Designing Forms for Microsoft Office InfoPath and Forms Services 2007

“Microsoft Office InfoPath represents a revolutionary leap in XML technologies and a new paradigm for gathering business-critical information. I am delighted that Scott Roberts and Hagen Green, two distinguished members of the InfoPath product team, decided to share their experience in this book.”

–From the Foreword by Jean Paoli, cocreator of XML 1.0 and Microsoft Office InfoPath

Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007 offers breakthrough tools for gathering, managing, and integrating business-critical information, and creating efficient forms-driven processes. Two longtime members of Microsoft’s InfoPath product team have written the first comprehensive, hands-on guide to building successful XML-based solutions with InfoPath 2007.

The book opens with a practical primer on the fundamentals of InfoPath form template design for information workers and application developers at all levels of experience. It then moves into advanced techniques for customizing, integrating, and extending form templates–with all the code examples and detail needed by professional developers.

Learn how to:

• Design form templates: create blank form templates, insert and customize controls, use advanced formatting, and construct and lay out views
• Work with data: start with XML data or schema, manually edit data sources, and understand design-time visuals
• Add custom business logic to forms, and integrate them with other applications
• Retrieve and query data from external data sources, including XML files, databases, SharePoint lists, Web services, and ADO.NET DataSets
• Submit and receive form data using ADO.NET
• Save, preview, and publish to e-mail, SharePoint, and more
• Build reusable components with template parts
• Create workflows with SharePoint and InfoPath E-Mail Forms
• Administer Forms Services and Web-enabled form templates
• Build advanced form templates using C# form code, custom controls, add-ins, and the new InfoPath 2007 managed object model
• Design form templates using Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO)
• Update, secure, and optimize your form templates

PART I: Designing Forms
Chapter 1: Introduction to InfoPath 2007
Chapter 2: Basics of InfoPath Form Design
Chapter 3: Working with Data
Chapter 4: Advanced Controls and Customization
Chapter 5: Adding Logic without Code
Chapter 6: Retrieving Data from External Sources
Chapter 7: Extended Features of Data Connections
Chapter 8: Submitting Form Data
Chapter 9: Saving and Publishing
Chapter 10: Building Reusable Components
Chapter 11: Security and Deployment
Chapter 12: Creating Reports
Chapter 13: Workflow
Chapter 14: Introduction to Forms Services
Part II: Advanced Form Design
Chapter 15: Writing Code in InfoPath
Chapter 16: Visual Studio Tools for Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007
Chapter 17: Advanced Forms Services
Chapter 18: Hosting InfoPath
Chapter 19: Building Custom Controls Using ActiveX Technologies
Chapter 20: Add-ins
Chapter 21: Importers and Exporters
Appendix: Further Reading
Index