Microsoft InfoPath

Microsoft Office InfoPath

Screenshot of Microsoft InfoPath 2007.
Developer(s)	Microsoft
Stable release	2010 (14.0.4763.1000) / June 15, 2010; 17 months ago (2010-June-15)
Operating system	Microsoft Windows
Type	Collaborative software
License	Proprietary commercial software
Website	office.microsoft.com/infopath/

Microsoft Office InfoPath is a software application for designing, distributing, filling and submitting electronic forms containing structured data. According to one of its inventors, a key architectural design decision was "to adhere to the XML paradigm of separating the data in a document from the formatting."^[1] Thus the product features a WYSIWYG form design area in which the various controls (dropdowns, text boxes, etc.) are bound to data fields represented separately as a hierarchical tree view of folders and data fields. A patent filed in 2000 by Adriana Neagu, Jean Paoli and others describes the technology as "authoring XML using DHTML views and XSLT."^[2]

Microsoft initially released InfoPath as part of Microsoft Office 2003 family. In summer 2010, Microsoft released a new version that split InfoPath into two applications: InfoPath Designer 2010 is used to create forms and define data structures, and InfoPath Filler 2010 is used to fill out and submit forms.

Development

InfoPath, a member of Office products, features a different usage scenario from the other applications, such as Word and Excel. In order to use InfoPath to fill in a form, a user must have a designer develop an InfoPath template first.

All the data stored in InfoPath forms are stored in an XML format, which is referred to as the "data source".

InfoPath provides several controls (e.g. Textbox, Radio Button, Checkbox, etc.) to present data in the data source to end users. For data tables and secondary data sources, "Repeating Table" and other repeating controls are introduced. For each of these controls, actions (called "rules") can be bound in. A rule defines a specific action that will be performed under certain conditions. For example, a simple rule could be: "Set field 'Total' to 100 when number in field 'field1' changes".

More complex actions can be developed through "data validation". Of course, data validation can also be done with VBA programming inside a Microsoft Word document or Excel spreadsheet.

Features

• Rules apply specific actions when triggered by button clicks or changing values in the form. They can change the values of fields in the data source, submit to and query databases, display messages, open and close forms, and switch to different views of the form.
• Data Validation tests whether input into fields is valid, by comparing the input to patterns, checking if it is the correct data type (e.g., a String or an Integer), and in other customizable ways.
• Conditional Formatting can be used to change the appearance or visibility of objects based on values in the form.
• InfoPath has many different ActiveX Controls, all of which have a value bound to a field in the form's data source. Common controls include list boxes, radio buttons, text boxes, buttons, and check boxes. Info Path also uses controls such as Calculated Values, which display the result of xPath expressions, and sections, which are containers for other controls. InfoPath also includes repeating fields and sections, which can store many different values.
• XPath Expressions and Functions can be used to calculate values by applying functions to the value of fields in the form, such as "concat(string(field1 + field2), "#;", field3)" (the concatenation of the sum of two fields, the string "#;", and the value of another field). XPath functions for manipulation of strings, simple mathematical operations, and many other operations are included in InfoPath. In addition, data can be filtered (select individual values from a repeating field or database).
• InfoPath supports Connections to External Datasources. SQL, Microsoft Access, and SharePoint databases can be connected to and submitted in the form. Because of InfoPath's superior user experience and ease of data entry, it is often preferable to manipulate databases through it.
• JScript, Visual Basic, C#, and other languages can be used to extend InfoPath's capabilities by adding custom HTML taskpanes, iterating through data, using Active Directory, and generally accomplishing tasks that are impossible in the InfoPath design environment.
• SharePoint integration (see Integration with SharePoint).
• User Roles can be used to customize a user's experience by changing views and using conditional formatting based on the identity of the user.
• InfoPath's formatting capabilities and user interface are similar to Microsoft Word 2003 and 2010, depending on version.

Integration with SharePoint

The most common usage of InfoPath is to integrate it with Microsoft SharePoint technology using InfoPath Form Services (included in the enterprise commercial version of MOSS) or as the separate Microsoft Office Forms Server 2007 product.

In SharePoint, a "Form Library" can be created and developed by using InfoPath. InfoPath fields will be exported as "Columns" in the library and can be directly read in SharePoint or be used as part of web services results in workflow development.

Versions

Version	Notes	Release date[3]
InfoPath 2003	Included only in Microsoft Office 2003 Professional and Professional Enterprise Edition (Volume license only) and sold separately	02003-11-19November 19, 2003
InfoPath 2007	Included in Microsoft Office 2007 Ultimate and the volume license editions, Professional Plus, Enterprise, and sold separately	02007-01-27January 27, 2007
InfoPath 2010	Included in Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus	02010-07-15July 15, 2010

All release dates pertain to the general availability release date. Release to manufacturing is usually two or three months in advance.

References

1. ^ http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/infopath-help/jean-paoli-on-microsoft-office-infopath-2003-HA001136140.aspx
2. ^ http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=7,191,394.PN.&OS=PN/7,191,394&RS=PN/7,191,394
3. ^ "Microsoft InfoPath Life-cycle Information". http://support.microsoft.com/lifecycle/search/default.aspx?sort=PN&alpha=infopath&Filter=FilterNO. Retrieved 2011-10-25. 

External links

Microsoft Corporate Sites

• Microsoft InfoPath - 'Homepage'
• InfoPath Team Blog
• Office 2010 product guide

Community Sites

• InfoPathDev: The InfoPath Authority - Run by former InfoPath development team members. 5 MVPs are members.

Related Third Party Sites

• Qdabra homepage - InfoPath Tools and Accelerators for forms designers
• Formotus homepage - Client software for using InfoPath forms on mobile devices