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InfoPath 2010: Scaling up from 1 to 100.
Chris GristBeach Energy
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
About Me
• SharePoint Architect / Coordinator for Beach Energy
• MCITP / MCPD for SharePoint 2010• Twitter: @griStdoG• Mail: [email protected] • Blog: www.cube4.com.au
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
Session Agenda
• InfoPath 2010 Overview• InfoPath Adoption• Building a Forms Factory• Universal Data Connections• Template Parts• Starter Forms
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
What is InfoPath?
• Form building tool for making standalone forms, and SharePoint list forms
• InfoPath 2010 is actually two different products• Only available in Microsoft Office 2010 Professional
Plus• SharePoint 2010 (and 2007 as well) have the capability
to have a SharePoint document library (form library) contain a collection of InfoPath forms– Essentially, you associate a form with a document library,
and the resulting answered forms are the contents of the library
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
More on InfoPath
• Types of Forms– InfoPath based form (i.e. InfoPath Filler)– Web Based Forms (i.e. InfoPath Form Services)
• Enterprise CAL is needed to be able to:– Use a SharePoint list with InfoPath forms– Publish SharePoint library forms as web based
forms– Works on SharePoint Online! (Plan 2)
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
InfoPath Features
• Various UI Controls• Layouts (pre-designed table formats)• Themes• Multiple Views• Rules (Validation, Formatting, Action)• Data Connectivity
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
What’s new in 2010?
• Ribbon interface• Quick Rules• New Rule Manager• New Rule Inspector• SharePoint List Forms• Quick Publish• InfoPath Form Web Part
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
What are rules?
• Rules add logic to your form and/or form controls (without code!).
• There are three types of rules
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
What about our data?
• Various data connections available
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
How can we use it?
• InfoPath can be integrated with SharePoint 2010 in several ways– Design and publish a form to SharePoint that
becomes its own Library– Use InfoPath to enhance and existing List/Library– Publish to a Forms Library and point an InfoPath
Form Web Part at it– Integration with Workflow to provide advanced
forms (Initialisation, Modification, Task Forms)
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
So Why’s it great?
• Great Business Process Client – Create electronic form “apps” for all of your business processes– Reduce errors – auto-fill, spell-check and validate using rules– No code required! Less creation and maintenance costs– Included in Office = familiar look-and-feel
• Great Web Client– Published forms render as web pages that accept data input– Faster fill-in – speed up data entry from external data sources– InfoPath Web parts let you create mash-ups with multiple forms– Submit to back-end servers – SharePoint, SQL, Web services
• Out-of-the-box – No Developers, IT Staff, or SharePoint Admins required!
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
INFOPATH OVERVIEWInfoPath 2010 Scaling up from 1 to 100
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
InfoPath Adoption
Now, you’ve got forms…
How do you scale to 100+ forms…
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
A Solution
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
InfoPath Forms Factory
• Use SharePoint to store re-usable data.– Create XTPs for common sections– Create UDCs for common data– Create Starter forms– Distribute to Form Designers
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
What are UDCs?
• UDC = Universal Data Connection• UDCs provide data connection information to
InfoPath• UDCs are XML based• UDCs are stored in a Data Connection Library
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
UNIVERSAL DATA CONNECTIONSInfoPath 2010 Scaling up from 1 to 100
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
Why UDCs?
• Data connections are hard to create• UDCs let you create once, and• Reuse in all your forms, and• UDC updates don’t require republishing
forms• Quickly add to new form templates too
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
What are XTPs?
• XTP = XML Template Part• Introduced in InfoPath 2007• Create using InfoPath Designer• Save as .XTP (2007) file or .XTP2 (2010)• Add to InfoPath Designer as Custom Controls• Drag and Drop into a Form Template (XSN) to
add
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
Unsupported FeaturesUnsupported Features
Active X Controls User Roles
Information Rights Mgmt. Digital Signatures
Multiple views Print SettingsPage Settings Code
Publishing Color Schemes
Merging Form Export
Submit Mixed Namespace Editing
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
TEMPLATE PARTSInfoPath 2010 Scaling up from 1 to 100
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
Why XTPs?
• Lots of forms with common sections• Save time with section re-use• Just drag and drop• Share with multiple designers• Quickly build forms
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
What are Starter Forms?
• Just a normal form!• Develop consistent forms– Colours, fonts, themes– Common Headers: Logo, Tagline, Title etc– Common Footers: T&Cs, Version etc.– Common Data Connections
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
STARTER FORMSInfoPath 2010 Scaling up from 1 to 100
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
Why Starter Forms?
• Consistent forms• Save time• Longer Coffee Break
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
So What’s Next?
• Launch Your Form Factory– Create XTPs for common sections– Create UDCs for common data– Create Starter forms– Distribute to Form Designers
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
QUESTION AND ANSWERInfoPath 2010 Scaling up from 1 to 100
SharePoint Saturday Adelaide 2012
Related Links
• http://cube4.com.au My blog lots of InfoPath
• http://infopathdev.com Great InfoPath forums
• http://blogs.msdn.com/b/infopath/ Official InfoPath Blog
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Thanks for listening!
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