Workflow

Re: Browser enabled InfoPath form and MOSS Approval Workflow...

warrtalon — Sat, 27 Feb 2010 06:46:19 GMT

David, sorry that I never saw this. You don't use a URL parameter to send to a specific view, but rather you use Form Load rules to switch views based off the user's identity, the workflow status, or pretty much any combination of metadata in the form. I do this on most of my forms and typically base it off the user's identity using the techniques on my blog.

Re: Browser enabled InfoPath form and MOSS Approval Workflow...

marie Assumpta — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:21:19 GMT

Here Marie again ,

I found my way to work around for the moment !

I am still waiting for any suggestion !

Thanks for your Support again

Re: Browser enabled InfoPath form and MOSS Approval Workflow...

marie Assumpta — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 14:22:01 GMT

Thanks for helping us .

I have used the Build Dynamic String for my approval Workflow and I send the link tomy infopath using the Encoded Absolute URL attribut using share point designer ,evertthing works fine for the monent.But my Manager desn't want receive the link he want to see the active view of the form .Instead of sending him the link at that level using Encoded Absolute URL atttibut how can I tell m share point designer to send the current view of the form.I appreciate your help .

Marie

Re: Browser enabled InfoPath form and MOSS Approval Workflow...

princevis — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 04:01:57 GMT

well,4 view 1,u need to add a hidden field that could be a check box,add a rule on a button click to change it's value from false to true.

design a SPD workflow to send an email when the value of check box changes to true.Then for adding a link,open any filled form that you've submitted to the form library,copy it's full url,it would be something like this http://portal/teamnew/_layouts/FormServer.aspx?XmlLocation=/teamnew/TravelRequestLibrary/09-000003.xml&Source=http%3A%2F%2Fportal%2Fteamnew%2FTravelRequestLibrary%2FForms%2FAllItems%2Easpx&DefaultItemOpen=1, paste it to the email body,the email body that you are preparing to be send to approver through Sharepoint Designer workflow. now look at the form's XML location,select the xml location thing,and click on add lookup to body, and from there select server relative URL.finish the email designer thing,ur first view is prepared.

4 the second view,just place an option box at the top of the form and through conditional formatting keep it hidden,till the value of that same hidden field is false.

So once it wil be true your approver would be able to see the option box.

Let me know if it works 4 u..

Re: Browser enabled InfoPath form and MOSS Approval Workflow...

TAMU_David — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 19:03:09 GMT

Hi Clayton, thanks for the great thread here.

Is there a way to change the view of the form by appending text to the URL? I don't think there is, but I thought I'd ask you.

My scenario: After the user submits the form (view #1), an email is sent to the Department Head with a link to the form so that they can approve or reject it.

View #2 has a row added to the top of the form with radio buttons so the Dept Head can choose Approve or Reject. Of course I would like to have veiw #2 open up for the Dept. Head, otherwise I have to provide instructions to them to change the view manually, which won't be too bad.

Any experience with this? Is there an easier way to provide the Approve/Reject option?

David from College Station

Re: Browser enabled InfoPath form and MOSS Approval Workflow...

blumenhause — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 11:57:39 GMT

Hi Clayton,

Thank for sharing your idea here, very much appreciate it. I completely understand what I have posted will not give a return url. Actually I had used this in sending emails as an anchor tag with href attribute, the way you had explained earlier. In that case user would be opening the form to review it from within email and so does he need a return url? But you have a point there.

Anyways, I didn't think of providing it the way you have described with &Source parameter. That was a nice post, thank you. I'll apply it in my next project.

Regards,

Manu

Re: Browser enabled InfoPath form and MOSS Approval Workflow...

warrtalon — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:42:18 GMT

Manu, that's not the full URL and doesn't have a Source attribute for pointing the browser to a return location. It may "work," but it's not complete. No reason to not use what I wrote above I don't think.

Re: Browser enabled InfoPath form and MOSS Approval Workflow...

blumenhause — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:41:05 GMT

I think this should work fine, atleast it worked for me..

