IntroductionWelcome| 00:00 | Hi and welcome to Microsoft
InfoPath 2007 Essential Training. I'm David Rivers.
| | 00:05 | InfoPath 2007 is the information
gathering application that's part of
| | 00:11 | the Microsoft Office system. So if you
need to gather information efficiently
| | 00:15 | and reliably from a variety of
sources, then you might be thinking about
| | 00:19 | creating and deploying electronic forms.
If so, InfoPath 2007 allows you to do just that.
| | 00:27 | Now, not only can you design and create
forms in InfoPath, but you can also use
| | 00:31 | InfoPath as a client for filling in
those forms and collecting the resulting
| | 00:35 | data. But InfoPath doesn't stop there.
In this title we'll delve deeply into the
| | 00:41 | electronic form creation process
beginning with the basics before we start more
| | 00:45 | exploring more advanced form options
like adding controls or form security,
| | 00:51 | connecting to data sources and even
publishing your forms using a variety of
| | 00:55 | options like Xcopy, e-mail and Sharepoint.
| | 00:58 | Now, integration with other Office apps
is an important feature of InfoPath. So we
| | 01:04 | will be exploring ways to connect to
Microsoft Access data for example and
| | 01:08 | import existing forms that you may
have created already in Word or Excel. So
| | 01:14 | without further delay, let's get
started with InfoPath 2007 Essential Training.
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| Using the exercise files| 00:00 | Throughout this title, I will be
using exercise files to help explain the
| | 00:04 | various topics. If you are a premium
subscriber or you have purchased the
| | 00:08 | InfoPath 2007 Essential Training DVD,
you too will have the access to these
| | 00:13 | exercise files, meaning you can
follow along with me step by step.
| | 00:17 | Now to do so, I highly recommend that
you copy the exercise files folder to a
| | 00:22 | convenient location. As you can see
here, I have copied mine to my desktop.
| | 00:27 | Inside the exercise files folder, you
can now find subfolders that correspond
| | 00:31 | to each of the chapters in this title.
| | 00:34 | And I will also be doing my best to
remind you at the beginning each movie,
| | 00:37 | which file I will be using. Now if
you don't have the exercise files or you
| | 00:42 | don't feel the need to follow along
with me step by step, don't worry. You can
| | 00:46 | still learn a whole lot just by observing.
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|
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1. Getting StartedIntroducing InfoPath 2007| 00:00 | Just before we launch InfoPath 2007
and explore the user interface in this
| | 00:05 | chapter, let's get better acquainted
with the application itself. Exactly what
| | 00:09 | is InfoPath 2007? Well, a simple
definition is it's an information gathering
| | 00:16 | program. It's also a part of the
Microsoft Office 2007 system. So if you
| | 00:21 | already happen to have Microsoft Office
Ultimate 2007 or you plan on upgrading
| | 00:26 | to that suite of applications, you will
be glad to know you have the InfoPath as
| | 00:30 | well as some other useful applications
that tie in nicely with InfoPath such as
| | 00:34 | Microsoft Groove for example.
| | 00:36 | Now what is the best way these days for
gathering information? Well, typically,
| | 00:42 | it's designing and creating electronic
forms and also making it easy to fill
| | 00:47 | all of those forms. InfoPath lets
you do both. And because it's XML based,
| | 00:52 | gathering information and then sharing
it and reusing it is also extremely easy to do.
| | 00:59 | Since we are designing and using
electronic forms in InfoPath, we can extend our
| | 01:04 | reach to those inside and outside the
organization because we can create e-mail
| | 01:08 | forms that can simply be sent as an e-
mail. We can create forms that will work
| | 01:12 | on any web browser or even forms that
can be filled out on a mobile device. Not
| | 01:18 | only is an InfoPath form efficient, it
also ensures the information you gather
| | 01:22 | is reliable and accurate.
| | 01:24 | Now this can be accomplished by using
things like form controls, pre-populated
| | 01:29 | fields, real time validation, and by
connecting to existing data sources. All
| | 01:34 | this means the quality of the data you
collect is going to be improved while
| | 01:38 | helping to reduce redundant data
entry. So let's talk about what's new in
| | 01:43 | InfoPath 2007. There are some really
nice new features that didn't exist in
| | 01:48 | the previous version, which was InfoPath 2003.
| | 01:50 | For example, you don't need to have
the InfoPath installed on your computer
| | 01:55 | just to fill out a form. With InfoPath
2003, you needed the application on your
| | 02:00 | computer just to fill out an InfoPath
form. That's not so anymore. You can
| | 02:05 | create and send templates as e-mail
messages in Outlook. We talked about that.
| | 02:09 | Also, if you have got InfoPath form
services, you can create web-based forms
| | 02:13 | and forms that can be used on those
mobile devices we were talking about.
| | 02:17 | Also new to version 2007 is the
ability to import and export forms. If you have
| | 02:22 | already created forms in Word or Excel,
you don't need to redo those forms.
| | 02:28 | Just bring them into InfoPath and work
on them there. Importing is very easy,
| | 02:32 | so is exporting forms if you got
the add-ins to export to PDF, Portable
| | 02:37 | Document Format, or the XML format
known as XPS. You do need those add-ins.
| | 02:42 | You are prompted to do that when you go
to export. So, all very easy to do, but
| | 02:46 | just another nice new feature.
| | 02:48 | Also there are more views now in
version 2007, such as the Read Only view to
| | 02:53 | prevent manipulation of content. For
example, you might just want people to
| | 02:57 | view the data like a report. There is
printed views that let you choose which
| | 03:02 | views of a form can be printed and in
what order. And then there are targeted
| | 03:06 | views as well and they can be created
for different environments. For example,
| | 03:10 | you could create one view for those
filling out forms in InfoPath, another for
| | 03:15 | those filling out forms in a web
browser. Also new in Version 2007, new and
| | 03:21 | improved controls. Let's talk about Combo Boxes.
| | 03:24 | Now you cannot just select from a list,
but you can add to that list using a
| | 03:28 | Combo Box. There is the Multiple
Selection List Box as well that we are going
| | 03:33 | to be looking at later. Let's you
select more than one item from the list.
| | 03:37 | Horizontal regions and repeating tables
allows you to resize areas when the
| | 03:42 | form is resized. It all happens automatically.
| | 03:44 | You can have two areas side by side.
Expand or Shrink down the form. They
| | 03:49 | expand and shrink with the form. And
with the horizontal repeating tables,
| | 03:54 | you are going to be able to allow users to
add more than one column when they are
| | 03:57 | filling out a form. That's a nice
feature. You can also create your own
| | 04:01 | reusable form parts now to keep look
and the behavior of a group of forms
| | 04:06 | consistent. These are called Custom Form Parts.
| | 04:09 | There is also the Design Checker.
The Design Checker task pane detects
| | 04:14 | potential design issues that may be
present in a template that you are designing
| | 04:19 | and gives you detailed explanations
before you have to go ahead and save and
| | 04:22 | publish your form. And there is a whole
lot more in 2007 like more sample forms
| | 04:28 | to choose from. There is better
integration with SharePoint, better offline
| | 04:32 | options for when you can't be
connected. There is the Information Rights
| | 04:36 | Management support that's part of 2007,
now to help you keep sensitive data
| | 04:41 | protected. And more options for
printing and previewing forms as well. You will
| | 04:45 | lots of these new features as we move
through the chapters and the movies in
| | 04:49 | this title.
| | 04:51 | First part of this title will focus
on the creation of the forms, beginning
| | 04:55 | with the basics and then getting
more advanced as we move on. Once we are
| | 04:59 | totally comfortable with designing our
forms, we will explore the other side of
| | 05:03 | using electronic forms and that's the
various ways we can collect and store
| | 05:07 | that data. We talk about
connecting to servers including SharePoint
| | 05:12 | integration. We can also of course
turn our forms into e-mail messages to
| | 05:17 | gather information. We will be doing
that. And we will explore how we can make
| | 05:21 | use of the web for collecting data
from outside the organization. That's all
| | 05:25 | coming up. And in the next lesson,
we will launch the application.
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| Launching InfoPath| 00:00 | In this lesson, we are going to launch
InfoPath 2007 and explore the Getting
| | 00:05 | Started window that greets you each
time. I am here in a Windows Vista
| | 00:09 | environment. So I have got a couple
of different options for launching the
| | 00:12 | application. One is to double click the
shortcut that I have created here on my
| | 00:17 | desktop. This is not created for you
during the installation process. But if
| | 00:21 | InfoPath is one of those applications
you plan on using on a regular basis,
| | 00:26 | you might want fast and easy access to
it here right on the desktop by creating
| | 00:30 | the shortcut. I will show
how to do that in a moment.
| | 00:33 | The other option if you don't have
the shortcut is to go down to your Start
| | 00:36 | button and search through your
programs for InfoPath. Again, a couple of ways
| | 00:41 | to do that. One is to go up to All
Programs. Just hover over it and eventually
| | 00:46 | you will see programs and
folders presented to you in a list.
| | 00:49 | One is called Microsoft Office. When I
click on this folder, I see all of the
| | 00:54 | applications under Microsoft Office
including Microsoft Office InfoPath 2007.
| | 01:01 | If you got tons and tons of
applications and folders, that can take a while to
| | 01:04 | find it, another option is just to
come down here where it just says start
| | 01:08 | search, you can click in there. But
your cursor is already flashing. Just start
| | 01:11 | typing InfoPath. As soon as I do that,
I see under programs here at the top,
| | 01:17 | there is one called Microsoft Office
InfoPath 2007. Also got some files in
| | 01:23 | here, but none of them pertain to
what I want to do. I want to launch this
| | 01:27 | application. So clicking it here will
launch InfoPath. But before I do that,
| | 01:31 | here's how you create that
desktop shortcut if you are interested.
| | 01:35 | Right click on Microsoft Office
InfoPath 2007 and hold that right button down.
| | 01:41 | As you are holding the button down,
move your mouse up to the desktop and
| | 01:44 | release. A little pop-up menu will
appear where you could copy the program
| | 01:49 | here. I don't want to do that. I can
move it there. Now I still want to be able
| | 01:53 | to access it from my Microsoft folder.
