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Monday, April 27, 2009

InfoPath Part 1: More than Just Buzz Words

A note from Mark Miller: Lori Gowin joins EndUserSharePoint.com today as a contributing author on using InfoPath with Sharepoint. She will be covering the basics of InfoPath over the first set of articles, leading to more complex solutions for creating web based forms.

I’ve tentatively crowned her “InfoPath Queen”. Let’s see how the inauguration ceremony goes…

What is InfoPath?

InfoPathInfoPath is one of the Microsoft Office Professional Suite of applications. It is used to gather information in a form-based manner and store that information in XML (Extensible Markup Language). Because the data is stored in XML, it can then be used for many purposes across the organization.

According to Microsoft, “With Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007, you can create rich, dynamic forms that teams and organizations can use to gather, share, reuse, and manage information — improving collaboration and decision-making throughout your organization.” BINGO! Oh, I’m sorry, was I the only one playing?

What that really means is that InfoPath is a powerful set of tools that you can use to accomplish all of those things and more. When you combine InfoPath, MOSS 2007 (Enterprise), and SharePoint Designer, you have the ability to create solutions quickly and without writing any code.

Why use InfoPath?

The tools that InfoPath provides out of the box will allow you to quickly replace many manual processes. The data gathered will then be able to be stored according to the policies you set and can be used in reports, other processes, and applications. The forms can also be connected to current data to use within the form as well.

The features provided by InfoPath alone make developing forms for your business easy. Built in tools including layout tables, themes, and controls can simply be dragged and dropped onto the form as you build it. There are templates provided that can be used and customized easily to fit the needs of the organization.

Publishing forms for others to use can be done in several ways, providing flexibility. The forms can be published to email, shared drives, SharePoint and Forms Server. Publishing the forms to SharePoint provides the ability to promote the data into columns within the library.

How to get InfoPath?

Some organizations may already have it as part of a licensing agreement with Microsoft. For others, InfoPath can be purchased separately from the Microsoft Office Professional Suite for $199.00. It can be purchased and downloaded from http://office.microsoft.com. From that site, you can also download a 60 day free trial or purchase the entire Microsoft Office Professional Suite for $499.95. When using InfoPath to publish forms to MOSS 2007, usually only those who will be designing and publishing the form to SharePoint will require the client. Others will interact with InfoPath through the browser as a browser-enabled form.

Installing InfoPath, whether as part of the Office Suite or alone, is straightforward.  The program will require at minimum a 500 megahertz processor, 256MB of RAM, 2GB hard drive space, and Windows XP SP2 or later. Although no customization to the installation is required, it is possible to customize the installation to change file locations or add and remove some tools as needed.

How to use InfoPath?

That’s a very broad question, but the one most often asked. The better question is “How do you WANT to use InfoPath?” The answers will determine what features will be used and how the forms will be published and accessed. A quick, easy way to get answers to this question is to approach business owners using a form designed in InfoPath! See how quickly it can come in handy? Create a form that will gather requirements for future InfoPath (or other) projects.

In the next article, learn how to create and publish this form.

 

Lori GowinGuest Author: Lori Gowin, See the Point

Lori Gowin is a SharePoint Administrator/Designer. Since 1999, she has been supporting and managing Microsoft products and technologies. The last four years have been focused on SharePoint and the Microsoft Office Professional Suite. She has created InfoPath and SharePoint solutions in both the healthcare and education industries.  In June of 2006, Lori received her MCSE.

Lori lives in Birmingham, Alabama with her husband and two sons. When not working with SharePoint, she enjoys reading, travelling, and watching sports.

 

Please Join the Discussion

5 Responses to “InfoPath Part 1: More than Just Buzz Words”
  1. larry says:

    I am happy to see someone taking the time to write about InfoPath. I have been working with InfoPath for the last few years and I promise that the resources are limited. Although I have developed many solutions, I know there are better and cleaner ways to do this, but without support it felt impossible. I hope this post get many responses.

  2. Larry – Lori and I look forward to your input, based upon your extensive experience over the past couple of years. — Mark

  3. Mick Brown says:

    Lori, great post. I didn’t look at Infopath for a long time because most of the companies I was working with were using WSS and had not bought Office Pro. Have recently hooked up with some people who have Infopath I will follow your series with interest.

    Have you come across a viable alternative to Infopath for WSS users? When I say ‘viable’ I mean cheap!

  4. Craig Howson says:

    Lori,

    All I can say is more, more, more please.

    I’ve been using InfoPath for about a year now and keep finding new ways to apply it. However, the more you know, the more you want to know and the more you run into the inevitable limits of the application.

    Love to see what others are doing with InfoPath and ways I can streamline implementations.

    Look forward to reading you often.

    Cheers,

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