[EncodedUrl] ?OpenIn=Browser

Create a Dynamic String concating Encoding Url and this OpenIn string and it might work.

Re: Browser enabled InfoPath form and MOSS Approval Workflow...

infopathic — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 18:12:53 GMT

^Ah now you are reading my mind. Thanks again.

Re: Browser enabled InfoPath form and MOSS Approval Workflow...

warrtalon — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 18:05:37 GMT

Just remember that you need to use Encoded Absolute URL for the reason I gave instead of Server Relative.

Also, unless you want that whole URL in the body of the email, I suggest adding HTML like this:

<a href="http://full-URL-here">[%FormLibrary:FormName%]</a>

This way, your users see the name/title of the form hyperlinked and clickable instead of a messy Forms Services URL. I also choose to build my dynamic string first and then reference the variable in the email in case I need to use this URL in more than one place (i.e. multiple conditional emails).

Re: Browser enabled InfoPath form and MOSS Approval Workflow...

infopathic — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 17:59:47 GMT

^Ah I see. Excellent. I found this blog right after you posted and it also describes the process, however it tells them to use the Server Relative URL which you warned about in your post:

http://www.bizsupportonline.net/browserforms/create-sharepoint-designer-workflow-send-email-link-infopath-browser-form.htm

Re: Browser enabled InfoPath form and MOSS Approval Workflow...

warrtalon — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 17:50:55 GMT

You create it dynamically using the Build Dynamic String action in SPD. In the BDS, you need to concatenate static URL text with one piece of metadata from your form. I keep writing this up, so I need to just do a quick blog on it so that I can link to it from now on. Here is how it will look:

http://www.YourDomain.com/YourSite/_layouts/FormServer.aspx?XmlLocation=[%FormLibrary:Encoded Absolute URL%]&Source=http://www.YourDomain.com/YourSite/FormLibrary/Forms/AllItems.aspx&DefaultItemOpen=1

The part in brackets gets there by clicking on Add Lookup, choosing Current Item, and finding the Encoded Absolute URL attribute. The test before and after this part is static based on your library. For the &Source attribute of the URL, you can put any URL you want depending on where you want to send users after they close the form. When opening a form from the site, it defaults to the view where you are when you clicked New or clicked on the form. When building it as a workflow to an existing form, you can set it to be whatever you want.

The Server Relative URL attribute should work, but I've found that if there is a space in your site name or form library name, then it will collapse the space instead of inserting %20, which then causes the link to fail. Encoded Absolute URL gives you more than you need, but it accounts for spaces.

Re: Browser enabled InfoPath form and MOSS Approval Workflow...

infopathic — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 17:30:45 GMT

warrtalon:

Yeah, it's a limitation of Forms Server. If you notice, the built-in workflow is sending the URL to the XML file. However, this is not the URL of the browser-version of that file. Go open one of your forms and notice the URL. This is the URL you must send via email in order for users to open it directly in the browser. To do this, I have to always use custom workflows (SPD) and am unable to use built-in workflows unless using rich client forms only.

How do I get the URL that appears when you open the form in the browser from within SharePoint Designer namely adding it to an e-mail message? The best I was able to find was a link to the .xml version of the form.

Re: Browser enabled InfoPath form and MOSS Approval Workflow...

blumenhause — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 09:56:36 GMT

Hi Clayton,

I agree with you. I found this solution in a forum and I didn't have an option that time but to follow it. Later I found some other blog posts saying that this can be done by customizing the aspx forms.

Regards,

Manu

Re: Browser enabled InfoPath form and MOSS Approval Workflow...

warrtalon — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:30:02 GMT

Manu, that seems like a bit much to accomplish this. I don't think it makes sense to administrative approve EVERY form just for this purpose. That's a ton of work and a ton of extra administrative overhead, imo. My method mentioned above is very simple and works perfectly well for both scenarios you gave: workflow hyperlink or link in email sent by workflow. No need to do all that when you can just dynamically generate the forms server URL using the form's metadata itself.