Web Services

Re: Datafields locked?

ollewessel — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 14:39:50 GMT

Hi,

That sounds like a lot of useful tips. Is there anywhere close an useful guide/tutorial for doing this, especially the part about providing the XSL layer between the XML and the Web Service?

Re: Datafields locked?

Patrick Halstead — Fri, 27 Jul 2007 08:15:43 GMT

Hi Olle,

You can always develop your own XML. InfoPath handles multiple data connections. Just take the data connection for the Web service and map it into your main data source. The extra abstraction of not deriving from the Web service will save huge cost down the road when the Web service changes and invalidates your form and all previous data. You need an abstraction layer. Having an independently defined main data source allows you to preserve backward compat to old XML instance data. That's important in a year or two from now. Believe me, we have seen this problem many times.

The main data source implies a "contract" as well. Since InfoPath will validate your data, you don't need to doubly restrict yourself to the WS contract. Just provide an XSL layer to transform the WS fields into your main data source. You can update the XSL later when the WS changes and still keep backward compatibility with previously submitted XML. If all of your data is shredded to a DB it's still helpful because you won't have to rebind fields in your form.

Bottom line: I don't recommend deriving schema from WS. We've done it many many times and each time we got burned. We stopped doing this many years ago. Just bad practice because it costs more money and that's the final judgment here.

But what do I know? I just build InfoPath solutions all day long. I don't know anything!

Re: Datafields locked?

ollewessel — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 07:29:16 GMT

Patrick Halstead:
See my post to your other thread: http://www.infopathdev.com/forums/thread/21973.aspx
Basically, you shouldn't start by creating a schema from a Web service. Create an XML schema and add the Web service data connections later.

A little off topic, but in my case the web service is the most important thing, I must use the fields provided by the message contract and only them to meet a certain standard. I can't develop an own XML schema.

Re: Datafields locked?

Patrick Halstead — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 05:29:06 GMT

See my post to your other thread: http://www.infopathdev.com/forums/thread/21973.aspx

Basically, you shouldn't start by creating a schema from a Web service. Create an XML schema and add the Web service data connections later.

Re: Datafields locked?

ollewessel — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 12:45:30 GMT

Can you drag and drop the missing web service fields from the data source task pane into your form?

Datafields locked?

JamesLaker — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 09:25:57 GMT

How do I add more fields to the datafields. When I started creating the form my webservice had 2 fields missing. Now I added those fields, but for some reason the datafields is locked and does not have those extra 2 fields needed for the webservice. How can I fix this?

I'm using Infopath 2007 with MVSTA (VB.net)

Please help... I dont want to redo it all.