Chapter 10: Working with Forms Services


Overview

An important aspect of working in a business environment and collaborating with others is the collection of information. A common challenge is to identify ways to make this process more efficient and effective. One solution is to collect information in a form that contains pre-configured fields for the data you want to receive. This ensures that all the required information is collected, and it also helps consolidate information that can be used for comparison or calculations. For example, by collecting feedback from your customers on their satisfaction level with your services, you can identify trends or averages in their responses. If the average of all customer satisfaction ratings is 4.5 out of 5, and a customer submits a rating of 3 out of 5, it is easy to see that the response is below average. If all customer feedback were submitted verbally or via a less structured format such as email, it would be more difficult to compare results in a calculated manner.

Forms simplify the task of gathering important information. In Microsoft Office, you can use InfoPath to create electronic forms that you can then publish to team members and others. InfoPath is straightforward enough that nonprogrammers can use it for a simple forms creation system, yet flexible enough for programmers to create sophisticated forms-based applications.

When InfoPath was released in 2003, in order for someone to view or complete a form, the user had to install the InfoPath application on his computer. In 2007, a new server product, InfoPath Forms Services, was released that allows you to publish form templates to a web server for users to complete and view directly through the browser. SharePoint has built-in support for InfoPath Forms Services in the Enterprise version of the product.

As you read this chapter, you find out the following:

  • When you should consider using InfoPath over the data collection techniques available with SharePoint 2007

  • How to create a new form template and publish it to SharePoint for others to complete

  • What different types of publishing options are available for form templates

  • How to use data connections within an InfoPath form template

  • How to create form template parts for reuse

After reading this chapter, you should feel comfortable identifying scenarios where the use of InfoPath forms would be beneficial for your organization for the collection of information from various key stakeholders.




Beginning SharePoint 2007. Building Team Solutions with MOSS 2007
Beginning SharePoint 2007: Building Team Solutions with MOSS 2007 (Programmer to Programmer)
ISBN: 0470124490
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2007
Pages: 131

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