Geeky Girl : how to

InfoPath and Excel Services

JessMeats — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 14:39:00 GMT

Given that I spent a ridiculously long time trying to get an InfoPath form to interact with a spreadsheet published through Excel Services, I thought this was a suitable subject for a blog post. If I stop someone else feeling like they want to beat themselves to death with their own keyboard, I will consider it a job well done.

Assume the following, much simplified, scenario.

Step 1: A user fills out a field on an InfoPath form. Let’s call this Field_A.

Step 2: InfoPath sends this value to an Excel spreadsheet and puts it in a cell. Let’s call this CellA.

Step 3: Excel does some calculation based on this value and puts the result in another cell. Let’s call this CellB.

Step 4: Excel then sends this value back to InfoPath, which puts it in a field. Let’s call this Field_B.

You’ll probably want to call your fields and cells something much more meaningful based on exactly what it is you’re trying to do. Depending on your actual situation, you may want to do multiple lots of either steps 1 and 2, or steps 3 and 4, or both. This post is just to help with the principles.

Preparing the Fields

The first thing you need to do is to set named ranges in Excel. In your spreadsheet, click on CellA and in the name box, enter whatever it is you wish to call this cell. Then do the same with CellB. Make sure every cell you want to either put data into or read data out of through Excel Services is a named range and remember what you’ve called them all.

Once you’ve named your ranges, publish the spreadsheet to Excel Services, saving the file in a SharePoint library. Go to the library and right click on the name of your spreadsheet. Click “copy shortcut.”

Now go to your InfoPath form. I’m going to assume you’ve already laid up the form and inserted whatever fields you want. You’re going to have to add a few more fields. Add a field for range_name_A and set the default value to be whatever you’ve called CellA. Add another for range_name_B and set the default value to be whatever you’ve called CellB. Add a field for sheet_name and set to default value to “Sheet1” or whatever the sheet is called that contains your CellA and CellB (if the two cells are in different sheets, you will need a different sheet_name value for each of them).

Creating the Data Connections

You need to create a new data connection. Using the wizard, say you want to create a new data connection to receive data and click the option for a web service. You will be asked for the location of the webservice. Enter http://<servername>/<sitename>/_vti_bin/excelservice.asmx?WSDL where <servername> is the name of your server and <sitename> is the name of the site where your spreadsheet is.

On the next page of the wizard, you’ll be asked to choose an operation from a list. Choose OpenWorkbook.

On the next page, you’ll be asked to set parameters. Click on the one called tns:workbookPath and then click the “Set Value” button. Click into the “sample value” field and then click ctrl-v. This should copy into the field the exact url of your spreadsheet. If it doesn’t, you can manually type in the address but be careful not to make any typing errors.

Click next a couple of times until you get to the last screen of the wizard. Uncheck the box next to “automatically retireve data…” and then click “finish.”

That’s data connection number one. This will open up the spreadsheet you will be using. Now you need to create the data connection to send data to Excel. Choose to create a new data connection, this time to submit data.

Enter the same address for Excel Services. This time, choose the operation SetCellA1. In the next screen, you will be asked to set some parameters. Double click on sessionId. A window will open up to allow you to set this value to equal the value of one of your fields. From the drop-down list, choose the data connection you created to open the workbook, expand the folders and select OpenWorkbookResult. Next, double click on sheetName and choose the sheet_name field you created. Similarly, for rangeName, choose range_name_A. For cellValue, you will want to choose your Field_A. Now complete the wizard.

This data connection will take the value entered into Field_A and submit it via Excel Services, setting the value of CellA in your spreadsheet to be the same value.

Now we need to create the data connection to bring in the calculated value from CellB. Choose to create another new data connection. This time choose to receive data from a webservice. Enter the same webservice address. The operation this time is GetCellA1. Ignore all the parameters and just click “next” until you reach the final screen. Uncheck the box to automatically retrieve data and then finish the wizard.

There’s only one more data connection to go. Create a webservice connection to submit data and enter the same webservice address. Chose the operation CloseWorkbook. On the parameters screen, set the sessionId to equal the field OpenWorkbookResponse from your open workbook data connection. Click next and then finish the wizard.

You now have four data connections. One opens the workbook. One submits the value of Field_A to CellA. One retrieves the value from CellB. The final one closes the workbook again.

Querying the Data

You need to attach a rule to Field_A. Create a rule with no conditions so that it will activate when the value in the field changes (you could also do this using a button). This rule should consist of several actions.

