I'm obsessed with InfoPath...

Or at least it's capabilities.  For years I've struggled with, and invented,
and fudged, and jury-rigged, many ways to deal with and track project information. 
We have a status report InfoPath form in a Sharepoint library, and each Monday I read
each project status for the week, and compile it to a separate spreadsheet
and status report.  This week I gave in to my feeling that there must
be a better way, and spent a day digging into InfoPath, and how I could surface information
from the status in the library views.  I ended up adding a couple of fields to
the form to allow us to group status in different way (there's still not an easy way
in Sharepoint  to filter documents in a relative date range, so I added a "WeekOf"
field), and then an internal type grouping field), and created views which allow me,
and everyone else at MDSN, to check current project status at a glance.  It's
so exactly what I need.

My mind has been spinning with possibility.  I also created a form this week
for requesting new projects, and spent my Saturday morning tweaking it (adding validation, conditional
fields and the like).  I had to be reminded at dinner tonight that not everyone
was interested (luckily my partner is, at least to a point) in the opportunities provided
by the InfoPath/Sharepoint combination.  I can't wait to finish up and roll out
the new form, and also I can't wait to update the status report InfoPath form to use
a secondary data source, xml of course, to feed my drop-down lists.  Woo hoo,
this standardization of project names will allow me to connect with other data
sources like bug stats, and give me a way to comapre the current lists of projects
with what's in the library to make sure we've gotten status for each one. 
It should also allow me to work towards a file name standardization by suggesting
a filename that combines project name and date for saving to the library.

Comments

• Anonymous
  September 24, 2003
  Infopath and Sharepoint are AWESOME tools! If you are someone who likes process and organization, this combo can be your best friend. I have been using both for past 5-6 months and have to say I would have great issues turning back. And I know I haven't even started to tap its potential.
• Anonymous
  September 24, 2003
  http://www.codevoid.net/script/getEntry.aspx?id=15 For my rant on InfoPath
• Anonymous
  September 25, 2003
  The comment has been removed
• Anonymous
  December 17, 2003
  The comment has been removed
• Anonymous
  March 17, 2004
  Here is an interesting article that speaks directly to using SharePoint lists as a secondary datasource. Requires use of IPath Service Pack 1, but sure makes it look easy!
• Anonymous
  March 17, 2004
  http://weblogs.asp.net/jan/archive/2004/03/10/87466.aspx
• Anonymous
  July 04, 2004
  can you share samples of your status report Infopath forms? I have a similar need and I want to combine the use of Sharepoint and Infopath.