SharePoint Designer Workflows and Infopath

Last night someone said that you could not use a SP Designer Workflow with Infopath.  I guess it’s one of those things that not everyone has worked with.  I take it for granted, because I have been using SPD workflows and Infopath.  For all of you who never actually have used Infopath.  You can publish an Infopath Form and elevate certain fields in the form to a SharePoint Form Library.  Before you want to add these columns to the library you want to add them to the Form Options Section (Tools Menu –> Form Options).  When in this menu select Property Promotion and you can add or remove any Infopath field.  You can even name the fields what you want, so that it looks a lot nicer in the form library.  Then what you want to do is add a workflow the same way you would normally add one in SPD.  Click on File –> Open Site and type in your site name.  Then click on File –> New –> Workflow.  You can attach the workflow to your form library once it is published.  The one gotcha you have to remember is an endless loop will occur if you have the workflow running when the form library is updated.  You want to add a Stop command for each If/Else statement or you will end up with endless looping that could possibly have some fun consequences.  Now I wouldn’t recommend using SPD for hardcore complicated workflows, but it is very nice for simple easy workflows tacked onto an Infopath Form Library or even a list that could use a simple workflow.  Don’t get me started on really complex Infopath Forms with crazy repeating fields and XPath.  I created a few for 2003 and it ended really scary.  Remember Repeating Fields do not mesh well with columns if you want each step broken into separate fields in your form library.  If you really wanted a pretty display you could create your own custom one with XSLT or a nice webpart.  It’s doable, but probably not easy if you want something on every single form library.  I am hoping this helped some people understand that you don’t need to do anything crazy with Infopath and that it’s all out of the box with SPD and Infopath.  I hope that you all have a good weekend.

Print | posted on Friday, June 05, 2009 10:06 AM

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# re: SharePoint Designer Workflows and Infopath

Left by April Wolfe at 6/22/2009 3:36 PM
Gravatar I totally agree. I've done InfoPath/SPD workflows and they work fine, and they are easy to hand off to business users as long as there is no custom code within the InfoPath forms. One thing I will say, though, is that it'll sometimes display 'unknown error' when a workflow is trying to use a column that is populated by the InfoPath form. Add a 1-minute pause before trying to use any columns from SPD, and that resolves the issue (it allows the InfoPath data to be fully "checked in")

#  SharePoint Designer Workflows and Infopath

Left by Faraz at 7/13/2009 11:04 PM
Gravatar I am using the infopath form with the SP Designer 2007. In the condition i am comparing a field from the infopath from and then creating an action for that condition.
after 3 4 conditions, the workflow is not comparing any field if i creat a new condition but the previous conditions are still properly working..

Kindly guide me..

# re: SharePoint Designer Workflows and Infopath

Left by Brandt Fuchs at 7/30/2009 12:41 PM
Gravatar I've been using InfoPath forms with SPD workflows for awhile myself. My experience has been similar to what you've described above. I just recently encountered some odd beharvior. I published a new version of my InfoPath template, and all of the promoted properties lost their associations. The list view showed blanks for all promoted properties, and the references to the promoted properties in the SPD workflow had to be reassociated. All i had to do to get the properties back into the list was to edit each item. Do you have any insight as to what might have caused this? I've published many new versions of templates utilizing workflows, but this is the first time that promoted properties lost all associations. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

# re: SharePoint Designer Workflows and Infopath

Left by hazem at 8/4/2009 8:32 AM
Gravatar nice , but I want to send the form itself as an action when some condition happen to spicific email?
in SPD 2007 you can send the added fields by email , not to send the form itself .. nay help ?

# re: SharePoint Designer Workflows and Infopath

Left by shadi at 8/6/2009 6:13 AM
Gravatar im using infopath with SPD 2007 ,but when some one opens the workflow link in broswer and click back on the broswer the form stuck and you have to click multible backs in order to complete task any ideas ?