Action 1: query using a data connection. Run the Open Workbook data connection.

Action 2: submit using a data connection. Run the SetCellA1 data connection.

Action 3: set a field’s value. In the fields for your GetCellA1 data connection, set the query field sessionId to equal the OpenWorkbookResponse field from your Open Workbook data connection.

Action 4: set a field’s value. In the fields for your GetCellA1 data connection, set the query field sheetName to equal your sheet_name field.

Action 5: set a field’s value. In the fields for your GetCellA1 data connection, set the query field rangeName to equal your range_name_B field.

Action 6: query using a data connection. Run the GetCellA1 data connection.

Action 7: submit using a data connection. Run the Close Workbook data connection.

So now the form is set up to send and retrieve the appropriate fields.

Finishing Off

This is the simple part. Go to Field_B and set the default value to equal GetCellA1Result from your GetCellA1 data connection.

Now your form should take the value entered in Field_A, send it via the data connections and display the CellB value in Field_B.

Just to check it all works, preview your form. With so many fiddly parameters to set, it’s easy to mis-type something. Fortunately, InfoPath’s errors will tell you which data connection is causing the problem and, often, even where the problem lies. For example, if it says that the sessionId is invalid, you’ve mistyped something entering the sessionId for that data connection.

I hope this post is a clear guide on how to get InfoPath and Excel to talk to each other. Feel free to leave me a comment either if you find this useful or if you’re still bewildered by the process.

How to: Create a read-only view

JessMeats — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 13:06:00 GMT

I'm continuing my series of how to videos by showing how to create a read-only view. There are several reasons why you might wish to do this, the most common being that you want to have forms that cannot be altered after a process has been completed. This principle can be expanded to create multiple views, each associated with a different step of a process.

Generating a unique form number

JessMeats — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 15:15:00 GMT

I’ve had someone ask me about automatically giving InfoPath forms a unique number. The scenario in question was one where the forms were being saved to a SharePoint document library with a unique number attached.

Documents in a SharePoint library do get given an ID, which is unique within document library. This can be used as the unique identifier of the forms out of the box with no additional work. The problem is, this only works so long as your forms remain in that document library. Once you start moving or copying forms (perhaps as part of a workflow) the ID will change.

In those situations, you will have to add a bit of work to your form to generate this number. You just have to be careful about when you generate it. If you have the possibility of multiple people filling out the form at the same time, you need to make sure the number is created in such a way that the method doesn’t result in forms being given the same number. If the form were to create this number on open, basing it on the number of files in the library, you would have issues when someone else opens the form template before the first form has been saved to the library. The easiest way round this issue is to have the number generated on submission.

Here I will describe a simple method of creating this auto number.

Firstly, you will need to create a data connection. If your forms (or a copy of them) are going remain in the document library they are submitted to, then you simply need to create a connection to retrieve data from that library. You only need to retrieve the data from one column. For the sake of argument, we’ll say the unique_number column. I’ll discuss another possibility in a bit for the scenario where forms will be moved or deleted from the library.

Set up the data connection using the wizard as you normally would, but uncheck the box when it asks whether to retrieve data when the form opens. You won’t want to get this information until the end. You will also want to set up the data connection to submit the form to the appropriate form library. Do this as you normally would, but make sure that one of your promoted fields is the unique_number field where you’ll be storing the unique ID of the form. From the submit options menu, uncheck the box labelled Show the Submit menu item and the Submit toolbar button. This is because you don’t want your users to just submit the form; you need the form to perform other actions first.

To allow your users to submit, add a button to the form. You’ll want this button to be set to trigger rules and custom code. Click on the Rules button, then Add, then Add Action. The action you want first is to query using a data connection. Choose the data connection you created to retrieve data from the form library.

The second action is to set a field’s value. The field will be your unique_number field. Click on the function button next to the value field. Insert a function. You have a couple of different options here. You can choose to perform the count function on the items in any field, or the max function on the unique_number field. Either way, you should end up with the most recent unique number assigned. So now, you just add one to get your new one.

The third and final action you need to add to this button is to submit the form.

So there you have it. Your form will now check how many items there are in the form library, create a unique number based on that value and save the form back. Brilliant!

But you can probably see why this method only works for scenarios where you leave the forms in the library. If you have a process that involves moving the form from that library to another, the count value will almost certainly be wrong and the max value might well be. There are probably several different ways to work around this. One simple way is to create a SharePoint list to act as a counter.