All I want is a shortcut to it from
| | 01:58 | here. Create shortcuts. Here's the one I am
going to select and it creates that shortcut.
| | 02:03 | Now mine has a two in brackets because
it's my second shortcut to this App. I
| | 02:08 | already have my original over here.
Once you got it, just double clicking it
| | 02:11 | will launch the application. I don't
need this second copy. So I am going to
| | 02:15 | right click on this icon and from
this pop-up menu, choose Delete. I will
| | 02:20 | confirm I want to move that to the
Recycle Bin by clicking Yes, and it's gone
| | 02:24 | leaving me with my original. So let's
double click our shortcuts if you have
| | 02:28 | got them or go through your Start button.
| | 02:29 | Now we will launch the application
presenting you with the Getting Started
| | 02:34 | window. And there are different
sections to this window that we are going to
| | 02:38 | talk about right now. This is to
help you obviously, get started doing
| | 02:41 | something, either creating a new form
template or working on existing forms.
| | 02:48 | Working on existing forms could mean
working on their design or filling them
| | 02:52 | out. So let's start over here on the
left hand side where we have got Form
| | 02:56 | Categories.
| | 02:57 | Here's where you can go to forms you
have already created. So I could access
| | 03:01 | recently used forms by clicking this
link. If this is your first time using
| | 03:05 | InfoPath, clicking this link will
display nothing over here. I have created one
| | 03:10 | form called Expenses08. And I also
made it a favorite. When I have files or
| | 03:17 | forms that I have already created, I
get tasks that appear over here on the
| | 03:21 | right hand side. I could fill out
this form. I could make this one of my
| | 03:25 | favorites by clicking Add to Favorites.
I could work on the design of this
| | 03:31 | form. Remove this form totally or get
an update of this form. If there are any
| | 03:37 | updates out there, you
will be able to find them.
| | 03:39 | Get updates of forms in this category,
allows me to update a number of forms if
| | 03:45 | I have multiple forms in the same
category showing up here. Now as I go over to
| | 03:49 | favorites, you will see I have already
made Expenses08, one of my favorites. If
| | 03:52 | I go to All Forms, I am still only
going to see that one form. It's the only
| | 03:56 | one I have created so far.
| | 03:58 | Down below, Open a Form. I could also
open a form from here and this is going
| | 04:03 | to allow me to fill it out. This is
the equivalent of selecting it here and
| | 04:06 | choosing Fill Out this Form. As you
create forms, they will begin to appear
| | 04:11 | here under Open a Form, as well as
the ability to search your computer for
| | 04:15 | existing forms to open up.
| | 04:16 | If you are designing, that's different.
You can design a Form Template from
| | 04:21 | scratch by clicking Design a Form
Template. You could Import a form. If you
| | 04:26 | have already created one say, in
Microsoft Word or Excel even, you have the
| | 04:30 | ability now in InfoPath 2007 to Import
them into InfoPath to work on them here.
| | 04:36 | It gives you much more options.
| | 04:37 | Down below is Customize a Sample and
this is the default. This is what we see
| | 04:42 | as the Getting Started window appears
each time. This shows us some samples on
| | 04:46 | the right hand side that can give us a
kick start. For example, if I wanted to
| | 04:49 | create a meeting agenda form, I could
come up here, click on this Sample and
| | 04:54 | then choose Design this Form.
| | 04:56 | Notice I can't fill out this form.
It's a sample. I can't add it to my
| | 05:00 | favorites. It's not a form yet. I have
to design the form. But I have got all
| | 05:04 | of the basics in that form ready for
me to work with. I can't remove it. I
| | 05:08 | can't get updates. I can only design it.
And once I have designed it, saved it
| | 05:13 | and published it, then I can go back
and do things to it like add it to my
| | 05:17 | Favorites, Fill It Out for example.
So there are the different sections.
| | 05:21 | I want to show you one more thing. If
I want to Design a Form Template and I
| | 05:26 | come over here, this is kind of like
designing from scratch. I am not going to
| | 05:29 | use one of the samples. So when I
click on Design a Form Template, I see the
| | 05:34 | Design a Form Template window. Here I
can open a form template on my computer,
| | 05:39 | maybe it's on a SharePoint site.
Customize the sample will take me back to the
| | 05:43 | Getting Started window. Forms on Office
Online, I can Import from here. Look at
| | 05:48 | that recent templates. First get
access to them from here and I can create or
| | 05:52 | design a new form template from a Blank,
from a Web Service, from a Database.
| | 05:58 | So I can do automatic
connections right from here if I wanted to.
| | 06:02 | But to get back to Getting Started, I
choose Customize a Sample. See it flips
| | 06:06 | me back to Getting Started with
Customize a Sample selected. So that means that
| | 06:11 | I can get back to this at any time.
Even if I come up here to the top right
| | 06:14 | corner to close it, I will be closing
this Getting Started window. But I can
| | 06:19 | get back to it here from my user
interface by going up to File > Design Form
| | 06:24 | Template. I am going to see that
window. To get back to my getting started
| | 06:28 | window, I am choose Remember,
Customize a Sample, and here they are.
| | 06:32 | And if you get lots of samples and
maybe you have downloaded lots of samples
| | 06:36 | from the web for example, and there is
too many to see on the screen, you have
| | 06:40 | the different views here as well. Right
now we are viewing Icons, we could view
| | 06:44 | it in a List, takes up less space.
And if you want more detail, not just the
| | 06:48 | name of the sample, you can click on
View Details up here, the third button to
| | 06:53 | see a description, if there is one. When
it was last used. You can see there is
| | 06:58 | more information hiding over there. I
can use my scroll bar down to see the
| | 07:02 | Form Template ID for example.
I will scroll all the way back.
| | 07:07 | I am going to close this up which
leaves me at my user interface. And this is
| | 07:11 | exactly what we are going to
explore in the next lesson.
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| Exploring the client interface| 00:00 | In this lesson, we are going to get
you comfortable in your surroundings by
| | 00:03 | exploring the InfoPath 2007 user
interface. You can see here on my screen that
| | 00:08 | I have closed up the Getting Started
window, which typically appears here right
| | 00:13 | in the center. When you launch the
application, the Getting Started window
| | 00:17 | appears by default. When you close up
a form you are filling out or designing,
| | 00:21 | the Getting Started window will appear.
Now we can always get that back as well
| | 00:25 | and we are going to do that in this lesson.
| | 00:27 | But let's start at the very top of
the screen where we see Microsoft Office
| | 00:31 | InfoPath. Currently with no form open
to either fill out or design, that's all
| | 00:36 | I see here on the Title Bar. But when
I start to work with forms, I will see
| | 00:40 | the form name appear as well in the
top left corner. In the top right hand
| | 00:44 | corner, you can see I have got three
buttons, Minimize, there is a Restore Down
| | 00:50 | button and a Close button. Now the
Close button is in red because it does close
| | 00:54 | the entire application, not just the
form you are working on. So be careful.
| | 00:59 | You will be prompted to save changes
if you haven't saved your form when you
| | 01:02 | hit this button. But it could be dangerous.
| | 01:05 | If you don't want your InfoPath
window taking up the entire screen, you can
| | 01:09 | restore down by clicking this button.
It just changes it to a smaller size that
| | 01:13 | you can move around your desktop. You
can also go down to the bottom corner
| | 01:17 | here and start resizing it if you
wanted to. And if you prefer to have the
| | 01:22 | InfoPath filling the entire screen,
that Restore Down button just became a
| | 01:26 | Maximize button. So clicking this
button will maximize it back to filling up
| | 01:30 | the entire screen. And I like this view
when I am in InfoPath because it gives
| | 01:34 | a lot more space to work with.
| | 01:36 | A minimize button will get it out of
the way without closing it so you can do
| | 01:39 | other things and then return back to
InfoPath. It puts it down there on the Task Bar.
| | 01:45 | Below our title bar is the menu bar
where we see File, Edit, View, all the way
| | 01:50 | cross to Help just like any other
application. These are menu headings
| | 01:54 | indicating that if I click on File for
example, I am going to see a File menu
| | 01:59 | with file related commands. Filling
out a form, designing a form, opening a
| | 02:03 | form, exporting a form, all of these
are file related commands and that's why
| | 02:08 | they are on the File menu.
| | 02:10 | Some commands will display keyboard
shortcuts next to them. Ctrl+Q for
| | 02:14 | fill out a form. Remember that one for
a little bit later on. Fill out a form
| | 02:18 | here on the menu shows me Ctrl+Q as
the keyboard shortcut. But you may have
| | 02:23 | more than one keyboard shortcut for a
command. You will see that in a second.
| | 02:26 | Ctrl+O for Opening. Some command will
have little black arrows next to them
| | 02:31 | like Export. So when I move down to
Export, I can expect to see a submenu.
