How to Query a Form Library in SharePoint 2010

Question

I have a SharePoint 2010 Form Library that will have multiple documents. I have one form that will be feeding/creating each of these documents.

Essentially, I need to have one document per each office for our company. Each office will fill in the forms and submit them. Most of the data is for a checklist of items to complete. Each item will have a modified and modifiedby field with a home office chcek bod to confirm, also with mod/modby fields.

I'm going to need to be able to run reports off of the data that is stored in these individual XML files. I have yet to find a definitive answer through Lord Google... Hopefully someone here will have the answer!

Thanks!

Matt Lansing, MI

ADDED DETAIL

Thanks very much for both answers!

I’d like to give a little more detail into why I was choosing to use a Form Library instead of a SP list…

The requirements for this project is to have approximately 70 check boxes as a readiness process for cutting over to a new software system. Each check box needs to have 5 pieces of extra data associated to each. A Modified, ModifiedBy for the check box and another checkbox to show that Home Office confirmed this with a Modified, ModifiedBy associated to it.

Potentially I would have 420 items of data per office. We have over 200 offices.

I’m trying to figure out the best way to have this data collected while being able to run reports on who has completed what portion of their form.

By default, a list will have a modified and modifiedby columns for the entire form. I need it for each line item. I figure that using the Form Library, I can force each office to have its own file with the office number as the file name.

Can you think of a better way to accomplish this?

I appreciate any assistance any of you can give! Thanks!

Answer 1

I think your basic idea is to get information from these documents and display them differently as reports or views.

1) One way you could achieve this is by Mapping the InfoPath form fields to a list column. These fields can be part of your Form library columns. Whenever you publish an InfoPath form to a form library, you would be prompted with the following screen

Here you can map columns from the Infopath fields that result as columns in the library. Later on, you can create different views as reports based on these column values. You can think about having a "Status" column of the Form displayed on the list, with even workflows triggered by the change of these "Status" values.

2) Use InfoPath List Forms, where the InfoPath Form is directly bound as list columns. You should be aware of some limitations though in this kind of approach, like you cannot add Repeater controls, coding of the form would be limited like the way you create Sandbox solutions, etc.

Answer 2

You do not have to query the actual XML Files. Sharepoint Infopath Form services can submit the data your users capture in the form, back into any List. In other words, when your user submits the form, the data capture in that form will be stored in a Sharepoint list.

When creating a new template in Infopath 2010 , there are two options related to Sharepoint.

1. Sharepoint List (use this one) This option allows you to create/customise a form and the data is then stored in a sharepoint list.

2. Sharepoint Form Library This is propably the option you are using at the moment because by default it saves the filled out form as a document within a form library. You can also use this option to save data to a list by adding another Export connection pointing to your sharepoint list.

Read here for a good tutorial/intro article on Infopath with Sharepoint:

http://www.windowsitpro.com/article/sharepoint/infopath-2010-with-sharepoint-2010-a-walkthrough