Submitting Data to SharePoint List Through InfoPath Form

Pre-requisites: InfoPath 2007, Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, Visual Studio Tools for Applications.

In this post, I am going to detail about how to submit the data from an InfoPath form to a SharePoint List.

In order to detail this, I am taking an example of a feedback form, where in the end users will fill the form and submit, and upon submitting the form, the details entered in the form will be submitted to a SharePoint List.

Step 1: First of Create a Custom List in a SharePoint Site. I have named it as Feedback. Now create some columns as per your feedback form. I have created Username, Subject, Description, and EmailID as columns in which all the columns are of type Single text.

Step 2: Now open InfoPath Form 2007, and follow the below steps which has to be done in InfoPath Form.

1. In Getting Started Wizard, Select Design a Form Template.
   
   
2. In Design a Form Template, make sure that, Form Template -> Blank -> and finally Check box saying that "Enable Browser-Compatible features only" are Selected.
   
   
3. Now when the Form Opens, see the Design Tasks Pane, if you don't see this pane, you can select it from Menu options from View and select Task Pane or press F1. Most of the tasks that we perform in designing the InfoPath form are from here in the Design Task Pane.
   
   
   
4. Click on Layout in Design Task Pane and then click on Custom Table... link.
   
   
   And a window pops up requesting for number of Columns and Rows. Enter 3 and 6 respectively.
   
   
5. And the table appears in the design window in which you have to add Text boxes and Rich Text box from the Design Task Pane in Controls, so that the form as a whole should appear as follows.
   
   
6. Now Click on Data Sources in Design Task Pane. Name the Data Sources as shown below. The names should be appropriate to the labels mentioned such as Username holds datasource nameDS, Subject -> subjectDS, Description -> descriptionDS, Email ID -> emailDS respectively.
7. You will now see one more datasource that is been added in the Data Source which is listID. To get this, right click on myFields and select Add.
   
   
   There you do the following. You will be seeing a number in the default value ie., "9FE04D9C-1C6E-4A96-8FA1-785C878DD0F5".
   
   
   
   
   This is the SharePoint list ID, which you will be getting it from SharePoint Site. In order to get this ID, Click on Site Actions -> Site Settings -> Modify All Settings, and then select "site libraries and lists" in the 'Site Administration' category.
   
   
   Then select your list name and if you look into the URL, you can find the list ID. ie., http://mossdev2:3672/_layouts/ListEdit.aspx?List={9FE04D9C-1C6E-4A96-8FA1-785C878DD0F5}&Source=http%3A%2F%2Fmossdev2%3A3672%2F%5Flayouts%2Fmcontent%2Easpx. This bold value is the listID in the URL. Copy that value and paste it in the default value.
8. Now change the Button name, ie double click on the button place in the table. Change the name of the button to Submit, as shown below.
9. Now we should create Data Connections. For this example, we need two dataconnections, one is to submit the data to SharePoint list and the other is an XML data connection which is used to match the InfoPath form Data Sources to SharePoint List Columns.

DataConnection to match the InfoPath Form Data Sources to SharePoint List Columns:

1. Open a Notepad and write the following code in it.
2. Code:
   If you observe, this code, first line is all about the version of XML and the accepted encoding value, which will be the same and then there is a Batch tag in which we are defining Methods that has ID and Command(Such as Update, New,Delete etc.,) and within which we have mentioned the Field names which represent SharePoint List Column names.
3. Now save this file with extension as .xml. I have saved the file name with feedback.xml
4. Now go back to InfoPath, and in the menu, Click on Tools -> DataConnections and then Click Add in the Data Connection Wizard. Select 'Create a new connection to:' and then select Recieve data and Click Next. Select XML document and then click Next, and finally browse the file feedback.xml which you have created in Step 2 and click Next. Select the option 'Include the data as a resource file in the form template or template part' and click Next. Give a name to this Data Connection, I have given the name as feedback.
   
   We are now done, Creating one Data Connection.

