SharePoint Forms &

InfoPath – Go with

what you know

Colin Phillips :: SharePoint MVP :: itgroove

January 2015

Who I am: Colin Phillips

My Background

16+ Years in Technology

Today: SharePoint Consultant and MVP (with itgroove)

Previously:

12 Years Developing Software, IT Infrastructure Projects, Workflows, and Many Other Related Topics

B.Sc. in Computer Science from UVic

My Socialness

Blog: mmman.itgroove.net / Twitter: @itgroove_colin

Where to learn more

cphillips@itgroove.net

InfoPath!? Are You Crazy? It’s 2015!

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

• Seriously? InfoPath is dead, how can you be recommending it?

• Why isn’t this presentation about how we should use another forms

product instead?

• What’s wrong with out of the box SharePoint column settings and calculated columns?

• Why shouldn’t we just customize the out of the box SharePoint forms? Developers Rule!

• Surely there’s some “free” JavaScript / jQuery solution that can do the same thing…

“InfoPath is Dead” … Well, it is, isn’t it? (Insert smirk here)

• Anyone who says this is simply not facing the facts. InfoPath does a lot of

things, and it does them very well, even if it’s a product that has a limited

shelf life (depending on how you look at it).

• Quote: Glen Furnas at sharepoint-community.net: "Simply put, InfoPath is

a multi-purpose product that’s been put to use in a wide variety of ways,

and no single alternative will ever replace it in all its roles.“

• Ask around and see how many people are still using Windows XP. Now

ask those same people about running XP this time last year, two years

ago, even three – upgrades happen slowly, and typically only when

motivated.

So Let’s All Calm Down and Think About This Rationally

• InfoPath is still a product in the current Office product suite (as of Jan 2015)

• A deprecated product is not a product that is EOL today, in fact, to quote the

Office Team, “InfoPath 2013 desktop client and InfoPath Forms Services for

SharePoint Server 2013 will continue to be supported through 2023”

• There is no Microsoft offering yet released (even in beta – even alpha!) that

is designed in whole or in part to replace any portion of what InfoPath does

• Microsoft is aware there are literally millions of InfoPath forms in widespread

use. They’ll come up with a plan to handle migration in some form. Right??

Q.E.D InfoPath is not going away anytime soon

The Potential Future of Forms in the Microsoft World

Microsoft Slide from SPC 2014

A Quick Look at FoSL (Yeah… can we hire a new “naming guy”?)

• Is it / was it released? No…ish.

• A question appears in the forums with this pic:

• Apparently it was briefly released in Office 365

developer environments – like a day or two?

• Looking further at the roadmap is… amusing

• Under “In development”…

Forms on SharePoint Lists

This feature will allow for in-browser list form customization on top

of SharePoint lists and will allow for in-browser list item editing

without having to go to a different view as well as adding and

rearranging list columns in the custom view.

• The “More Info” link takes you to a completely unrelated page

with no mention of FoSL (not even the word “form”)

More on FoSL: http://blog.metrostarsystems.com/2014/06/18/infopath-

depricated-what-is-infopaths-replacement/

So Then, Why Not Another (3rd Party) Forms Product?

First reason…

To paraphrase The Simpsons;

o Trying to get any of our customers to seriously consider a

3rd party option has proven very difficult (regardless of the

ROI)

o Why pay for some third party product when you already

have a powerful tool at your disposal? (Hint: InfoPath)

o Thus far, only InfoPath has all the power on premise as well

as online. Third party Office 365 solutions leave somewhat

to be desired (often much more than somewhat).“The finger thing means the money!”

What Are Some 3rd Party Options?

Product Available on Premises (2013) Available in Office 365

Nintex Forms Yes Yes

Formotus Forms Yes, but not direct integration with SharePoint Yes, but not direct integration

K2 SmartForms Yes Yes… when combined with

Workflow?

KWizCom Yes No

SPForm Yes Yes (different name & functionality)

PDF ShareForms Yes No

Forms7 Yes (in version 0.0.081) No

Dell Quick Apps Um… yes? Their website was really unclear No

A reasonably complete list of options

5 Alternatives to InfoPath for SharePoint forms (from ShareGate):

http://en.share-gate.com/blog/5-alternatives-to-infopath-for-sharepoint-forms

Why Not Just Use the Out of the Box SharePoint

Columns / Forms … Hello? Anyone?

• When talking seriously about what SharePoint can do with just

modifying the column settings, you start to run out of options

fairly quickly.

