InfoPath Dev

Hi,

There are two ways to integrate infopath (web based) to sharepoint.

1. web service

2. publish to sharepoint list via publishing wizard

 For approach 2, it will post a xml to sharepoint list, which requires a file name. And file name need to be generated with timestamp.

 Does anyone knows if there is other approach to integrate infopath n sharepoint ?

 Thanks,

You don't have to generate the filename with a timestamp, but that is what I usually do.

I don't even know what you mean by 1 unless you mean extracting the data from a non-SharePoint form and sending it to a list via code.

What are you trying to avoid/accomplish with a method other than publishing it to SharePoint how it's designed?  In case the auto-generation of a filename is a concern, check my blog post first to ensure it doesn't hold you back unnecessarily:

Auto-Generating Filenames for InfoPath Forms

I'm sourcing for other alternative is because i need to print out the form after it is filled. One problem here is that I design the form in View A, once it is filled, there is a [submit] button in view A to submit the form to sharepoint list, and also switch the view to View B which is used for printout.

The problem is that when user are in view B and if close button [top panel] is clicked, the form will prompt "Are you sure you want to close this form ? ".

 That's the main reason why i need to avoid using this method, do you have any clue ?

Why is that prompt coming up if they have already submitted it to the library?  It should only come up if the form has not been saved/submitted.  Are you saying that users are switching the view themselves?  I thought you were saying that after submitting, it takes them to the other view without closing.  If so, that message should not arise unless they have made additional changes after submission.

Anyway, whenever this is a problem, you can turn off that Close button in the toolbar (along with save, save as, views, update, submit) in Form Options > Browser.  Then, you can put a custom button on your canvas with a rule that has one action - Close.  This closes without prompting on my forms.

Either way, I can't imagine trying to circumvent the built-in integration just to avoid this message.  That seems strange, no?

The actual scenario is that, user will fill up the form in View A, once it is filled, user will click on [Submit] button, which will bring user to view B for printing.

Data is populated into SharePoint List when [Submit] button is clicked in View A. If user clicks on Close button (top panel), it will prompt user to save the form because View B has not been saved yet.

The reason why Close button on the top panel is not hide is because the [print view] button is needed. Having the mixture of both, it makes the form looks weird.

Do you have any clue to do [print view] in code ?

Thanks,

You are saying it looks wierd to have the Print View button on the toolbar and have the close button on the form itself?  I don't agree with that, but if you really are hung up on it, then you can make it more complicated by adding code, I suppose.  Also, views don't get saved, so I'm not sure what you meant by "View B has not been saved yet."  The entire form gets saved as an XML file in the SharePoint library when you submit, so there is nothing in View B to save unless you are doing something AFTER the submit rule that changes data in the form.  Switching views doesn't change anything that would require a re-save or re-submit.  It should not prompt with that question when hitting close, so something else must be changing.

Regardless, you don't need the Close button in the toolbar.  You can have the Print View without the Close button, and you can make a simple close button on the form.  This is very, very simple without any customization or code.  Is it really not acceptable?

You can do the print part with code, but that puts code-behind in a form to do something that is done out of the box with no customization.

Pls correct me if my understanding is correct.

having a submit button on top panel or using the custom button to perform the submission based on data connection to sharepoint list, will submit data into sharepoint list. So far what i found out is that after you click these buttons [custom button or the submit button on top panel], and if you click on the close button on top panel, it will still prompt you to save the form even if you have submit the form data to sharepoint list.

However, if i click on the save button on the top panel, and follow by close button, it will not prompt for saving the form data.

Is it possible to submit the data to sharepoint list and click on close button on top without any prompt ?

Many thanks for your help

I avoid those buttons altogether and just put buttons on the form canvas where they make the most sense to me and where I can control their visibility with conditional formatting.  I put two custom buttons on most forms - one for submit and one for close.  My submit button usually sets some data fields, submits to the library, and THEN closes all in one click without any prompts.  However, you don't want to close, so you could leave that out and switch views.  Then, the Close button will close cleanly.  These are custom buttons (no code) on the form itself rather than using the toolbar.  That's just how I do it to make it very clean.  I also auto-assign filenames based off metadata and timestamps.  If you need to do that, view my blog entry on it:  Auto-Generating Filenames for InfoPath Forms

I agree with what you said. Do you have any idea how to add a button to perform the same action that [print view] does ? So far, it seems that there is no API to achieve this.

 For printing case, do you know how to FORCE the margin ? So far what i see is that the alignment will base on the user IE setting and it does not seem to have a way to fix it.

With this, i can hide the top panel and show three buttons

Submit, close, print view.

Thanks again.

I don't know how and I don't use any code in any of my forms.  I just show the Print View in the toolbar, but have buttons on the canvas for Submit and Close.  No problem with having that combination on my forms, and it is very simple + clean.  I don't know of a way to force margins and such unfortunately.