| | 02:35 | Export to the Web. Find add-ins for other
files formats or export to Excel for example.
| | 02:41 | Now at the bottom of this menu, I am
going to see recently used files. I have
| | 02:47 | got down here. MyExpenses08 form. I
have used it recently. So it appears down
| | 02:52 | here. By default, you will see the last
four forms that you have used. But you
| | 02:56 | can change that number. Customizing
is something we are going to talk about
| | 03:00 | later on in this title. Here is
another way to exit the application. Exit
| | 03:04 | InfoPath is the same as clicking the
Close button in the top right corner. So
| | 03:08 | you want to be careful with that as well.
| | 03:10 | Under the Edit menu, we see editing
commands. As we said all of these are
| | 03:14 | grayed out right now, I can't click on
them. There is nothing to Undo or Redo,
| | 03:18 | Cut, Copy, Paste, etc. Under the View
menu, I have got some options here such
| | 03:23 | as the task pane. The task pane can
be turned on and off from the View menu
| | 03:27 | here and it will appear on the right
hand side. So let's give it a click.
| | 03:31 | Now the task pane appears over here on
the right hand side of my screen with
| | 03:35 | Fill Out a Form showing up here by
default for me. And down below, I can fill
| | 03:40 | out a form I recently used. There is
MyExpenses form. I could choose more
| | 03:45 | forms. I could search My Computer for
forms. Or I could right to designing a
| | 03:50 | form. The task panel is contact
sensitive, meaning it's going to change
| | 03:54 | depending on your scenario. For example,
if I go up here to the Fill Out a Form
| | 03:58 | drop down and click on it,
there are other task panes.
| | 04:01 | I am trying to put Clip Art into a form.
The Clip Art task pane is very handy.
| | 04:06 | If I am doing a Find and Replace, it's
going to open up over here. You can see
| | 04:10 | I have got Find and Replace option as
well. For formatting my forms such as
| | 04:14 | Fonts, Paragraphs, Bullets, Numbering,
Spelling, there are task panes for each
| | 04:19 | of those tasks as well.
| | 04:20 | So all those panes will appear when
they are needed. Right now, the only
| | 04:25 | available is Fill Out a Form and that's
why you see that check mark there. I am
| | 04:29 | going to click out here in the empty
space. And if I want to close this task
| | 04:32 | pane, I can go to the Close button
right up here or I could go back to my View
| | 04:37 | menu and click on Task Pane which now
has a check mark. By the way, Task Pane
| | 04:42 | also appears down below under Toolbars.
| | 04:45 | Toolbars here on the right have check
marks. I have got a Standard Formatting
| | 04:50 | and Task Pane showing up because I see
those check marks. I can close the task
| | 04:54 | pane by clicking it here. Let's go
back to that for a second. Under View and
| | 04:59 | down to Toolbars, the Standard
toolbars and the Formatting toolbar are
| | 05:03 | appearing on my screen and that's
according to what work I did last. You may be
| | 05:08 | seeing Ink, Tables and may be even
another toolbar that we are going to talk
| | 05:12 | about in a second.
| | 05:14 | When I go to Ink and click on it, you
can see what it looks like. I have got
| | 05:17 | some ink commands for Pens, Erasers,
Ink Colors and Styles. And we go back up
| | 05:22 | to View here, down to Toolbars and
turn on my Tables toolbar. It appears here
| | 05:27 | next to my Ink toolbar. And all of
these toolbars can be moved around. You will
| | 05:32 | notice on the left hand side, a
series of vertical dots. When you move over
| | 05:37 | that with your mouse, you will see the
four sided arrow and that's what you use
| | 05:40 | to move a toolbar up, down, and around.
| | 05:45 | Another option is to right click
when you see that. And from that little
| | 05:49 | pop-up, you can choose which toolbars
you want o view. If you don't want the
| | 05:52 | Tables toolbar, just deselect it. I
am going to do the same here by right
| | 05:57 | clicking on the left hand side of my
Ink toolbar. And I am going to turn it off
| | 06:00 | as well. Here I am back where I started.
| | 06:03 | Toolbars can be customized. We are
going to get into customizing and even
| | 06:06 | creating your own toolbars at the end
of this title. But you can go this little
| | 06:11 | drop down button and Modify your
toolbars. Now let's start with a Standard
| | 06:15 | toolbar here just below our menu. We
see some commands that are more frequently
| | 06:20 | used than others. So Fill Out a Form
and Open which appear on the File menu,
| | 06:24 | also appear here on the Standard
toolbar. The shortcut buttons and you will
| | 06:28 | notice as I hover over Fill Out a Form,
this keyboard shortcut tells me its
| | 06:32 | Ctrl+Shift+I. Holding down Ctrl+Shift
and typing the letter I on the keyboard
| | 06:37 | simultaneously will take me to the
Getting Started window. So same as going to
| | 06:41 | File and choosing Fill Out a Form
here, which shows the keyboard shortcut
| | 06:46 | Ctrl+Q. Interesting!
| | 06:47 | I have also got a number of buttons,
which I can't use at this time. There is
| | 06:51 | nothing to save, print, cut, copy or
paste, nothing to undo or redo, user
| | 06:56 | commands that show up under the Edit
menu for example. So a series if buttons
| | 07:00 | on the Standard toolbar are what
Microsoft feels are commands you might use
| | 07:05 | more often. But if they are some here
that you have never use or you find there
| | 07:08 | is one missing, you can go to that
little drop down on the far right hand side
| | 07:13 | and choose to Add or Remove Buttons.
| | 07:15 | It's a form of customization. I am
going to go over to standard here. Look at
| | 07:19 | all the check marks. These are all
the buttons that are currently on my
| | 07:21 | standard toolbar. If I like to have a
Close button in there, I can click on
| | 07:25 | Close and it now appears up here on my
toolbar. I am going to go back to that
| | 07:31 | drop down, over to Standard and start
turning a whole bunch off. Just click on
| | 07:36 | a few. It turns them off. Click on
some other ones to turn them on. And when
| | 07:42 | you forget what the standard was, what
was that default? I want to get back to
| | 07:46 | where I started. The easiest way is just
to go down to very bottom and choose Reset.
| | 07:52 | Click Reset toolbar to reset it to the
Standard Default. The same goes for our
| | 07:57 | formatting toolbar. For formatting text,
we have got Font Sizes, Attributes,
| | 08:02 | Alignment, we have got Numbers and
Bullets as well, a little Highlighting and
| | 08:06 | Font Color. I can click this drop down
go down to Add or Remove Buttons, over
| | 08:12 | to formatting in this case and turn
other ones on like Line Spacing and maybe
| | 08:16 | ones I never use like Highlighting to turn off.
| | 08:19 | So now again, the Reset appears
down at the bottom, now it will reset
| | 08:23 | everything. Are you sure you want to
reset changes made to the Formatting
| | 08:26 | toolbar? In this case, I want to
click OK, even though I didn't make any
| | 08:29 | changes. So those are the actual
toolbars. Up here on the top right corner, you
| | 08:35 | can see a little area what says for
me create a custom toolbar. It probably
| | 08:38 | says Type a question for help. For you,
this is the last question I typed. You
| | 08:43 | can click in there and type any question.
| | 08:45 | One way to get to help is to use the
Help menu. And from here, you can open up
| | 08:50 | the Help application. It's a window
that will appear on your screen. Microsoft
| | 08:53 | Office InfoPath help, F1 is the
keyboard shortcut. You could also access help
| | 08:58 | online if you are connected to the
Internet. Same goes for Developer Resources
| | 09:02 | and contacting Microsoft. You have got
check for Updates, Diagnostics, Activate
| | 09:07 | your product and Privacy options here as well.
| | 09:10 | But when I am needing help, I find the
easiest thing to do is just come up here
| | 09:14 | and type in my question. Not only does
it launch the help window, but it also
| | 09:18 | takes me directly to my issue. In
this case, I am typing in Create a Custom
| | 09:23 | toolbar. So when I hit enter on my
keyboard, I am going to see help related to
| | 09:29 | creating a custom toolbar, there's
Rename. Remove a toolbar, button or menu;
| | 09:34 | Show or hide toolbars. They are right
at the top. Here's where I go to create a
| | 09:38 | custom toolbar, I click that link and
it takes me to everything I need to know
| | 09:42 | about creating that toolbar. When you
are done, click the close button and
| | 09:46 | again your last question will
appear up here on the top right corner.
| | 09:49 | And just before we get back to that
Getting Started window, there is a big
| | 09:53 | workspace area here. This is where you
are going to do most of your work when
| | 09:57 | you are designing or even filling out
forms. But down at the very bottom of the
| | 10:01 | screen, you may have seen it up at the
top under the View menu. You are going
| | 10:05 | to see information or messages down
there. And you will notice that it's called
| | 10:10 | the Message bar. And currently,
it's grayed out. There is nothing to be
| | 10:13 | displayed down there. On the Message
bar here, you are going to see information
| | 10:17 | such as where your form template is
located. If you are filling out a form,
| | 10:21 | where is the actual template? Where
did it come from? It might come from a
| | 10:24 | server, your own computer or even
somewhere on the web, or you will see that
| | 10:28 | path down here. Very helpful!
| | 10:31 | The Getting Started window, if we need
it back, there is a couple of different
| | 10:34 | ways to do that. If you are going to be
designing a form, you will probably go
| | 10:38 | up to File and come down to Design a
Form Template and that's going to open up
| | 10:42 | a window for designing form templates.
