InfoPath Dev

 Hi all,

Our company is new to SharePoint 2007 and InfoPath 2007.

The company has 30 departments, each with 25-50 forms producing hundreds of records.

What is best practice for managing both the form template and the associated record in SharePoint?

One "all inclusive form library" where users could filter and sort (or search) for a specific company form? Same for a record library, one repository for all records where "Department X" could configure a view for thier own records?

I've read some about creating content types for each form, is this the way to go?

Whats best practice here? Thanks,

IMAC

Hi IMAC,

To fully answer your question would require more than a forum post. There are many best practices for managing forms and we usually have an entire module in our training class devoted to these.

There are some general techniques:

• Use Content Types and Site Collections to reduce maintenance cost of updating form templates
• Use UDCX (Data Connection Libraries) to make it easy to share data connections across form templates
• Use XML Template parts to share parts of your forms to make them look more consistent and have matching data sources for common areas

As you create more and more forms you may want to start reporting on them. SharePoint has some limitations here - for example, can't promote repeating data to a SharePoint list. You may consider the following techniques:

• Save XML data to one or more SharePoint lists (Qdabra's qRules trial provides an easy codeless solution here - click on ad below)
• Save XML data to a SQL database for more in depth reporting needs
• Use a Web Service when saving data to SQL (so you can use browser-based forms)
• Use data driven Web Service so that you don't have to create one for every form template, and to reduce maintenance costs (Qdabra's DBXL is the only data-driven Web service today for InfoPath)

I'd be happy to talk to you briefly about common pitfalls and "gotchas". Just send me email and we can arrange a chat.

Good luck with your InfoPath solutions!

Thanks Patrick,

I'm interested in more infomation about your module covering best practices for managing forms in SharePoint. Where do I start? Is it available on line?

IMAC

Hi IMAC,

Our next online training class is in September (3 weeks from now). If you are interested you can send email to CourseManager (at) Qdabra (dot) (com). Qdabra Software funds this free forum and provides consulting, products, training, and other services to help you realize the most value from InfoPath and SharePoint in the least amount of time. We do offer custom training sessions too. If you are only interested in the Best Practices module, I highly recommend just buying an hour or two of time and we can present the best practices to you with examples. To do this, just go to Qdabra's web store and purchase a single support pack and we'll schedule a 90-minute session when it is convenient for you.

You are doing the right thing by focusing on the best practices first. You will save lots of time and money by learning the top techniques and design patterns. I wish more people had your foresight.

Best regards,

Hi!
I am interested in this same topic.  The link you referred to does not work however.  I was also wondering if there may be additional information already available since some time has passed since the original post. Thanks!