# re: SharePoint Designer Workflows and Infopath

Left by JM at 9/3/2009 2:41 AM
Gravatar hi,

i have a problem using the infopath....i have a workflow that every time a certain list created a record, it would then create a form in the infopath list... but my problem now is that it keeps on creating a .xsn file which cannot be edited...i need the workflow to create a .xml file....any ideas how to do this??? please help me....very urgent matter.....thanks

# re: SharePoint Designer Workflows and Infopath

Left by Henry McClain at 10/9/2009 6:16 AM
Gravatar I have an InfoPath purchase request form that needs to be processed by the program manager for any given department/section. I'm thinking I would program logic into the form to selectively submit the form to the appropriate workflow. Can you please point me to a good resource on how to do something like this? A book, tutorial, and article... anything? I come from a Java background and .NET is not my strong suite. Plus I have no idea how to write my own workflow. I'm having trouble finding good references for this stuff.

# re: SharePoint Designer Workflows and Infopath

Left by Alan at 10/9/2009 8:02 AM
Gravatar Would also like to know if anyone has created infopath form based on item being added to list. This is sort of a work around to "mail enable" a document library. Would like to create an infopath form instance each time a mail item creates a record in a SP list.

# re: SharePoint Designer Workflows and Infopath

Left by Greg at 11/6/2009 11:32 AM
Gravatar I have the same Problem as Brandt Fuchs. Does anyone know why and how to fix. I have done hundreds uf form mods but this is the first time i lost associstion between form fields and sharepoint list AND workflows!

I would really like to know how I can recover my workflow.

# re: SharePoint Designer Workflows and Infopath

Left by Jeroen Ritmeijer at 12/21/2009 4:47 AM
Gravatar Although the 'real programmer' in me was initially sceptical, I have come to the conclusion that SharePoint Designer, especially in combination with InfoPath, works great.

It is correct that repeating rows in a form make things more difficult, but in combination with a 3rd party workflow action you can pretty much do anything.

Here is the one I created. It allows C# or VB code to be embedded directly into SPD Workflows. The manual contains an example about extracting deeply nested Infopath variables.

Blog post at: http://www.muhimbi.com/blog/2009/12/embed-c-or-vb-code-directly-in.html

# re: SharePoint Designer Workflows and Infopath

Left by Brandon at 1/20/2010 6:34 AM
Gravatar Alan and GM,
I found this article which explains how to create a new infopath form instance via the Create List Item action in a SharePoint Designer Workflow:

http://www.bizsupportonline.net/blog/2009/06/create-infopath-forms-sharepoint-designer-workflow/

# re: SharePoint Designer Workflows and Infopath

Left by Gary Drake at 3/31/2010 10:18 PM
Gravatar I am using SPD workflows to copy InfoPath form to an SP library. The copied InfoPath form is stripped of much of its data in the process. Any suggestions much appreciated.

# re: SharePoint Designer Workflows and Infopath

Left by shankarHP at 12/1/2010 7:48 AM
Gravatar Could anyone let me know if we could create a infopath in formlibary using a sharepoint designer.It worked well in 2007 but in 2010 I am able creae a infopath but it has extension .xsn instead of .xml hence unable to open in the web.

# SharePoint Designer Workflows and Infopath

Left by pranay chandra at 12/24/2010 2:58 PM
Gravatar hi,
i am new to sharepoint and infopath
i need to create a leave approval form in which user applies for leave and after applying leave the form must be sent to his manager for approval or rejection,if approve form must be sent to hr,if rejected mail the user that leave is rejected

i need to create in sharepoint designer

plz help me,i have been trying from 2 weeks but no result

# re: SharePoint Designer Workflows and Infopath

Left by Sridhar Dhanabalan at 10/13/2011 4:10 AM
Gravatar Hi,

I am currently converting existing HP Quality center to Infopath forms in sharepoint i had requirement that i will able to get all the existing Tickets and excel and put it in Sharepoint List i want to copy details from list one by one and create infopath form dynamically

i am trying with creating sharepoint workflow to update item so i am creating empty form and submit to infopath form library it will trigger workflow to copy list item to form library.for bulk items creating dynamic infopath forms and fill list data in it how to acheive that
Please help on this i am trying it for a week but unable to find concrete solution

Thanks
Sridhar

# re: SharePoint Designer Workflows and Infopath

Left by Michael at 12/8/2011 6:31 AM
Gravatar To enhance workflow authoring we offer HarePoint Workflow Extensions software ( http://www.harepoint.com/Products/HarePointWorkflowExtensions/ ) - about 200 new workflow activities, including free ones. It's fully supported by SharePoint Designer 2010.

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