But if you want to get back to Getting
| | 10:45 | Started, all you can do that by using
Customize a Sample. There is that Getting
| | 10:50 | Started window. I am going to close it
by clicking my Close button and show you
| | 10:55 | that clicking on this button here to
fill out a form does the exact same thing.
| | 11:01 | Here's my Getting Started window. So in
this case, if I choose Fill Out a Form,
| | 11:05 | that's probably what I want to do. I am
going to go to Form Categories or Open
| | 11:09 | a Form as a pose to the Design a Form
section down below. Let's open one up on
| | 11:14 | our computer.
| | 11:16 | I am going to click On My Computer and
navigate to my Exercise Files, which I
| | 11:21 | put in the InfoPath folder here, and I
am going to go into the Lesson1 folder,
| | 11:25 | which displays one form. There it is,
Expenses08. So when I click on this and
| | 11:31 | click Open, and by the way, double
clicking is the shortcut, it opens up the
| | 11:35 | form to be filled out. What's important
about this is something that's happened
| | 11:40 | up above. I want you to see the
Standard toolbar has a new button at the
| | 11:44 | beginning here, the Submit button.
| | 11:46 | This particular form has also been
designed with its own Submit button, which
| | 11:51 | will do the same thing. But this is a
form I might fill out. I just come back
| | 11:55 | from a trip. I am filling up my
expense report. So I fill in certain
| | 11:59 | information in these fields. And when I
am done, use the Submit button up here.
| | 12:03 | Or if I wanted to, I could just save
the form on my own computer, for example,
| | 12:07 | to keep that data. But submitting in
this case is actually going to submit to
| | 12:12 | the Manager. You can see the email
address is mandatory for the Manager. It's
| | 12:17 | been designed this way so that it
actually sends in Outlook email message, the
| | 12:21 | form becomes an email and
goes directly to the Manager.
| | 12:24 | I am not going to fill in anything here.
I am just going to close the form by
| | 12:27 | going up to File and down to Close.
And just before I do that, you may have
| | 12:33 | noticed up to the top, my form is
being called Form 8 up here. Yours if it's
| | 12:38 | your first time, it's probably Form1.
I have been filling out a few forms
| | 12:42 | already so I am up to Form8. But I
could rename that to something else if I
| | 12:46 | wanted to using Save or Save As.
I am just going to close it.
| | 12:50 | When I close a form, even though I was
just filling it out or if I close a form
| | 12:54 | that I have been designing, this is
what I am greeted with. The Getting Started
| | 12:58 | window comes right back to me so I
can move on to opening another form or
| | 13:02 | designing a new form. Designing
forms is what we are going to get into
| | 13:07 | beginning in the next chapter.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
2. Form BasicsOpening and using forms| 00:00 | Just before we begin the design
process and start creating forms here in
| | 00:04 | InfoPath 2007, we are going to open a
couple of different forms in this lesson
| | 00:09 | to give you an idea of some other things
you can create during the design process.
| | 00:14 | Here in the Getting Started window
which appears, I am going to search for
| | 00:17 | forms on my computer. If you don't see
the Getting Started window open in front
| | 00:22 | of you, just click this first button on
the Standard toolbar for filling out of
| | 00:25 | form. It will take you to the Getting
Started window and now we are going to go
| | 00:29 | down to the On My Computer link. This
allows us to search our own computer for
| | 00:34 | forms we may have created. And there
are a couple in the Lesson 2 folder of the
| | 00:38 | Exercise Files. There is an
Expense Form and a Monthly Status form.
| | 00:42 | We start with the Monthly Status form
called MonthlyStatus1. With one click and
| | 00:48 | then a click at the Open button, we
are actually opening up the form to be
| | 00:51 | filled in. Here is where we
populate this form with data.
| | 00:54 | Now, in this case I want you to see up
here in the Standard toolbar there is no
| | 00:58 | Submit button. This is not a form that
we would submit to somebody; rather we
| | 01:03 | fill in the data and save the form.
| | 01:05 | So here for Report Date, for example,
I would click the Calendar icon. This
| | 01:10 | opens up a little calendar and I can
choose the date of this report. So I am
| | 01:15 | going to choose the 10th. You can choose
any date you like, it's inserted for you.
| | 01:20 | Nice thing about using the calendar
is you don't have to worry about date
| | 01:23 | format; it's going to insert the
date using the default format for this
| | 01:27 | particular form, so you
don't have to mix up anything.
| | 01:31 | Now, we can fill in some blanks the
project. This is a Monthly Status Report so
| | 01:35 | I am going to type in End User Training.
Prepared By, I am going to type in my
| | 01:42 | own name here. Manager Name, E-mail
Address, Department, these are optional
| | 01:51 | fields and you can fill them in if you
want to. It seems a little redundant. I
| | 01:59 | can do a summary down here. This
project is on track. Let's capitalize the T,
| | 02:07 | and now you can see down below I've got
a section here for a Team Member. Team
| | 02:13 | Member has a Name and Status Details.
| | 02:15 | What if there are three members on this
team? Well, in that case, I have got a
| | 02:19 | little button down below that allows me
to Insert Individual Status sections as
| | 02:24 | I go. So, for example, if I come in
here and type in Winston Barry and I type
| | 02:30 | in the department: 2 days ahead of
schedule, and now I need to insert another
| | 02:39 | status for team member. I click Insert
Individual Status, I get new one down
| | 02:43 | below, which means I can come down here
and click on the Name field to type in
| | 02:48 | another name, 'on schedule.' And if I
had more I have that little button down
| | 02:58 | below that allows me to expand this.
It's a table that's going to grow, which
| | 03:03 | is a nice little feature. We'll be using
that later on when we start designing our forms.
| | 03:07 | Down below for Work Items we have the
same possibility here, so we can add work
| | 03:12 | items and we can insert new sections
to add additional work items if we want
| | 03:16 | to. Once we start adding names, it's
kind of neat. You will notice that if I
| | 03:20 | was to go here to Insert Individual
Status, this little arrow dropdown here
| | 03:24 | when I click on it, it allows me to
insert this item before the previous one,
| | 03:29 | Insert Individual Status Item After,
where it is right now, or I can remove it
| | 03:34 | from here as well. So if I didn't really
want it choosing remove takes it back out.
| | 03:38 | Down below I have got room for Open
Issues, insert additional open issues,
| | 03:43 | click here to insert additional notes.
It's an expandable form, it's kind of
| | 03:47 | nice. I can even click here to sign
this section, so I have got some built-in
| | 03:51 | security here. I am going to leave it
as it is and there is no Submit button,
| | 03:56 | so I am not going to be submitting it
to anybody. All I would do is save this.
| | 04:00 | Notice the name up here for me is
Form20. What you see up here on your own
| | 04:05 | screen if you are following along is
probably different from mine. I am onto my
| | 04:09 | 20th form already.
| | 04:11 | When I go down to Save, that's exactly
what I am going to be saving, Form20,
| | 04:15 | but I can change the name and choose a
different location. I am going to go to
| | 04:19 | my Desktop and I am going to change
this to MonthlyStatus and I am going to put
| | 04:26 | in Oct for October. When I click Save,
I just save the form and all of the data
| | 04:33 | in it. This is not the form template
that I have saved but the actual form with
| | 04:37 | the data attached. So that's
all there is to that type of form.
| | 04:41 | Now, let's go up to our Fill Out of
Form Button give it a click and you can see
| | 04:46 | I get a brand new form ready to go. So
I could do this from November, December
| | 04:52 | and so on. Filling out Monthly Status
Reports or I could change the actual
| | 04:56 | individual statuses and work items and
have a duplicate with a different name.
| | 05:01 | Now, if you want actually go back and
try another type of form, you need to
| | 05:05 | close this up. I am going to go up
to File and Close. I haven't changed
| | 05:09 | anything here, there's nothing to save.
This one I have saved, so I am going to go up to
| | 05:12 | File and close it and it
takes me back to Getting Started.
| | 05:16 | Now, let's open up that other type of
form. On My Computer, I am going to click
| | 05:20 | that link. Again, it's in the Lesson 2
folder of your Exercise Files if you are
| | 05:24 | following along and this one is an
Expense Form. I am going to click on it
| | 05:28 | and choose Open. This is a little bit
different. First of all you'll notice
| | 05:32 | there is a Submit button up here next to
the first button in my Standard toolbar.
| | 05:37 | Also if I scroll down to the bottom
of this form, there is a Submit button
| | 05:41 | there and you can see I've got
one field with a little red asterisk
| | 05:46 | indicating I need to enter some type
of data in there. It happens to be my
| | 05:50 | Manager's e-mail, this form is going to
be submitted via e-mail using Microsoft
| | 05:54 | Outlook to my manager and it's all
automated; it's built-in to the design.
| | 06:00 | So Expense Code I am going to type in
007, the Start Date and End Date I can't
| | 06:06 | actually enter. They will be populated
for me based on my Itemized Expenses down
| | 06:10 | below. Business Purpose, I am going to
type in Customer Training. I am going to
| | 06:17 | type in Lynda.com here.
| | 06:20 | Now I have got my information that
goes in here. David Rivers, Trainer, I can
| | 06:30 | put in my Department ID number, etcetera.
