Chapter 11: Using InfoPath with SharePoint 2013
WHAT'S IN THIS CHAPTER?
n Designing InfoPath forms
n Using features in InfoPath and InfoPath Forms Services 2013
n Applying InfoPath best practices
n Programatically working with InfoPath Forms
WROX.COM CODE DOWNLOADS FOR THIS CHAPTER
The wrox.com code downloads for this chapter are found at www.wrox.com/remtitle.cgi?isbn=1118495829 on the Download Code tab. The
code is in the chapter 11 download and individually named according to the names throughout the chapter.
Capturing and displaying data is a critical part of SharePoint. InfoPath helps end users modify those views quickly. The key advantage of
InfoPath is that it provides an easy-to-use interface for structured forms and provides rich developer functionality for adding business logic.
To create and display forms, SharePoint 2013 uses a service on the server called InfoPath Forms Services. This service is designed to
enable end users to use their browsers to fill out InfoPath forms and enable administrators to manage those forms. SharePoint provides a full
object model for the InfoPath client, InfoPath forms, and InfoPath server administration. This enables developers to build enterprise business
processes and forms that can be sophisticated yet easy to create. This has enabled the development of powerful business applications such
as dashboards, data capture forms, and many more.
InfoPath continues to improve the integration with the other Office 2013 products with changes to the look and buttons like the Insert Image
location. No new functionality or scenarios have been introduced, but InfoPath 2010 and SharePoint 2010 features are still supported and
highlighted for InfoPath 2013 and SharePoint 2013 developers.
The biggest change in InfoPath 2013 is the new way to write and edit code. When writing code for InfoPath 2013, InfoPath now requires Visual
Studio 2012 with the Microsoft Visual Studio Tools for Applications 2012 add-on to be installed. You will quickly notice that you need these
components as soon as you try to open the code editor. The programming experience and assembly references have not fundamentally
changed, but you now have the benefits of the most up-to-date version of Visual Studio when developing InfoPath forms.
INTRODUCING THE TRAINING MANAGEMENT APPLICATION
In this chapter, you use an example of a Training Management application built for a fictitious company named Adventure Works, which
illustrates the capabilities of InfoPath 2013 and Forms Services 2013. There have not been many large changes between InfoPath 2010 and
InfoPath 2013, so many of these examples would work in both systems. First, walk through the application and how it works from the user's
perspective.
Scenario: The Human Resources (HR) Department at Adventure Works uses SharePoint and InfoPath to implement a training-course system.
You can think of the Training Management application as a set of three use cases as follows:
n New training creation use case
n Training registration use case
n Increment stat counter use case
The Adventure Works staff can perform various activities in this application. For example, the training coordinator can create training events
and add them to a SharePoint list named Trainings. This list will be customized and enhanced by InfoPath 2013 to facilitate the training
creation use case.
Also, the HR Department at Adventure Works allows its employees to register for a training class. The training registration form is designed in
InfoPath and can be hosted inside the InfoPath Form web part on a web part page. The training registration form must be rendered in a typical
desktop web browser and in browsers on handheld or mobile devices.
After a training request is filled out and saved, the result is stored in a form library named Registrations, and an event handler associated with
the Registrations form library updates a counter in another custom SharePoint list, named Stats. The Stats list is hidden from employees so
that its content can't be modified and it does not clutter navigation.
Creating the Sample List
To create powerful forms with SharePoint and InfoPath you need to create the SharePoint lists and libraries that you can work with. To create
the training list, start by creating a new custom list and add the following fields:
n Title — A title for the training events; a single line of text.
n Class Code — Each class has a unique identifier for the training class (unique eight-character fixed); a single line of text.
