SharePoint & InfoPath
What is it and how can you use it?
Marcel Meth
@marcelmeth
http://www.linkedin.com/in/marcelmeth
History of SharePoint& InfoPath
•
SharePoint: 2003, 2007, 2010, 2013....
•
InfoPath has been there all along
SharePoint
•
SharePoint (
Infrastructure / Back End
)
• started out as an “On Premises” tool.• You Needed Highly Skilled Server Administrators to run a Windows Server farm, SQL Server, and SharePoint.
• Basically Two different types of SKUs: SharePoint
• Office 365 – Cloud version of SharePoint, Exchange, Office, and Lync
• Although Microsoft has had online offerings, they haven’t been good until 2013.
• There is a lot of distrust of cloud based offerings…….
• Microsoft claims that Office 365 is there fasted growing product ever
SharePoint
•
SharePoint (
Front End
)
• From the front end, On Premises and Office 365 look and feel very similar.
• SharePoint’s Lingua Franca is :”lists” and “Libraries.”
• The great thing about this is that you can easily export a summary of items into Excel or Access.
• You can easily provide users with different views of the items:
• You can show users only the items that belong to them
• You can show users only the items in a workflow that they need to see • You can show a summary of data that the current user is allowed to see
SharePoint
•
SharePoint (
Assumptions
)
• The community of users are all members of SharePoint (Means they log in on a regular basis)
• SharePoint is easily available
• Either people sit at their desk at work and there is no login process (Single Login) • Users login through a VPN and it is not onerous
• Users log into SharePoint Online (Office 365) – once a day.
InfoPath
•
Why I love it
• You do not need to be a developer to use it
(It does take a while to get good at it, but if you are good with Excel, then you can be good at InfoPath)
• You do not need to involve anyone from the back end to accomplish a lot!
•
What you should know
• Developers do not like InfoPath
• Microsoft recently announced that InfoPath will be going away after SP 2013
• Microsoft did not say what they will be replacing it with, but they promised to have a migration tool.
Tools you Will Need
•
InfoPath 2013 (Comes with Office Professional)
•
SharePoint Designer 2013 (Free download)
SharePoint Forms
•
Types of Forms
• Native SharePoint Forms
• Customized Native SharePoint Forms
•
Customized InfoPath Forms
• Custom Built HTML/JavaScriptForms
• Microsoft Access Forms
• Microsoft Word Forms
•
Workflows
SharePoint Forms
•
Types of Forms
•
Native SharePoint Forms
• Customized Native SharePoint Forms • Customized InfoPath Forms
• Custom Built HTML/JavaScript Forms • Microsoft Access Forms
• Microsoft Word Forms
•
Native SharePoint Forms
• Here to stay • Simplistic
• Business Users
• Works with workflows
SharePoint Forms
•
Types of Forms
• Native SharePoint Forms
• Customized Native SharePoint Forms
• Customized InfoPath Forms
• Custom Built HTML/JavaScript Forms • Microsoft Access Forms
• Microsoft Word Forms
•
Customized Native SharePoint
Forms
• Here to stay
• Can be very sophisticated
• Need to be a front end developer • Works with workflows
SharePoint Forms
•
Types of Forms
• Native SharePoint Forms
• Customized Native SharePoint Forms
•
Customized InfoPath Forms
• Custom Built HTML/JavaScript Forms • Microsoft Access Forms
• Microsoft Word Forms
•
Customized InfoPath Forms
• Microsoft just announced they will be discontinuing InfoPath (SP 2015) • Can be very sophisticated
• Sophisticated Business User (Similar to Excel Formulas) • Works with workflows
SharePoint Forms
•
Types of Forms
• Native SharePoint Forms
• Customized Native SharePoint Forms • Customized InfoPath Forms
• Custom Built HTML/JavaScript Forms
• Microsoft Access Forms • Microsoft Word Forms
•
Custom Built HTML/JavaScript
Form
• Here to stay
• Can be very Sophisticated
• Need to be a front end developer • works with workflows
SharePoint Forms
•
Types of Forms
• Native SharePoint Forms
• Customized Native SharePoint Forms • Customized InfoPath Forms
• Custom Built HTML/JavaScript Forms
• Microsoft Access Forms
• Microsoft Word Forms • Third Party Forms
• Nintex
• K2
•
Microsoft Access Forms
• Microsoft just announced this as a new direction
• Can be sophisticated
• Sophisticated Business User (Similar to Excel Formulas)
• Does **not** work with workflows
SharePoint Forms
•
Types of Forms
• Native SharePoint Forms
• Customized Native SharePoint Forms • Customized InfoPath Forms
• Custom Built HTML/JavaScript Forms • Microsoft Access Forms
• Microsoft Word Forms
•
Microsoft Word Forms
• Not very sophisticated
• Sophisticated Business User
• End users are familiar with word • Works with workflows
SharePoint Forms - Examples
•
Examples
• Surveys • Requests • Approvals•
Survey
• Social Scientists• Companies asking customers or
employees
• State asking small businesses about healthcare
•
Requests
• Request/signup for benefits
• Carpool, Insurance, iPhone
• Request things that you need
• Chemical Compounds
• Glassware
•
Approvals
• Alcohol at company event
Workflows (Next Session)
•
Actions you need to take once the form data has been submitted
• Send emails• Move files
• Change Permissions
• Start an approval workflow
Summary
•
InfoPath is a powerful tool that lets you build highly functional forms
quickly
• Can easily read from numerous SharePoint lists
• Can easily brand forms
• Can write to a single SharePoint list
• Can create forms that selectively show controls