Email Address, but I really don't have
| | 06:34 | to at this point. For the sake of time,
I am going to skip down to the Manager
| | 06:38 | Information type in Donald Rivers and
the e-mail address I am going to type in
| | 06:45 | drivers@lynda.com. Notice this is a
make believe email address but it fills the
| | 06:52 | purpose, we'll be able to send this
out or submit this to the manager.
| | 06:56 | Now it's time for the Itemized Expenses.
So I come down here and I'll click on
| | 07:00 | my little calendar and let's say the
beginning of the trip was back on the
| | 07:05 | first of the month, so I click on that,
Description, I am going to say Taxi to
| | 07:12 | Hotel, the Category I click from the
dropdown, that's Transportation, and the
| | 07:18 | Cost I have to look at my
receipt and say it's $45.
| | 07:20 | Now to add up everything I click this
little button, it's totaled up for me,
| | 07:25 | total expenses so far $45. I need to
add another expense and I am going to add
| | 07:32 | here by clicking the Calendar icon. I
am going to go to 10 days later put in
| | 07:37 | another Taxi to Airport. This was
the end of my trip. This is also a
| | 07:44 | Transportation and the Price $45.
Click my button to total things up.
| | 07:53 | I can continue adding expenses; it's
always going to be Subtotaled etcetera. If
| | 07:58 | there is a cash advance that I might
want to fill in later on, it will be
| | 08:01 | subtracted for me, so a lot
of math built-in to this form.
| | 08:05 | Down below Item Details, you can see
I have got Taxi to Airport here under
| | 08:10 | Transportation $40. So Item
Details have been tracked as well.
| | 08:15 | Additional Information if I wanted to,
fine, but I am just going to submit
| | 08:19 | this. I can click Submit down here or
choose the Submit button up here. That's
| | 08:24 | different from saving. Yes, the data
saved with a form but it's also being sent
| | 08:29 | somewhere, in this case directly to my
Manager in an e-mail, something that we
| | 08:34 | will be talking about how
to do later on in this title.
| | 08:36 | So when I click Submit all of the
saving is done automatically. You can see, to
| | 08:40 | submit your form to the following
recipients, your default Microsoft Outlook
| | 08:44 | e-mail account, click Send. I could, if
I wanted to, change the Subject, change
| | 08:49 | some of the information that will
appear in the body of my email message, but
| | 08:54 | when I click Send, off goes the form,
successfully submitted, I click OK, and
| | 08:59 | the form is still on my screen.
| | 09:01 | So let's see what happens if I go up to
File and down to Close. Do you want to
| | 09:06 | save the changes to your form? In
this case mine is Form22. So actually I
| | 09:10 | haven't saved it anywhere. Yes it's
been submitted, but I don't have my copy.
| | 09:14 | So if I choose Yes, I can now save
it to wherever I want. My Desktop, for
| | 09:19 | example, and call it whatever I want.
Expenses Lynda.com. I'll put LDC for
| | 09:30 | October and you can name it whatever
you like. When you click Save, you've now
| | 09:34 | got your copy. It was closed up for me
because that's how I started that whole
| | 09:38 | save operation during the Close command,
and I am back to my Getting Started window.
| | 09:43 | So there is just a couple of types of
forms that can be designed and created
| | 09:47 | here in InfoPath, and in the next lesson
we start that design process. Coming up next.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating forms from samples| 00:00 | In this lesson, we begin to explore the
design process for creating forms here
| | 00:05 | in InfoPath 2007. If you are brand
new to the application, the fastest and
| | 00:11 | easiest way to get up and running and
creating your first form is to base it on
| | 00:16 | one of the samples that
comes with the application.
| | 00:19 | So you will need the Getting Started
window open in front of you if you are
| | 00:22 | following along. If it's not opened
for some reason, you can close up with
| | 00:25 | whatever you are working on, and it
will be displayed by default, or just go up
| | 00:30 | here to Fill out a Form and that will
display the Getting Started window as well.
| | 00:35 | Down here on the left hand side under
Design a Form, we can design a brand new
| | 00:40 | form by creating one from scratch using
the Design a Form Template link. We can
| | 00:45 | import an existing form from other
applications like Word or Excel using Import
| | 00:50 | a Form. We will do all of these later,
or we can get a huge head start by
| | 00:54 | selecting Customize a Sample.
| | 00:57 | With that selected, you will notice
here in the mid-section of this window, we
| | 01:01 | have got some samples for Asset
Tracking, Expense Reports, Meeting Agendas,
| | 01:06 | Travel Request, and Status Reports. So
if there is something in here that you
| | 01:11 | wanted to create, let's say an
expense report, you could get started by
| | 01:14 | choosing the Sample - Expense Report
and then coming over to the right-hand
| | 01:18 | side and clicking Design this form.
| | 01:20 | Now just before we click this link,
there is another option and that is to
| | 01:24 | access some form templates on Office
Online. If you are connected to the
| | 01:28 | internet, you can click this link
down here in the bottom left corner, Form
| | 01:32 | Templates on Office Online. It will
launch your default browser and take you to
| | 01:36 | Microsoft Office Online directly to
the template categories. Now keep in mind
| | 01:41 | that we are going to see a list of
categories and templates that could be used
| | 01:44 | in any of the Microsoft Office Applications.
| | 01:47 | For example, we will see templates for
creating presentations and spreadsheets,
| | 01:51 | but we will also find our InfoPath
templates in here as well. So as we scroll
| | 01:56 | down and take a look at the list of
Template categories, there is Agendas,
| | 02:00 | Award Certificates, probably templates
we would use in an application like Word
| | 02:04 | for example. Same for Brochures, Budget.
Well that could require some inputs,
| | 02:09 | so we might see an InfoPath template
here under Budgets. But we are talking
| | 02:13 | about expense reports, so let's go down
to Expense Reports and give it a click.
| | 02:17 | Now here we see some samples that we
can choose from, however, the first bunch
| | 02:22 | appear to be Microsoft Excel Templates.
As we scroll a little further down, we
| | 02:28 | will even some Microsoft Word Templates,
and then eventually, down towards the
| | 02:33 | bottom here, we do see a couple of
InfoPath templates. And you can see that the
| | 02:38 | application we need to use is InfoPath 2003 or
later, so definitely InfoPath 2007 qualifies.
| | 02:45 | We could borrow this expense report for
domestic reports or international. I am
| | 02:51 | going to click on Expense report (
international). Well that's going to do is
| | 02:55 | take me to another screen where I will
get additional information. So here I am
| | 02:59 | getting a summary of the template and
what it's all about. There is a preview
| | 03:04 | of it down below, looks a lot like the
InfoPath template that we will be using
| | 03:09 | but it might be set up to allow for,
look at this down here, an exchange rate
| | 03:13 | because it's an
international expense report form.
| | 03:17 | So if this is one that you like, you
have to just click the Download button and
| | 03:21 | choose where you are going to save it
and what you are going to call it, and it
| | 03:23 | will open up automatically in InfoPath,
ready for you to tweak the design. I am
| | 03:29 | going to close this up. Returns me back
to InfoPath, I need my Getting Started
| | 03:35 | window back, so I am going to click
the very first button here, Fill Out a
| | 03:38 | form. There is Customize a Sample,
it's selected and I am going to go to this
| | 03:42 | Sample - Expense Report, and this is
the one I want to base my design on. A lot
| | 03:46 | of the work is already done for me. I
just go over here to the right, click on
| | 03:50 | Design this form.
| | 03:52 | This is going to take me into Design
View. A few things happen here. First of
| | 03:56 | all, I see the Expense Report. It does
look a lot like the one we were browsing
| | 04:01 | on Microsoft Office Online. Then check
out down below here where we have got
| | 04:05 | the actual Itemized Expenses. There is
no exchange rate to be entered. So this
| | 04:10 | is something we would have to add, if
we were doing an international expense
| | 04:13 | form or we can just go borrow that sample.
| | 04:16 | So up here we have got some sections.
We have got this little section here with
| | 04:19 | some fields for Report Dates. This is
the field that allows us to select from
| | 04:23 | the calendar and choose a date that
will be inserted into the field for us. The
| | 04:27 | rest looks like we just have to insert
them. As we hover over them, we see the
| | 04:31 | name of the field, like End
Date and Start Date and Purpose.
| | 04:36 | Down below is another section for
Employee Information. Again, we have got some
| | 04:40 | fields. All of this would have to be
done by scratch, if we didn't have the
| | 04:43 | sample. So you will be setting up
tables and putting in fields, you have to
| | 04:48 | also build in some functionality to
do some calculating down here to take
| | 04:52 | Subtotals and subtract cash advances
that you might have entered to give you
| | 04:56 | the Total expenses. This is
math that's build into the form.
| | 05:00 | Things we are going to talk about
later on as we go into designing from
| | 05:03 | scratch, but for now we have got this
sample in front of us and if we want to
| | 05:07 | make any tweaks we could. I am going
to go back up to the top where it says
| | 05:12 | Expense Report, I am just going to
type in right before the E in Expense
| | 05:17 | Report, Training Services Expense Report.
I just clicked before the E, type in
| | 05:25 | my own text in Caps and you can
see I have made a tweak to the form.
| | 05:29 | So this is in Design view, I know that
also because I have got my Design Tasks
| | 05:34 | task pane open here where I can use
tables and regions to arrange items, that's
| | 05:39 | what all of these are, down here,
regions and tables, I can add controls,
| | 05:43 | connect to existing data sources,
create different views so that depending on
| | 05:48 | the use of this form, I might see a
different view. There is a Design Checker
| | 05:52 | we will talk about later on to check
the design of your form to make sure
| | 05:56 | everything is going to work properly,
and I can actually publish this template
| | 05:59 | as well. So it's a form that can be filled out.
| | 06:02 | When I make changes to the design, I
probably want to save them as well. So
| | 06:06 | when I click the Save button, because I
am borrowing a sample here, I am going
| | 06:10 | to see this little message that says
when I am finished designing the form
| | 06:13 | template, so after I saved all of my
changes for the last time, I want to
| | 06:17 | publish the form template using the
Publish Wizard, something else we will talk
| | 06:21 | about later on. This is just a reminder.
