Re: Trials of developing using out of the box SP 2010 lists and workflows … or … searching for useful tutorials on use of InfoPath 2010 forms to replace SharePoint 2010 list item forms

Larry W. Virden — Fri, 14 Mar 2014 17:27:57 GMT

I was able to get properly functioning lookup controls by moving to InfoPath. I would love to find educational resources (blogs, forums, videos, tutorials, etc.) on InfoPath SharePoint integration. I keep on trying. My concern about my stumbling is that I don't know how well I will be able to figure out what I have done, and I know that I have tremendous difficulty trying to figure the issues out.

Re: Trials of developing using out of the box SP 2010 lists and workflows … or … searching for useful tutorials on use of InfoPath 2010 forms to replace SharePoint 2010 list item forms

RaYvA — Fri, 14 Mar 2014 16:36:06 GMT

You've obviously hit a wall here...

Sharepoint Lists will always dynamically render a dialog that encapsulates all the fields in the list, when you customise that form you are on your own from there on in.
Not sure about the 'lookup columns' issues but I think you should be able to do that in an InfoPath form.

What are you asking/looking for? Some 'Infopath' tutorial or InfoPath/Sharepoint integration tutorial?

(I know all of these different applications and technologies make it unseemly difficult sometimes) yet you have to persevere

Trials of developing using out of the box SP 2010 lists and workflows … or … searching for useful tutorials on use of InfoPath 2010 forms to replace SharePoint 2010 list item forms

Larry W. Virden — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 11:51:16 GMT

I wrote several infopath forms back in MOSS 2007. But I am now trying to get one of the new forms created for the default SharePoint list forms.

I am struggling with learning how to successfully create what seemed, a week ago, to be a relatively simple task.

Create a SharePoint list that users can use to enter the details for a charge code, save the item, and initiate a workflow task for someone to review the request and either reject or approve the creation of the new code. Then manually the charge code would be created, entered into the external system.

The requirements were more detailed than that – it should look like such and such, we want the user to be able to pick a primary department from a dropdown and secondary departments from a multiple choice list. We want users to also specific another department specific code from another list… you know the drill.

I thought “oh, this won’t be bad”. Now several dozen hours later, I wonder if these out of the box custom lists and workflows are really of any practical use in the real world.

For instance, I create the custom list. I add the static fields. I create the two master lists (departments and codes) to be used in lookup columns.

I create 3 lookup columns –a single choice lookup drop down based on departments, a multiple selection lookup based on departments, and, initially, a single choice lookup based on codes.

Then I tried to test it.

I discovered that depending on how I went about testing, sometimes neither of the dropdowns worked. Other times one might work correctly, and the second drop down’s values would appear on top of the first’s control on the screen.

So I decided to take the plunge and try the SP 2010 ribbon option on the custom list for creating a custom InfoPath 2010 form.

Surprise 1 – I am told that an IP2010 form could not be created due to the codes lookup column. So I delete that column. I try to create the IP2010 form again.

Surprise 2 – the resulting form used a totally different control widget for lookup control 2 (the multi-selection control).

I then create within IP2010 the third control, publish the form, and that worked.

I find a variety of things that are frustrating, but I fiddle with it until it works as well as it is going to.

I show the stakeholders what we have. They want a series of simple wording changes. No sweat. They would love for the look up controls to display a combination of 2 columns from the original table – I don’t know how to change that yet.

I go into list settings to change the descriptions of the list columns. I save the changes. I go to the list to create a new item. All the changes are missing! Dog gone it. Apparently replacing the out of the box form with an IP2010 form means that I no longer have a form that is dynamically tied to the list settings column attributes!

That stinks. Oh well, I will open IP2010 designer, sync the form and the list configuration, and republish.

I am prompted about syncing the list and the form. I say “Yes” please do sync it.

The form opens – and all the names, descriptions, etc. are from BEFORE I made the changes.

So, I tried various things to try and get Infopath to update the form. That didn’t work.

I tried to figure out a way to reset the list to the out of the box form so I could try again. I couldn’t find anything.

I tried deleting the content type thinking that it would get recreated – it just killed the list.

So I have started over. But I really could use some resources in learning how to make this stuff work. Right now, it is more frustrating than it is successful.

SharePoint Integration

Re: Trials of developing using out of the box SP 2010 lists and workflows … or … searching for useful tutorials on use of InfoPath 2010 forms to replace SharePoint 2010 list item forms

Re: Trials of developing using out of the box SP 2010 lists and workflows … or … searching for useful tutorials on use of InfoPath 2010 forms to replace SharePoint 2010 list item forms

Trials of developing using out of the box SP 2010 lists and workflows … or … searching for useful tutorials on use of InfoPath 2010 forms to replace SharePoint 2010 list item forms