Microsoft Office System UK Developers Conference Radisson Edwardian, Heathrow 29 th & 30 th June 2005

Introduction To Microsoft Office InfoPath 2003 Form Design Steve Green Information Worker Technical Specialist Microsoft UK

Agenda Disclaimer Intro and Challenges Demo File Structure and Deployment Business Logic and Interoperability Offline, Security, Performance Discussion and Live Demo Developer Resources

Customer Challenges Data gathering is inefficient Re-typing and data entry error Typical forms are hard to use and inflexible Difficult to provide information in static forms Web forms can’t go offline Custom solutions can be expensive Custom coding and end user training Data hard to reuse across business processes Significant development overhead

Introducing InfoPath New Office system application for gathering information What does InfoPath provide? Rapid development of rich, dynamic forms Data validation and conditional formatting Dynamic layout, rich text, and spellchecking Offline and support What customer scenarios does it address? Organizational processes (CRM, procurement, HR, help desk, government forms, etc) InfoPath complements WinForms for simpler forms How does it integrate with back-end servers? Based on XML standards Support for any customer-defined schema Out-of-box support for XML Web services InfoPath XML HTTP SOAP WSDL UDDI BizTalk SQL ERP CRM XML

Scenario Sales Data Collection Before InfoPath 1 sales call = 4 user inputs Information silos Lost productivity Data entry errors With InfoPath 1 sales call = 1 user input Information shared across org Improved efficiency Accurate, valid information

Enterprise And Team Scenarios Building a sales call report as part of an end-to-end solution

Document Experience Office UI features Combined document and forms experience that cannot be matched Digital signature Flexible layout

InfoPath Form Template (XSN) Form Template Files.XML URL or URN SolutionDefinition(XSF) Views(XSLT) Schema(XSD) DefaultData(XML) Business Logic (JS, DLL)

Form Template Deployment Web Server or WSS Cached for offline Automatically updated Sandboxing for high security URL-based Custom Install Developer packages and deploys (.exe,.msi, etc.) Full system access URN-based HTTP Server Server Cached then Auto-updated Open URL Installed (MSI, EXE) Open URN.XML InfoPathInfoPath IT Admin.XSN.XSN.XML

Business Logic Types of Business Logic C# VB.NET Most Forms Do Not Need Code XML Schema RulesFormulas Data Validation Data Connections Conditional Formatting

Data Interoperability SQLAccess Oracle, DB2, … SAP, PeopleSoft, Siebel,… InfoPath BizTalk IIS SQL WSS XMLHTTPSOAPWSDLUDDI.XML XML Submit WSS (ADO) Submit Save Send

Offline Forms Form templates Cached on the client Updated when used online Form Editing Create new form from template XML document contains all relevant form data Form template includes auxiliary data (look-up, catalogs) Save form on local machine Submit as

Security Three levels of security Restricted Domain Full Trust Full Trust form templates must be signed or locally installed Security features for forms Design protection Digital Signatures Customization for save, print, send and export Merge forms

Performance Tips Keep View Lean and Simple Avoid lots of tables (data or layout) in any single view Avoid large repeating data structures Avoid complex nesting of optional and repeatable sections Business Logic Events: E.g., onAfterChange can fire multiple times for one edit Filter Data on Query: Bring down less data at a time Limit On-Load Queries Avoid Large XML Files Caching Lots of Data and DOM Loading Images, Attachments, Digital Signatures

Discussion And Live Demo Set current time Filtering a repeating section Tabbed UI Cascading drop downs

Developer Support InfoPath SDK Hello samples Data validation ADO connection using Access Basic UI Events Context-driven editing Web services Technical papers, best practices, common developer tasks Simple support tools End2End samples Managed Code (CLR) ADO connection (SQL server) Data submission Data interoperability Calculations Information lookup Purchase order (BizTalk) Purchase order (Web services) Merge Forms (Aggregation) InfoPath Toolkit for Visual Studio Managed code for business logic

Developer Resources Developer’s Center on MSDN – Includes updated SDK, Visual Studio.NET Toolkit, Training Labs Office Online – Articles, training, demos, case studies Team Blog – posts since March ‘04 Support Center – KB, How-To articles, downloads, and troubleshooting Public newsgroup – microsoft.public.infopath

Developer Resources Books Introducing Microsoft Office InfoPath 2003 Microsoft Office InfoPath 2003 Kick Start Professional InfoPath 2003 Microsoft Infopath: A Developer's Guide How to Do Everything with Microsoft Office InfoPath h_2003/forumid_55/tt.htm

Help Shape Future Versions Of InfoPath Seeking InfoPath developers Novice and experienced developers welcome Provide feedback on product via surveys and conference calls at regular intervals Share scenarios and requirements with development team Interested? Mail

© 2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This presentation is for informational purposes only. Microsoft makes no warranties, express or implied, in this summary.