DataConnection for Submitting the Data: In the men, Click on Tools -> DataConnections and then Click Add in the Data Connection Wizard.

1. Select the option Create a new Connection to: and click Next, Select To a Web service to submit your data. And in the "Enter the location of the Web service you want users to submit their forms to: " add the URL of your SharePoint Site, ie., http://<mossdev2:3672>/_vti_bin/lists.asmx?WSDL this locates the webservice for your sharepoint site in which you want to submit the data and then Click Next. Please Note: the above url has to be replaced with your SharePoint Site Collection Url. ie., <mossdev2:3672> has to be replaced with your SharePoint Site Collection URL.
2. You will now be showing a list of web services, as our goal is to submit the data, we are going to select the option UpdateListItems option and then click Next. You will be seeing the Parameters list in which you will be having tns:listName and tns:udpates. Double click on tns:listName and here you have to specify the listname which InfoPath form is referering . Initially we have created a Datasource by name listID in which we have refered to SharePoint list by its listID and hence we are going to give that datasource here and hence select the DataSource listID and click OK. Now Double Click on tns:updates, and in the Data Source window, select the previously created Data Connection that is feedback and then select Batch and click OK.
3. Next in the Parameter Options, Select the Field or Group that refers to listID and in the Include:, you have to select XML subtree, including selected item and click Next.

Thats it, you are now done, creating the 2 Data Connections.

Now it is the time for us to talk about the Submit Button in the form. If you double click the form, it will open up the properties window, in which you have to click on edit form code.


This will redirect to VSTA editor. if it is showing an error such as the following:


It means that you haven't installed the VSTA. You have to install VSTA in order to perform coding in InfoPath forms. For directions to installing VSTA, Click here...

Once it is redirected to VSTA editor, the code inside will look like the following..


Write the following code in Button Click Event "CTRL1_5_Clicked"
try
{
XPathNavigator root = MainDataSource.CreateNavigator();

// Retrieve the values for the separation list item
string listID = root.SelectSingleNode("/my:myFields/my:listID", NamespaceManager).Value;
string nameDS = root.SelectSingleNode("/my:myFields/my:nameDS", NamespaceManager).Value;
string subjectDS = root.SelectSingleNode("/my:myFields/my:subjectDS", NamespaceManager).Value;
string descriptionDS = root.SelectSingleNode("/my:myFields/my:descriptionDS", NamespaceManager).Value;
string emailDS = root.SelectSingleNode("/my:myFields/my:emailDS", NamespaceManager).Value;

if (listID == null || listID == "" || nameDS == "" || subjectDS == "" || descriptionDS == null || emailDS == null)
{ }
else
{

//This is CAML xml file. it contains batch and method nodes
XPathNavigator batch = DataSources["feedback"].CreateNavigator();

batch.SelectSingleNode("/Batch/Method/Field[@Name='Title']", NamespaceManager).SetValue(nameDS);
batch.SelectSingleNode("/Batch/Method/Field[@Name='Subject']", NamespaceManager).SetValue(subjectDS);
batch.SelectSingleNode("/Batch/Method/Field[@Name='Description']", NamespaceManager).SetValue(descriptionDS);
batch.SelectSingleNode("/Batch/Method/Field[@Name='EmailID']", NamespaceManager).SetValue(emailDS);

DataConnections["Web Service Submit"].Execute();
}
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
ex.Message.ToString();
}


Now that you are done with coding. You now need to preview the form, by clicking preview, and you will see the form, fill the details and click on submit. The details will be submitted in the SharePoint list.

Once this testing is done, you can now Publish this InfoPath form to the SharePoint Site.

Hope you like this post. Have a nice day. Will come up with another post sooner.



If interested, you can have a look at Visual Studio Workflows which was explained clearly by Zaltan's blog at http://dotnet.org.za/zlatan/archive/2007/09/15/how-to-create-a-sharepoint-2007-workflow-using-visual-studio-2008-beta-example.aspx

Requirements: http://walaapoints.blogspot.com/2007/02/custom-workflow-with-visual-studio-2005.html