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Re: Reading InfoPath .xml

drake — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 15:54:51 GMT

Thanks for the info Patrick!

Unfortunately part of the problem with the data in the view is that they're receiving it through Lotus Notes and it doesn't exactly make it through in one [legible] piece. I think we're getting by for now, but the biggest problem is the Attachment control, how to "pull" those out of the form and be their own attachments or something.

I think you've given me a pretty good idea of where to start looking. If I find a solution or have my questions (which I'm sure I will) I'll post it up.

Thank you Patrick!

Re: Reading InfoPath .xml

Patrick Halstead — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 22:58:02 GMT

Hi Drake,

If you were using the rich client, it would be a piece of cake since InfoPath sends e-mail with the data in the view.

SharePoint e-mail is limited. You could send them a link to a Web Server that had the XML and they could use IE to display the contents by applying the XSLT of the default view. We have a tool that dynamically displays IP forms in IE and ships HTML down to non IE clients but it requires that the user have access to a server where the XML files live.

Perhaps the best solution is to create a URN based InfoPath rich client solution - this requires that the people viewing the forms have InfoPath installed locally. Here's a link to a blog describing this technique: http://www.infopathdev.com/blogs/mel_balsamo/archive/2009/05/18/using-e-mail-forms-to-communicate-with-external-users.aspx

Reading InfoPath .xml

drake — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 19:36:24 GMT

Okay, I have NO idea exactly how to do this, but I can tell you what I want for the end result.

I have about 8 forms up with SharePoint Enterprise 2007 in browser mode. When a user submits their form, the form is sent as an email attachment as a .xml along with the template.xsd. That's all and good, but here comes the problem.

Some of the people who get the completed form are using *gasp* Lotus notes and are not on the same network as where the forms are hosted. So when they open the .xml they just see the schema/raw data/whatever.

I did make a messy little ".xml reader" in Excel that reads the fields they need, but that doesn't work for the forms that use the Attachment control and still doesn't help that they're using Lotus Notes. I tried making an xslt, but I have no idea how to actually *use* it with a template.

I guess my question is, what is the best method to be able to have someone read a .xml file that has been generated by InfoPath? Even it generating as a plain old text file is fine by me. PDF is the most ideal, but I can't do anything with server side extensions.

Any direction here would be fantastic!!!