Advanced InfoPath Development InfoPath / SharePoint 2010 Prepared By: Suzanne George Suzanne.George@perficient.com Sr. Architect Perficient - Microsoft West Region

About Perficient Perficient is a leading information technology consulting firm serving clients throughout North America. We help clients implement business-driven technology solutions that integrate business processes, improve worker productivity, increase customer loyalty and create a more agile enterprise to better respond to new business opportunities.

InfoPath – Getting started Designing foundations What you need to know Agenda InfoPath – Getting started Designing foundations What you need to know Debugging InfoPath Creating a Vacation Request Form

InfoPath – Love it or Hate it!?! The Promise of InfoPath Where is the developer?? Why Me?? The Developer Dream

InfoPath - Start with the basics! To use or not to use InfoPath? Just because you can doesn’t mean you should! Pros: Easy to use interface, integration with SharePoint Lists and Form Web Parts, Office Integration. Power Users can do simple stuff. Lookups and repeating tables are easy to do. Cons: Advanced developers find it frustrating Can’t publish people picker fields Publishing columns / changes to column names No CSS type support (expand/collapse regions) evaluate the requirements and prioritization of features over simplicity and maintainability

Designing Your InfoPath Form for Success Design first! Where is the data? Database, List or Library, in the form? Where does the business logic belong – Workflow, Code-Behind, or InfoPath Rules? Where will approval happen? Form Views – how many views will you need, when will they show, and who has access to update? Form Controls – what types of controls are needed for the data, which controls will be exported, etc. Styles – how will the form look and does it make sense to the user?

The InfoPath Need to Know List Deployment – Central Admin vs. Publish (Form Options) Know how to retrieve your InfoPath Form w/Powershell Export-SPInfoPathAdministrationFiles -path d:\Temp\file.cab Know how to export source files before checking in to TFS. (Also possible to rename FormName.xsn to FormName.cab to view/extract contents) When removing exported columns, the are not removed from a list! Here is how to fix it… Add-PSSnapin microsoft.SharePoint.PowerShell $web = Get-SPWeb http://crzo-test77/BASS $list = $web.Lists["ApplicationSupport"] $field = $list.Fields["SR Assigned To"] $field.AllowDeletion = “true” $field.Sealed = “false” $field.Delete() $list.Update() $list.Fields | Select-Object InternalName $web.Dispose()

Debugging an InfoPath Form Debugging Essentials Check form with Design Checker Set debug mode click the Build tab and then, at the bottom, click Advanced. In the Advanced Build Settings dialog box, click the Debug Info list and then click full In the Options dialog box, in the area to the left, expand Debugging and then click General. Clear the Enable Just My Code (Managed only) check box. Select the Suppress JIT optimization on module load (Managed only) check box. Build/Deploy Set Central Administration Logging for InfoPath Use ULS Viewer for log information Urls: http://ybbest.wordpress.com/2011/01/09/how-to-debug-infopath2010-using-vs2010/ http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg271285.aspx#IP14_Debugging

An example… Vacation Form The requirements User to input form All data stays inside form, certain fields are exported to list Version History After approval start SharePoint workflow SharePoint list views need to have People “is [Me]” functionality

Form User Input Demo

More things you can do with InfoPath Conclusion Design first, code once! InfoPath can be powerful and leverage both PowerUsers and developers capabilities More things you can do with InfoPath Automatically check-in / out forms Populate dynamic approvers in form based upon information in the form Dynamically hide and show data Mash-ups Read/Write to database tables Questions?

Suzanne George Microsoft® SharePoint® 2010 Administrator's Companion For further information, please contact: Suzanne George Suzanne.George@perficient.com Sr. Technical Architect Perficient - Microsoft West Region Twitter: spgenie Books co-authored: Microsoft® SharePoint® 2010 Administrator's Companion The SharePoint 2010 Handbook: A Collection of Short Chapters for Delivering Successful SharePoint Projects