It's not saying I have to do that now.
| | 06:25 | So if you don't like seeing this message,
click the checkbox to turn that off.
| | 06:29 | If you like it, leave it unchecked and
click OK. Now I get to save it. So I get
| | 06:34 | to choose where I am going to save it
and what name I am going to call it. I am
| | 06:38 | going to choose my Desktop, and the
file name, which is Template4 for me. You
| | 06:42 | might see a different number in there.
I can type right over that like it's not
| | 06:46 | even there.
| | 06:46 | So I am going to type in tsExpenses.
You can type in whatever you like. When
| | 06:53 | you hit the Save button, you have
actually saved that design. Now it's still in
| | 06:58 | Design View, I can continue working
on the design. Once I am ready to allow
| | 07:02 | people to fill out this form, I would
then have to publish it, but we will talk
| | 07:06 | about how we do that later on.
| | 07:08 | Right now, I am done with the form, so
I can go up to File and down to Close. I
| | 07:14 | know it's on my Desktop, if I need to
go back and get it. I just simply go find it,
| | 07:18 | or create another new form and that's what we are
going to do next, but we are going to do it from scratch.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating forms from scratch| 00:00 | Over time as you begin to feel more and
more comfortable with InfoPath 2007 you
| | 00:05 | may choose to design your form
templates from scratch without any help from any
| | 00:10 | sample. That will mean adding your own
sections and parts to the form, knowing
| | 00:15 | how to add controls and connected data
sources, create tables sections that can
| | 00:20 | be expandable for example.
| | 00:21 | These are all things that we are going
to cover as we move through the lessons
| | 00:24 | in this title but right now I want to
show you how to get started creating your
| | 00:29 | first form template from scratch.
| | 00:31 | Again you will be getting started from
the Getting Started window. So you will
| | 00:36 | need that showing up here on your
screen. If it's not just close what you
| | 00:39 | working on or go up to Fill a Form
button, if there is nothing on your screen.
| | 00:44 | The Getting Started window will be
displayed and you will probably see
| | 00:47 | Customize a sample with some sample
that you can base your designs on. But if
| | 00:52 | you want to start from scratch, you are
going to over here to Design a Form and
| | 00:56 | click the Design a Form Template link.
And when you do that you are taken to
| | 01:00 | the next window, which is the Design a
Form Template window, where you do have
| | 01:05 | some options.
| | 01:06 | Now you can open an existing form
that's on your computer or maybe it's a form
| | 01:10 | that is on a SharePoint site, maybe
you want to customize a sample, this will
| | 01:14 | take you back to the Getting Started
window but if you come here you will
| | 01:18 | probably want to do something else,
like search for forms on Office Online or
| | 01:23 | import an existing form.
| | 01:24 | If are going to be creating from
scratch you don't need to select anything from
| | 01:28 | Open a Form Template over here. You
don't need your recent form templates and
| | 01:32 | you don't want to fill out a form. All
you want to do is go into the Design a
| | 01:36 | new Form Template section here. Now
you can design template parts that can be
| | 01:41 | used on multiple forms. We will talk
about that later as well but right now we
| | 01:45 | are designing our first
form template from scratch.
| | 01:47 | Now it can be based on a blank form.
Now notice when a blank is selected, it
| | 01:52 | tells you over here this creates a form
template that allows you to define the
| | 01:56 | data source, while you are designing
the form. But if you want to connect to
| | 01:59 | the data source first you can choose
from these other options like Web Service
| | 02:04 | for example. This will create a form
template that queries and submits data to
| | 02:08 | a web service that's already set up.
So that has to be done ahead a time or
| | 02:12 | could be a database like
an SQL or Access database.
| | 02:16 | By choosing this option and clicking
OK you are going to be selecting the
| | 02:20 | Access or SQL database that you want to
connect to. This allows you to use data
| | 02:25 | in the database or submit data to that database.
| | 02:29 | Same thing goes for XML or Schema as
well as Connection Library. In this case
| | 02:34 | you are going to be searching a
Microsoft Office Server for data connections
| | 02:38 | that you can use to get your templates
started. I am going to go up to Blank
| | 02:42 | and worry you about connecting to a
data source later on. So by choosing Blank
| | 02:46 | and then clicking OK, I have got my
first form and you can see there is nothing
| | 02:52 | here. It's blank. It's waiting for
me to start adding things like Layout,
| | 02:58 | Controls. If I want to connect to a
data source I can do that. I can also
| | 03:02 | choose different views and publish my template.
| | 03:05 | All of that can be done over here on
the right hand side using the Design
| | 03:09 | Task's tasks pane. So as we move
through the upcoming lessons in this title, we
| | 03:13 | are going to be working with layout
and tables. We are going to be adding
| | 03:17 | controls, connecting to Data Sources,
checking out how you can create different views.
| | 03:22 | We will definitely use the Design
Checker when you creating your own design
| | 03:25 | from scratch. The Design Checker is a
very handy tool, it just allows you to
| | 03:29 | quickly go through the design of your
form and pick out any issues or potential
| | 03:34 | issues that could occur before you
actually publish the form template. That's
| | 03:38 | what we will do last down here from
our Design task pane. So with a blank
| | 03:43 | screen you are ready to start
designing your first forms from scratch.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating form layouts| 00:00 | Whether you are going to be creating
your new forms in InfoPath using an
| | 00:05 | existing sample or creating one from
scratch, you will have to consider your
| | 00:09 | form's layout. Now, a lot of people
will take existing forms maybe their paper
| | 00:14 | forms or maybe they exist in other
application and they want to recreate them
| | 00:19 | here in InfoPath. So you can see I
have actually opened up a file called,
| | 00:23 | ExpenseForm 001, it's a JPG. All I
did was scan an existing form in expense
| | 00:28 | report that I want to
duplicate here in InfoPath.
| | 00:32 | Now whether I choose to do that by
using one of the samples and making
| | 00:35 | alteration or starting from scratch,
it's a good idea to have this layout in a
| | 00:40 | few notes. So you can see I have
marked off on this from. For example up here
| | 00:44 | at the top it looks like this section
is going to be made up of three different
| | 00:47 | rows and if I look at the contents on
this second row, for example, I have got
| | 00:52 | a Report Date; I have got a
Start Date and an End Date.
| | 00:56 | Now I have also got space in between.
So I might want to create columns here
| | 01:00 | that allow me to adjust that space. So
keeping that in mind, as we use tables
| | 01:05 | to create these sections, I am going to
see three different rows and looks like
| | 01:09 | five different columns. Now also
considering some of the fields that I am going
| | 01:13 | to be using in this form, you can see
the Report Date, for example, it might be
| | 01:16 | good to have a Date Picker.
| | 01:18 | So people are just typing in the date
however they want and we will have many
| | 01:22 | different formats if we do that. Use a
Date Picker that allows people to choose
| | 01:26 | a date and then we know the formats
that are going to be consistent, no matter
| | 01:29 | who is filling out this form. Same
thing goes for down here, under my Itemized
| | 01:34 | List of Expenses; I have
got a date there as well.
| | 01:37 | I have got a field over here for the
Manager Information. I am going to be
| | 01:41 | sending this Expense Report directly
to the manager, so I must have the email
| | 01:46 | address for my manager. I am going to
make this one Mandatory. I have also got
| | 01:50 | a field in here for the Total Expenses,
which is going to be calculated. So I
| | 01:54 | want to make sure that I have got a
field in here that's going to calculate the
| | 01:57 | total of all of the expenses above.
Down below, it looks like for a gift
| | 02:02 | receipt, I am going to need three
columns even though there is only two entries
| | 02:05 | here and looking up here at my
Itemized List of Expenses, I have got up to
| | 02:09 | seven columns, I am wondering if I
need columns for these spaces or not.
| | 02:13 | The neat thing about creating a
natural form in InfoPath 2007 is that you can
| | 02:18 | adjust the tables, the columns and
the rows. You can take away columns, you
| | 02:22 | don't need or add them if they are
missing. Down below I have got another
| | 02:25 | section here Additional Information.
This section down below at the very bottom
| | 02:29 | where we typically print out the form
and sign it, we are going to use digital
| | 02:33 | signatures. So this section
probably isn't even needed at all.
| | 02:37 | Things to keep in mind as we design
our form. Now like I said when you are
| | 02:41 | creating this layout, you can get a
good head start by using one of the
| | 02:45 | samples, we talked about that a
couple of lessons ago or you can create one
| | 02:49 | from scratch. In the last lesson, we
started to create a form from scratch
| | 02:53 | that's why we have this blank screen.
| | 02:55 | Now let's just for a second go back
to creating a form from a sample. So in
| | 02:59 | this case, I am going to go up to File
and I am going to go down to Design a
| | 03:05 | Form Template. I am going to choose
Customize a Sample and over here I do have
| | 03:12 | a Sample - Expense Report that might
be close to what I want. So I select it,
| | 03:17 | choose Design this form and it opens up.
