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One of my friends, who doesn’t normally read this blog, as the following questions of a thread that I was included on:
“I am working with a XXXX team at XXXXXX Corporation and found myself in a call with their IT management. “
They have had some real problems using InfoPath with Sharepoint, and are wondering if Lightswitch might not be a better route. “
Do any of you know how we might get these questions answered?
- Can LightSwitch be a good replacement for InfoPath
- LightSwitch is not the same as InfoPath, but at any distance they appear to be very similar:
- InfoPath: Has a “form designer” that allows the designer to line things up, and fiddle around with the screen
- LightSwitch does the fiddling around with the UX for you
- Both can be used for form filling purposes
- InfoPath is included with MS Office
- LightSwitch is an additional cost
- Video explaining deployment:
- What is a key difference between LightSwitch and InfoPath?
- LightSwitch is a Tier 2 and Tier 3 application and can be used with Clients like Excel directly (Tier 2), IIS or Azure (Tier 3), or Browser (again Tier 3). (See video above)
- Infopath is designed to be used as a Windows Client and can be used with Browsers
- My Answers (as always verify anything I say)
- InfoPath is a client based forms tool that is used for data entry
- For more information see: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff604966(office.14).aspx
- LightSwitch would be used with InfoPath, as tier 3 application, not as a client form
- How well can LightSwitch intergrate with SharePoint?
- My Answers:
- Very well, LightSwitch as the capability of reading Sharepoint lists
- See: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff852017.aspx
- My Answers:
- What are the pros and cons with using Lightswitch with SharePoint?
- A Bing search didn’t turn up anything definitive and since I have only used LightSwitch with databases, I got nothing for this question
- Is LightSwitch scalable?
- Yes, LightSwitch is a Tier 3 application and is scalable
- Can LightSwitch be used with other browsers like FireFox and Chrome?
- No definitive answer, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work with FireFox or Chrome, but that isn’t the answer you want to see.
The person to ask wasn’t anyone on the thread, but rather a frequent and excellent blogger:
Beth Massi: https://channel9.msdn.com/Niners/funkyonex/
I like LightSwitch better than InfoPath, which for some reason I have never really liked, but not for any good reason. LightSwitch seems to turn on my programmer brain and InfoPath doesn’t.