when I created a second repeating section both Number and Level fields ran independently and OK. Success.

But. Reverting to look at the 'Button' at this point, if both OverallLevel numbers in their respective sections were different, and the button was pressed, it failed so I took your advice and removed the repeating secondary data source entirely, and re-added the entire set of fields as a repeating section, just to see what was happening. I did include a filter on the section such that if 'Field' is NOT = 'Matrix' then hide and this limited the elements to just those Keyword options.

However I've identified a black hole I think here which is that if the value of the fields in total is set correctly by the button, then unfortunately it doesn’t only affect the 'Icon' field in the repeating section in which that button resides, it refreshes the values of the Icon fields for the whole form, and therefore the 'Icon' field in every other sections also get altered.

Either way, I've decided enough is enough at this point. Aaarrrgghhh. I've now stopped bashing my head against the wall and it is great!!!!!

I might revert to a much simpler method I used before which was to hold the secondary data Keyword images in a number of separate sections (numbered 1 through 10) and have specific 'hide whens' on each section to reflect the thresholds directly. This worked but was a clunky design but so be it.

Thanks very much for all your help. Alan C.

Re: Filtering Secondary data source based on Field value in a Repeating Section - with a twist in the tail!

Hilary Stoupa — Thu, 05 Apr 2018 21:37:57 GMT

So - query fields are only equivalence in the list data connection. You could add a show hide button that would set Field (in the list query fields) to Matrix and your new simple string field to the OverallLevel (be sure this control is inside the repeating group) and then run the query. This will return just the items that match on those two fields. I added a button on your form with some rules - save the attached file locally, right click and select design to open in design mode. I'm setting the query Query field to the OverallLevel - you'll change that to whatever field has the exact match. Note that I set the query fields then execute the query - that returns matches. If it doesn't, put the whole secondary data source on your form and add a button to query it so you can experiment with the correct values for the query fields.

Re: Filtering Secondary data source based on Field value in a Repeating Section - with a twist in the tail!

merley72 — Thu, 05 Apr 2018 17:40:47 GMT

Hi, I'm using two elements to filter the 'Keywords' secondary data source. The first is if a field named 'Field' has an entry called 'Matrix', the second is if the value in the OverallLevel contains the value in the Text03 field which as you correctly say is a multi-line XHTML field. That field (Text03 ) is only used in a couple of places, and not for anything fancy so I could convert it to a straight text field and then use an 'equals' instead of 'contains'. Is that likely to work? If it is I shall be very happy but very cross at the same time!!!

Regards Alan C.

Re: Filtering Secondary data source based on Field value in a Repeating Section - with a twist in the tail!

Hilary Stoupa — Thu, 05 Apr 2018 17:21:59 GMT

In your list with images, what is the field that relates back to the user's selections? Right now you are trying to compare on a multiline text field with contains. Could there instead be a regular text field in the list that exactly matched something selected in the repeating section so that we could use query fields to get back just the rows that match?

Re: Filtering Secondary data source based on Field value in a Repeating Section - with a twist in the tail!

merley72 — Thu, 05 Apr 2018 17:14:18 GMT

Hi Hilary, and sorry for not explaining about the show/hide side of things. Basically the current form I attached doesn’t have any of that in it as I tested things and it just wouldn’t work so I pulled that out of the template. To a certain extent I'm floundering at the edge of my capabilities with repeating fields (beyond!) and attempting anything which will only display the Icon Image relevant to the selected OverallNumber value.

To try and answer your last question - "Is there a specific value in the parent repeating section that could be used for an equivalence query to get back just the images for this specific section" - when a user chooses the relevant options from the drop-downs and the values get set in the 'OverallNumber' and 'OverallLevel' fields, both are unique within that repeating section. The next repeating section could have different choices, and therefore different values in the Number and Level fields. So for each instance of a repeating section (which in my form is grouped under Group2) the unique value would be held in that section's 'OverallLevel' field. I'm not trying to be thick, but does that answer your question?

Regards, Alan C.

Re: Filtering Secondary data source based on Field value in a Repeating Section - with a twist in the tail!

Hilary Stoupa — Thu, 05 Apr 2018 14:56:22 GMT

Thank you for the additional explanation - I understand the issue and I also understand why conditional formatting doesn't work here (it is because you have a repeating section bound to different data source inside another repeating section - so "current()" won't work for us to get the parent repeating section values). What I am still asking about was an earlier statement you made that you were trying to use query fields to get back just the data for a specific section, using show / hide for the query. I don't see anything like that in this latest sample template. Is there a specific value in the parent repeating section that could be used for an equivalence query to get back just the images for this specific section?

Re: Filtering Secondary data source based on Field value in a Repeating Section - with a twist in the tail!

merley72 — Thu, 05 Apr 2018 09:02:14 GMT

To the end user, the image displayed in the Icon field should be that which is associated with the number in the OverallLevel field.

As it is not possible to copy & paste images etc using rules, the only way to display just the correct Icon image is by using a filter on the 'Keywords' secondary data source. If you look at the Rules associated with the Icon section on the design form, you can see it does two 'checks…', the second check filters out everything except where the value of the OverallLevel field is the same as the value held in a field called Text03 in the secondary data source. It is that rule which I believe doesn’t correctly reflect things.

The problem comes because if you look at the main data source, you will see that most fields (including OverallNumber) are in a repeating section (called group2) which is needed to repeat the multi-levelled approach required for this aspect of the form.

All is OK when there is only the original repeating section, but when a user creates a second / third repeating section, the form only ever displays the image in the Icon field related to the number in the original OverallLevel section.

In comparison, the Guidance field is a field which pulls back text using Rules from the same 'Keywords' secondary data source - see the second Rule linked to the OverallNumber field. Here there is no problem with the repeating section as the values of each Guidance field sets correctly from the value in the OverallNumber (and OverallLevel).

