Hi, I'm just wondering if there is a way to merge columns in site content types?
I published an Infopath form to SharePoint (2007) several months ago so there are quite alot of completed forms submitted in the document library. Recently I was asked to make some changes to the layout of the form including adding some new columns, removing some columns and generally shuffling things around. To do this I just edited the existing form template.
I now need to re-publish the form but I don't want to simply use the 'Update the content type of an existing form library' function as this will change any forms already submitted in the document to the new format which is not desirable as it might cause some data to be lost and even though we will be using the new form template from here on out it is important to maintain the old ones for our records.
I thought I would publish the 'new' form as a new content type and add it to the document library as the default content type.In doing this I obviously need to publish the relevant columns along with it but I don't want to end up with duplicate columns in the document library. I am aware that I could 'hide' the columns from the existing form but I would like to have them in the view still for quick reference of data.
Since the 'new form' is just the already published form modified is there anyway to link the columns together so that there is only one set of columns in the library that will display the data of the forms already submitted as well as the data of any new forms submitted going forward?
I would appreciate any insight into this!
Cheers
Lola