Have a list with one numeric element. You’ll want to set this list up so that it’s not visible from the menus on the site since you’ll only want to access it through the form and workflows. Initially, this will have the value of 1. Create a one step workflow using SharePoint Designer and attach this workflow to the form library. The workflow should trigger every time an item is created in the form library and all it should do is add 1 to the value in the counter (using the calculate value and update list item inbuilt actions). Then your form should retrieve data from this list instead of the document library and use the counter value as the unique_number.

How to: Connect to a database

JessMeats — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 17:22:00 GMT

Continuing my series of how to demos. I had a request to do a video showing how to show red, yellow, green indicators based on values from a database. Yesterday, I posted a demo showing how to set up indicators. Today, you get to see how to connect to a database. The procedure is the same to connect to an Access and a SQL database.

The procedure for connecting to a web service is very similar, but includes choosing which method to use for reading and writing data, based on a list of methods supported by the web service.

How to: Show indicators based on values

JessMeats — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:20:00 GMT

This video is a response to a request. The request was to show how to show indicators based on values taken from SQL. In this video, I showed how to set conditional formatting to show indicators based on the value in a field. In this example, the value was entered manually, but exactly the same process can be applied to set rules on fields where the data is taken from an external data source.

I can show how to connect to an external data source in a separate demo.

If you have a request for a how to video, please let me know.

How to: Display a form in SharePoint

JessMeats — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 12:37:00 GMT

Continuing my "how to" series with this requested demo. In this video, I show how to embed an InfoPath form as a web part in a SharePoint page.

If you have a request for a feature you'd like to see demonstrated, please leave a comment.

How to: Hide a Section

JessMeats — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:40:00 GMT

Continuing my series of "how to" videos, I show how to use conditional formatting to hide or show a section based on the values entered elsewhere in a form.

Conditional formatting can be incredibly valuable when you're creating a long, complex form where people might need to fill out different parts depending on the circumstances. By including a few, logical rules, you can ensure that people only see those parts of the form that are relevant to their circumstances. This makes the process of filling out the form much easier and reduces the frequency of errors, which can in turn reduce process costs.

If you have suggestions of features you'd like to see in this series, please leave a comment and I'll see what I can do.

How to: Auto Populate

JessMeats — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 13:10:00 GMT

A couple of different people have asked me how to auto-populate the values in fields based on the username and values in external data sources. Those questions were the inspiration for this series of videos. I will show how to do simple but useful things in InfoPath. If there's something you'd like to be shown how to do, please leave a note in the comments and I'll see what I can do.

InfoPath forms within SharePoint pages

JessMeats — Mon, 11 May 2009 13:56:00 GMT

One of the great things about InfoPath 2007 is that it allows people to design forms that can be opened in an internet browser. This means, if you have a SharePoint intranet, extranet or website, you can publish InfoPath forms to SharePoint and have people open up the forms even if they don’t have InfoPath installed on their computer.

This is good. What would be better would be being able to display a form within a SharePoint page, but it’s not always clear how to go about doing this. There is a very simple way to include an InfoPath form as a part of a SharePoint page and, by the end of this post, you should know it.

The first thing you need to do is make your form available for use. You can do this by going through the publishing wizard and choosing to upload the form as Site Content Type. You’d better also make sure that you’ve enabled the form to be filled out using a web browser. By default, forms created in InfoPath will be set to open up only in InfoPath, so you need to make sure you’ve got the compatibility correct.

Finish going through the rest of the steps of the wizard, putting in the details of the SharePoint site you want to use the form on, and click publish. This will put your form template onto SharePoint so that people can use it.

Once the form is published, the wizard will give you a final screen, which includes a link labelled “Open this form in the browser.” Click this link.

As you might expect, this will open up your web browser of choice and display your newly published form as a webpage. Copy the URL of this page.

Now open up the SharePoint page you want to display the form in. Edit this page as you would any other and choose to add a webpart in the appropriate place. This will open up a dialogue offering you a list of available webparts. Ignore the one that calls itself Form Web Part and instead select the one called Page View Web Part.

When you’ve added this part, you’ll get a little message saying to open the tool pane to add content. So open the tool pane and you will see a text box labelled link.

In this text box, enter the URL of your form.

You’ll probably need to adjust the height and width of the webpart using the appearance options to get the form displaying correctly. But, when you click OK, you’ll have your form displayed as a part of the webpage.

I said it was simple.

When you publish an InfoPath form as Site Content Type, it is displayed as a webpage and the Page Viewer webpart allows you to display a webpage within a SharePoint page.