InfoPath Dev

For instance if I want to create a form that has a dropdownlist of clients to selects and those clients are stored in a datbase table. When I I go to write a web method to return that list of clients what should the data type be? Should it just be a List ? Also, call as many web methods as I want to in a form? For instance, an I populate a dozens dropdowns using a dozen web methods and then us one just on web method to send all the choices back to the database? Thanks. (Are there any articles ir blogs that go into a bit of depth out there? I read Jane Mathilda's blog but it just barely scratches the surface and since I am very new to writing web services I would like to see more detailed examples, thanks again)

Hi IceThatJaw and thanks for posting,

While SQL datatypes are not the same as XML datatypes (obviously, InfoPath uses the latter), your SOAP ore REST Web service will be returning XML. So, for a dropdown, you just have a structure like this:

<listgroup>

<item>foo</item>

<item>bar</item>

</itemgroup>

Yes, you can call many web methods from the same form. That is generally what most InfoPath forms do since they have out-of-box support for XML Web service and can easily pull data from multiple sources. Party on!

Correct, you'd want to use one web method for submitting to a DB.

You should take a look at Qdabra's our generic Web service - DBXL. Instead of creating multiple Web services it allows you to query and submit to a database using separate config files for each query or SQL mapping. Plus, it's dirt cheap and there's a free trial.

Let us know if we can help you get it installed and configured. I guarantee it will save you tons of time and life is short.

Best,

P