I have got my hard copy beside me and
| | 03:22 | I am looking at some of these fields.
| | 03:24 | Here I have got an area at the top
of my Expense Report, I wanted to say
| | 03:27 | Training Services Department. That's
easy enough. I don't need an Expense Code,
| | 03:32 | so I might want to just click on this
and hit my Delete key. Notice that there
| | 03:36 | are columns here leaving spaces in
between so I can have a nice open feel to
| | 03:41 | this section and I do have a
few different rows here going on.
| | 03:45 | Down below Employee Information, a
lot more information on this form than I
| | 03:49 | plan on having in my form, so it's
just a matter of taking out the stuff I
| | 03:53 | don't want. Itemized Expenses down below,
I don't need a Cash Advance Section.
| | 03:58 | So these are things that I might want to delete.
| | 04:00 | So it's all up to you, whether or
not you choose to use a sample and make
| | 04:03 | modifications or you might find it
easier just to start from scratch. So I am
| | 04:07 | going to go up to File and I am going
to close this without saving it, say No.
| | 04:14 | It takes me back to my blank form that I
have just started in the previous lesson.
| | 04:18 | Now, if you don't have in front of you,
just go up to your Design button here,
| | 04:22 | Design a Form Template. Make sure Blank
is selected and click OK. So you have a
| | 04:27 | new blank form ready to go. There is
nothing here. There are no sections, there
| | 04:31 | is no layout and you will notice that
the Design task pane opens up over here
| | 04:36 | on the right-hand side.
| | 04:38 | The order of the Tasks that you see
here kind of make sense. You are going to
| | 04:41 | start with your Layout; you are going
to adding Controls. Those are the actual
| | 04:45 | text fields and the Date Pickers and
so on. You may want to connect to a Data
| | 04:50 | Source that's something you will have
to consider and we chose when we created
| | 04:53 | that blank template not to choose our
Data Source ahead of time but rather to
| | 04:57 | do it later on.
| | 04:59 | You may want to create different
views, you will probably use the Design
| | 05:03 | Checker to make sure your design is
going to work and then eventually share it
| | 05:08 | with others using the Publish Form
Template section of our task pane.
| | 05:12 | But right now in this lesson we are
focusing on Layout. So let's go up to
| | 05:15 | Layout and give it a click. Here is
where you can insert layout tables. You can
| | 05:20 | also work with those tables. We will
do that in the next lesson and here are
| | 05:24 | some layout controls as well for
creating regions that you can scroll or that
| | 05:28 | will automatically resize with the
form as you resize it. We will get into
| | 05:32 | those later on.
| | 05:33 | Right now we are going to focus in
this section up here where we are going to
| | 05:36 | insert some layout tables and I am
going to start with this one at the top a
| | 05:40 | Table with Title. When I click on
that, you can see what happens. It's
| | 05:44 | preformatted form. These are things I
can adjust later on. Click to add title,
| | 05:48 | so I just click in here and I am going
to type in caps Expense Report, trying
| | 05:55 | to mimic my actual hard copy form that I am
basing this on, Training Services Department.
| | 06:05 | Now, down below, it says Click to add
content, if I wanted a sub-title, in
| | 06:09 | actual effect, I don't really want
anything down there. So we will leave that
| | 06:14 | as is. In the next lesson, we are going
to talking about modifying your table.
| | 06:17 | So adding and removing rows and
columns and sizing and so on. So let's just
| | 06:21 | leave it like that, I am going to
click down below that table. I am done with
| | 06:25 | that first section.
| | 06:26 | Now the next section is going to have
a couple of rows. So in that case, I am
| | 06:30 | going to create from over here where
it says, Insert layout tables just below
| | 06:34 | my first table, I am going to create
one that is a Custom Table, you can see I
| | 06:38 | can do One-Column Tables which is one
section, Two-Columns, Three-Columns or go
| | 06:43 | to Custom Table. When I click on this, I
get to choose the Number of columns and rows.
| | 06:48 | You may recall from my printout that
I am going to have five columns if I
| | 06:52 | wanted to be able to adjust the
spaces and just two rows. Look at that,
| | 06:56 | perfect, it's already there for me, but
I could adjust these just using the up
| | 07:00 | and down arrows or if I prefer just
type in the value by hitting it on the
| | 07:05 | keyboard 5 and 2, click OK and there
you can see I have got five equal columns
| | 07:10 | here and two rows.
| | 07:13 | Now this bottom row, I actually don't
need the 5 columns but I do up here and
| | 07:17 | the actual row heights are adjustable.
So as we start entering data, we are
| | 07:21 | going to see them expand. For example,
in here is where the Report Date goes
| | 07:25 | and just using the default font, I
will change that later to and when I hit
| | 07:29 | Return or Enter on keyboard, it creates the
extra space where the field is going to go.
| | 07:34 | I am going to click over here and
type in nothing. This is going to be my
| | 07:38 | spacer and you will notice that when I
move in between these columns I see a
| | 07:42 | double arrow. So I will be able to use
this to adjust the space. I am going to
| | 07:46 | skip over one and then here I am going
to type in my Start Date. Skip over one
| | 07:53 | and I am going to type in my End Date
here and it's down below where the actual
| | 07:59 | data will be entered. Those are the
controls we are going to talk about after
| | 08:03 | we modify our tables in the next lesson.
| | 08:05 | Now down here is the reason for the
Business Expense and I am going to just
| | 08:10 | type that in and watch what happens.
See how it wraps around that, I don't
| | 08:18 | really wanted to do that or I would
rather have this all in one line and then
| | 08:22 | be able to add the control after that
another adjustment to make in the next lesson.
| | 08:28 | Now we need another section down below.
So I am going to click down here and
| | 08:31 | continue to add sections. So I am
going to add a section for my personal
| | 08:35 | information, the person who is filling
this out, needs to add their name and
| | 08:38 | their department, their ID number and
their email address. So we are going to
| | 08:42 | need at least four rows
and probably three columns.
| | 08:47 | Again, I could go to the Three-Column
Table, give it a click and you can see
| | 08:51 | what I get, Click to add form content,
so ready for me to go. I am going to go
| | 08:56 | up to my Undo button up here on the
standard toolbar. Ctrl+Z on your keyboard
| | 09:01 | will also undo your last action and I
am going to go to Custom Table. This way
| | 09:06 | I can knock this down to 3 and I have
as many rows as I need. In this case, I
| | 09:11 | want to bump this up to 4 and click OK.
| | 09:15 | You can see its right below the section
above. That's perfect. That's going to
| | 09:19 | work out nicely. I can worry about
borders and so on later on from my title.
| | 09:23 | You can see there is a Table toolbar
that shows up when you are working with
| | 09:26 | tables. So there are lots of things we
can do but I am going to leave it as is.
| | 09:30 | I am just going to type in a couple
of things. Personal Information is the
| | 09:33 | title. I don't need all of the columns
in this particular row. So we will talk
| | 09:39 | about merging cells and splitting cells
later on as well and down below this is
| | 09:44 | going to be the person's First Name. I
am going to hit my Enter key delete the
| | 09:51 | space, it's going to go down below.
This is my spacer, way too wide right now,
| | 09:55 | but we can adjust that later
and Last Name goes in here.
| | 10:02 | Next row, Department, I am going to
hit Enter to leave that space, click over
| | 10:09 | here that's my spacer. Next one that's
where I am going to type in Employee ID
| | 10:17 | and when I hit Enter, that space is
already there for the control that's going
| | 10:21 | to go in a little bit later.
| | 10:22 | Okay, let's just add one last one down
here our E-mail Address. I am going to
| | 10:32 | hit Enter to leave a
space and that's last section.
| | 10:35 | I think you got the idea, you continue
adding table layout. So just going over
| | 10:39 | to your task pane here and choosing
the appropriate option, quite often it's
| | 10:43 | going to be Custom Table. The next
section which is the Manager Information is
| | 10:48 | going to be three columns and looks
like just two rows, so you would add that
| | 10:52 | section then the next and so on.
| | 10:55 | So you have got the idea. Layout is
very important. It's a good idea to spend
| | 10:59 | some time before you even get into
InfoPath really laying out your form the way
| | 11:03 | you want it, so you are prepared to
come in here, start adding these table
| | 11:06 | layouts, so that you have
got a good head-start on paper.
| | 11:09 | Now in the next lesson, we are going to
have some adjusting to do. We have got
| | 11:13 | some columns that need to be widened
and others need to be a little more narrow
| | 11:17 | so that we create those spacers we
were talking about. We may need to split
| | 11:21 | some cells and merge some other cells
together in a table. That's all coming up
| | 11:24 | in the next lesson.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Modifying tables| 00:00 | Once a layout of your forms is under
way using layout tables here in InfoPath,
| | 00:05 | you will likely need to go back and
make a few adjustments. For example, when
| | 00:09 | you insert a layout table with five
columns and two rows, those five columns
| | 00:14 | are equal width, you might want to
add just columns widths or maybe you are
| | 00:17 | missing a couple of rows or columns
and you need to add them or the exact
| | 00:21 | opposite, you have got too many and
you need to remove columns and rows.
| | 00:25 | Merging cells together, splitting them
apart, that's all part of what we are
| | 00:29 | going to do in this lesson.
| | 00:31 | We are going use the report that we
started in the previous lesson. I continued
| | 00:34 | on and added a few extra sections down
below. Let's start right at the top here
| | 00:39 | where it says, Expense Report -
Training Services Department, this was put into
| | 00:43 | a Table with Title layout table. It did
the background color scheme for us and
| | 00:49 | the text formatting for us, all of
that was done automatically, but might be
| | 00:54 | nice to have a little extra space in there.
