InfoPath Dev

 Is it possible to link an InfoPath form to a database, without creating a database first?

No, I'm afraid not. You can, of course, create receive data connections to a SQL or Access database to pull data to your form, and you can use a web service to submit data to a db (either by building your own or puchasing -- we have a nice one available here), but if your form was not based on a database to begin with you won't have out of the box submit functionality. However, do keep in mind that if you want to build a db based form, you don't have to have the entire db built to begin. As long as you have a db and a table to connect to, you can later modify that data connection to use more fields in your table, or add an additional related table.

Hilary,

Thank you for the reply.  We have created an InfoPath form with many features we like.  It is in a table form, has many drop-down selections, repeating tables and totals.  If we create a database with one field, and then create a form.  How can we add our existing form to the new form?  And how will the fields in the existing form update the database?  

Thanks!   

I am afraid I was insufficiently clear. You will not be able to just copy over your current form to a new, db bound form and just have it work. All the controls will need to be bound to date fields. This means that your DB structure will need to match the structure you have in your form that you like. Then, I suppose you might be able to copy and paste some things, but all the controls will need to be rebound to the data source in the new form. Any data connections for drop down lists will have to be added to the new form and reconnected to the drop down selectors. Also, since the schema will change, any currently filled out forms will not open with the new templates without being modified to use the new schema.....