• Yes, mostly all the column types you could want are there, but

the logic rules you can apply to the columns is severely limited

• There’s no concept of views

• Depending on your column choices early on, this can adversely

affect downstream behaviours (things like Business Intelligence)

– these can be mitigated with form tools; like InfoPath

Why Not Just Customize the Out of the Box SharePoint

Forms? It’s Just ASP.net.

• First off… if you have a developer on staff that has the skills to

customize these – great, this is a possible option. Almost

none of our customers (regardless of size) have this option.

• Two of the major downsides of customizing out of the box

SharePoint forms are maintainability and upgradability.

• If you’re afraid of the upgradability future of InfoPath forms,

don’t kid yourself, ASP.net forms aren’t going to be any easier

to upgrade. Additionally, MS will most likely provide an

upgrade path for InfoPath forms – you’re on your own with

custom built forms.

What About Some “Free” JavaScript / jQuery Solution?

• Good luck with that! Remember that thing in v0.0.081?

• A “free” solution is never a free ($0) solution

• What happens when your “developer” leaves – will new

changes ever be possible?

• Finding new talent (hiring that same skill set) to

take over a role can be difficult and/or expensive

• Developing your own talent can be time

consuming and just as expensive, and then what

do you do when they leave?

• You can always farm it out to an overseas agency… and

end up with something that doesn’t do anything that

resembles your needs

Above: From a presentation

on implementing an open

source solution at the

College of Charleston

Ok, Ok, So Why InfoPath?

• At its most basic, InfoPath can be used:

To create custom stand alone forms. The XML format is easy for

developers to work with.

To create custom forms for SharePoint lists. These forms save

their data back into SharePoint as a list item with the data saved as

the items’ columns.

To create custom forms in SharePoint libraries. These forms save

their data as a file in a SharePoint library. Data can be moved in /

out of the forms by “promoting” columns.

To create workflow forms in both SharePoint Designer and Visual

Studio workflows.

Reasons to Use InfoPath

• Rich editor to create a form that can look like anything you want.

• Rules based business logic to hide, show, format and validate fields.

• External connectivity to offer dropdown lists populated from SharePoint lists, SQL server and

many other sources.

• While a forms designer needs a licensed copy of InfoPath, the end user only needs a web

browser. Users do not need any InfoPath product or version if the forms are hosted in the

Enterprise Edition of SharePoint 2007, 2010 or 2013.

• No knowledge of JavaScript, jQuery, XML, HTML or CSS needed to create custom forms and

custom validation.

• Multiple views of data. Example: A user might see 50 fields when filling out the form. The

approvers might see a 10 field summary and after approval or rejection the user might only see 2

fields and a comments field.

• Optional bidirectional data (edit a property in the InfoPath form and it updates in the library

metadata, edit library metadata and it updates in the InfoPath form - great for workflows!)

From: http://techtrainingnotes.blogspot.ca/2014/01/why-

use-infopath-sharepoint-infopath.html

But… (There’s Always a But) The Future is Rather Muddy

• InfoPath vs Forms Services

• InfoPath is supported until 2023 but there is no such policy in place for Forms Services

• On Premises SharePoint vNext will likely drop support for Forms Services

• How will users / enterprises obtain InfoPath in the future?

• InfoPath won’t be in Office vNext, so how do you maintain older forms?

• Office subscription models are changing and phasing it out

• Becoming a standalone (discontinued) product?

• InfoPath 2013 Dec 2014 Hotfix: “Users can submit data to email messages when they

install InfoPath 2013 side by side with future versions of Microsoft Office”

• Will it become free like “Money” and “Flight Simulator”

• Turbulent times ahead, but InfoPath forms will live on for a long time, regardless

A Few Keys to Success With Any Form You Create

• Don’t take on a form you know you can’t create

• Learn what the tool is capable of first & apply that in practice

• Don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know”

• Try stuff out in a “safe area” (sandbox) before committing to a “yes” or “no”

• InfoPath isn’t going to solve world hunger *anymore*, don’t think it’s capable of

anything or everything

• Understand what your customer wants and draw it out in a “very simple” format

you can both agree to – it’s a lot easier to change paper than what’s on screen

• Colour, graphics, sexy fonts, flare… that s&%t can go a long way

Summary

• InfoPath isn’t going to be easy to replace – and the motivation to go

back and change old forms will follow the arc of a slow moving train

• InfoPath is still a great product. It does a lot of things really well. It will

remain a viable option for the foreseeable future

• Until we start to see more out of the folks over at Microsoft regarding

the future of forms (life after InfoPath), my advice is to continue using

InfoPath as it’s still an awesome tool, and it accomplishes a great deal of

tasks all in a single package

Questions?

Contact Info

Colin Phillips

cphillips@itgroove.net

blog: mmman.itgroove.net

Twitter: @itgroove_colin