So I'm getting the Rules correct for Guidance, but wrong when filtering the Icon field.

Thanks very much for staying with me over this. Alan C.

Re: Filtering Secondary data source based on Field value in a Repeating Section - with a twist in the tail!

Hilary Stoupa — Wed, 04 Apr 2018 21:06:39 GMT

So - in your prior post you talked about just querying for the data you need to show via query fields and show / hide buttons. I don't see that in this sample. What field in the main data source has a value we could use to query back just the data you need from the secondary data source for a given main data source section?

Re: Filtering Secondary data source based on Field value in a Repeating Section - with a twist in the tail!

merley72 — Tue, 03 Apr 2018 09:51:11 GMT

Hi Hilary, thanks for following up and apologies for the delay in responding. I've attached a new form I created with the same problem as the original form is very complicated, has loads of different Views etc and is a bit messy so I've recreated the problem in this one.

I've explained the problem as I see it on the top part of the design form.

Thanks in advance. Alan C.

Re: Filtering Secondary data source based on Field value in a Repeating Section - with a twist in the tail!

Hilary Stoupa — Wed, 28 Mar 2018 16:22:42 GMT

Actually, show / hide is how we usually handle something like this, where we have a repeating section bound to a different data source inside the main ds. Attach your form with this attempt under the options tab & I'll take a look.

Re: Filtering Secondary data source based on Field value in a Repeating Section - with a twist in the tail!

merley72 — Wed, 28 Mar 2018 08:17:25 GMT

Hi and thanks for trying things. Basically my images will display in preview and when published. The problem as I understand it is that InfoPath can't use the Rules logic to pull back just a specific image (basically copy it out of one field and into another), so filtering is the only option left. However when filtering you need to have both the object and the filter mechanism already in the secondary data source and of course in this situation we don't.

If picture buttons can't be set using a derived value from a field, then that blows that idea.

I did attempt something though with unfortunately again no success but I'd like your thoughts on that. Basically I used a button and tried to seed the secondary data source with a value, then doing the query data connection (which is parameterized) and stopping at that. My thinking was because I've done the query with the secondary data source that should rebuild the items being displayed in the section. As this is a very busy form I already have the fields, images and other stuffed in a series of hide-when sections which I show & hide using clickable tabs (buttons) which only display when pressed (and set a hidden 'DisplayTab' field) so I shoved the setting and query data connection into that. Clicking the button (setting the show section option) worked OK, and I proved I'd set the parameter, but it didn't work - but it might just have been my bits were not correctly set. Any thoughts on using that as a method?

I'm probably going to give up on this pretty soon as it is taking far too much time - yours and mine - but I'll plod on a bit today with it just in the hope.

Thanks again and regards, Alan C.

Re: Filtering Secondary data source based on Field value in a Repeating Section - with a twist in the tail!

Hilary Stoupa — Tue, 27 Mar 2018 21:38:51 GMT

You can't use a field for the picture on a button. I tried setting up a repro with a list on my Office 365 site, but the picture isn't displayed at all in my form in preview in the secondary data connection. Does yours display in preview, or do you have to publish and view in the browser?

Re: Filtering Secondary data source based on Field value in a Repeating Section - with a twist in the tail!

merley72 — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 16:07:28 GMT

Hi Hilary, thanks for the response. I did go a bit mad at first when I was trying to work out what was and wasn't possible regarding the copying of rich text via rules. A text element in an RTF seems to come across OK, but looses all the formatting, but if there is an image involved then simply nothing happens. Of course that is the worst because you think you've got something wrong in your code which might not be the case - whereas it would never copy anyway!

As to the filtering of the secondary data source, I used 'contains' but I could use 'is equal to' instead if you think that might make a difference. In terms of the version, this is currently 2010 but it could be switched to 2013 again if that might make a difference. The initial end user of this system will be a customer on Office 365 so if there is a way of making it work in 2013 I'll adopt that.

Something I was wondering about was if I could use a picture button to display the image? The button side of things would do nothing of course but if I could get the picture to be option dependent I was wondering if that might work. I've not played with those at all so any experience you can offer around that as a possible method would be appreciated - as always!

Thanks again. Alan C.

Re: Filtering Secondary data source based on Field value in a Repeating Section - with a twist in the tail!

Hilary Stoupa — Mon, 26 Mar 2018 14:58:13 GMT

Yeah, copying rich text via rules isn't supported OOB. And the issue with the filter on your repeating section is that it will always reference the first instance of the repeating main data source group. I'm not sure if there is a way around that - we often use show / hide in these cases and just query for the data we need, but doesn't sound like it would work here, since you are using "contains". What version of SharePoint is this? I'll try to set up a little repro today or tomorrow & see if I can find a work around.

Re: Filtering Secondary data source based on Field value in a Repeating Section - with a twist in the tail!

merley72 — Fri, 23 Mar 2018 16:05:19 GMT

HI Hilary, and thanks very much for coming back to me, I am still having a problem, but have realised I've over-complicated aspects of the question, have actually got half of the thing working, and really am now stuck on just one aspect.

It boils down to can you use a 'Set a field's value' Action in a Rule to take the value of an image (held in my situation in a RTF of a Keyword document in a List which I access through the Secondary data source), and get that displayed in a Rich Text field on my document? I think the answer is 'No' using the OOB rules in InfoPath. I've got text values (and numbers) being pulled back from the secondary source data connection OK, and those are fine for each of the repeating sections. But images just don't want to play by the same method.

Is this correct? Thanks a lot, Alan C.

(If pulling an image into a field is possible using rules I'll do that please!.)

EDITED - below

Please find attached a reworked version of the form which I've prepared to show the problem as it presents. Your help is appreciated. Alan C.