| | 00:55 | So I am going click right here before
the E in Expense Report and hit my Enter
| | 01:00 | key on the keyboard. Creates a little
extra space above Expense Report. Now I
| | 01:05 | am going click after and hit Enter
again and that's pretty good but I don't
| | 01:10 | really need it I guess. So to take that
out, all I have to do is hit Backspace
| | 01:13 | to remove that extra line
that I added using my Enter key.
| | 01:17 | Now there is extra row that appeared
automatically using the Table with Title
| | 01:22 | layout, I don't need. So I am going
to click in here and now I got to start
| | 01:26 | thinking about how I am going to add,
remove columns and rows. There is a
| | 01:31 | number of different options. First
thing that happens that when you start
| | 01:34 | working with tables, you may have
noticed, is the Tables toolbar appears. This
| | 01:38 | toolbar have some shortcuts to do
things like Draw Tables, adjust border styles
| | 01:43 | and colors. We can go to the Insert
dropdown here to insert columns and rows
| | 01:48 | and additional tables.
| | 01:50 | As we hover over these buttons we see
that we have some shortcuts to merging
| | 01:53 | cells together and splitting them apart,
we also have a button for Borders and
| | 01:58 | Shading. I like to save all of the
formatting to later on. Once I have got
| | 02:02 | things laid out properly then I can get
fancy with some borders and shading. I
| | 02:06 | can hide the gridlines that you see down below.
| | 02:08 | Let's give it a click and you can see
what that looks like. This is kind of
| | 02:11 | like a preview of what people will see
so far if they were to try and fill out
| | 02:15 | this form. Click on that button again
to bring those back. I would like to see
| | 02:19 | the gridlines in Design view because it
gives me a good idea what I am working
| | 02:24 | with as far as spacing goes. The last
button is for the Table Properties. Each
| | 02:29 | table that we add here has its own
property and we can adjust those right from
| | 02:32 | this button.
| | 02:33 | Now these are shortcuts for things we
will find under the Table menu. Go to
| | 02:37 | Table, you can see some additional
things like Deleting, Selecting and Change
| | 02:43 | to down below. Also if we just click
out here outside the table, you will
| | 02:48 | notice that we have got a Merge and
Split Cells section, here is where we can
| | 02:52 | go to Merge Table Cells, Split them
apart, Add Rows and Columns and do Custom
| | 02:57 | Splits as well.
| | 02:59 | So all I want to do is remove this
blank row here. I don't need it. The easiest
| | 03:03 | way to do that is to go to the Table
menu, down to Delete and then select Rows.
| | 03:10 | A shortcut to that is inside the row
itself, just click to close up that menu
| | 03:16 | and right click now to see up pop-up
menu. This little shortcut menu does
| | 03:20 | include Delete and you will see the sub-
menu includes Rows. So when I click on
| | 03:26 | Rows because I haven't selected more then one
row that one row is deleted. That looks good.
| | 03:33 | Now this next table down below with
Report Date, all looks like one big table
| | 03:37 | but this was another table that we
added. Well it would be nice if there is a
| | 03:40 | little bit of space there. All I have
to do is click outside the table above,
| | 03:44 | right here next to this thin line and
hit our Enter key on the keyboard. Now we
| | 03:49 | have add a little space between these
tables, hitting Enter again would add
| | 03:53 | more space, Backspace removes
that space. That looks good.
| | 03:57 | Let's do the same thing down here after
Reason for Business Expense on that row
| | 04:02 | off to the right and leave a little
space now I have already done that for the
| | 04:06 | other tables that I have added. So as
you are adding table layouts, you can
| | 04:10 | just hit Enter after the table and
then add the next one and you will already
| | 04:14 | have that space.
| | 04:15 | How about column widths? The Report
Date here in this column and the Start
| | 04:20 | Date, End Date, there are five equal
columns, really I wanted the extra columns
| | 04:24 | just for spaces. So what I am going to
do is go right in between them like this
| | 04:29 | and just click and drag. What I want to
see is Reason for Business Expense all
| | 04:33 | in one line. So I am going to go out to
about here and I can get it go to this
| | 04:37 | little separator just left of
Start Date and drag that in.
| | 04:42 | Now, I can drag this one out and next
to End Date drag that one in and you can
| | 04:51 | eyeball that if you like. There is way
to suggest specific column widths and
| | 04:57 | row heights. We will get into that a
little bit later on as well. I might want
| | 05:00 | to do the same down here. I have got
Last Name and Employee ID, just I want a
| | 05:06 | little space here between them and you
could do whatever looks or works best
| | 05:12 | for you. So you can continue on doing
that with the other tables, you have got
| | 05:16 | the idea now.
| | 05:18 | Let's talk about merging some cells
together now. Where it says Reason for
| | 05:22 | Business Expense, I have got one, two,
three, four more columns after that.
| | 05:27 | Really I just want one space here to
type in the reason. Now I don't have an
| | 05:31 | actual control in there yet but what I
wanted to do is create the space for it
| | 05:35 | and that means merging these cells together.
| | 05:37 | So I am going to click and drag from
here, all the way across and I am going to
| | 05:42 | merge these together. Remember there
are a couple of different ways to do that.
| | 05:46 | We can go up to our Tables toolbar and
click Merge Cells. You could get to it
| | 05:52 | from the Table menu up here as well
but we have got a Merge and split cells
| | 05:56 | section here under our Layout task
pane. So if you wanted to just scroll up
| | 06:01 | where it says Merge Table Cells and
give that a click. Whichever way you want
| | 06:04 | to do it, go ahead and do it and you can see
those three, four cells become one big cell.
| | 06:10 | Now I am realizing -- well I should
have that same spacer here so everything
| | 06:13 | lines up nice. So this means taking
this one big cell now and splitting it. So
| | 06:19 | to split a cell all I have to do is be
inside the cell and we can do it from
| | 06:24 | our Table toolbar if we wanted to, we
have got Merge and Split Cells. Split
| | 06:28 | Cells is available to us right now or
we could do it from here. You can see we
| | 06:33 | can Split Table Cells Vertically means
up and down into columns or we can Split
| | 06:38 | Table Cells Horizontally if we
want to create an additional row.
| | 06:41 | In this case, we want to split the
cell vertically so we give it a click and
| | 06:45 | now all I have to do is go to that
little border in between and adjust it so it
| | 06:50 | lines up with the one above. I want
these lined up perfectly. They don't need
| | 06:54 | to be selected. So I will just click
outside there and I am going to move that
| | 06:59 | one over to until we get the right
distance. Now maybe that one could come back
| | 07:06 | a little bit and there we go.
| | 07:07 | So you got the idea. Splitting and
Merging Cells can come in very handy. So you
| | 07:13 | don't have to have a uniform looking
table with same number of rows and columns
| | 07:17 | in each column and row and we can do
the same thing down below here I see
| | 07:21 | E-mail Address, all I really needed is
one big field down here. So I am going
| | 07:26 | to click and drag across these and I
am going to click on the Merge Cells
| | 07:30 | button up here to do that, as simple as that.
| | 07:34 | Down below I have got Total Expenses
over here on the left I have some width
| | 07:39 | changes to make for my columns but I am
going to go down here and I am going to
| | 07:42 | select all of these cells here and
merge them together and you can merge
| | 07:47 | however you like. I am going to go to
the Merge button and now my text is way
| | 07:52 | over here on the left. We will be
formatting our text and realigning text a
| | 07:56 | little bit later on as well as we move
through the various lessons in this title.
| | 08:01 | So continue working with the form if
you want to rearrange some of the columns
| | 08:05 | and the widths to get exactly what
you are looking for, insert any rows or
| | 08:09 | columns that might be missing.
Remember Deleting can also be done from the
| | 08:13 | Table menu or by right clicking. Right
clicking is a great shortcut for many of
| | 08:18 | the commands when you are working with tables.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Previewing forms| 00:00 | As you are designing your form here
in InfoPath, working on the layout for
| | 00:03 | example, periodically you may wish to
check your progress. The easiest and best
| | 00:09 | way to do that is to preview your form.
This is not to be confused with print
| | 00:14 | preview, which allows you to see what
it will look like when you print it out.
| | 00:17 | But rather previewing your form allows
you to get a feel for the form, the way
| | 00:21 | it will appear when it's time to
actually use the form, start filling it out.
| | 00:27 | Now here in Design View we do see with
table layouts, some grid lines and so
| | 00:32 | on. But this is not exactly the way
it's going to look when we start using it.
| | 00:36 | I am still using the Expense Report
Form that we have been building in previous
| | 00:39 | lessons, so if you continued on and made
some adjustments you can used for form.
| | 00:44 | Now I want to check my progress. I
want to see what this looks like so far.
| | 00:48 | What's it going to appear like to the
people who start filling it out, although
| | 00:52 | I don't have any fields to fill out at
this time, I can get a good feel for the
| | 00:56 | layout? So let's go up to our Preview
button. That's the fastest and easiest
| | 01:01 | way to preview our form. There is a
dropdown and we will return to that in a
| | 01:05 | second. Right now, let's click Preview.
| | 01:08 | So this is what it looks like and you
can see it's not all that organized yet
| | 01:11 | because I don't have any borders and
lines around the various sections of my
| | 01:16 | form and by default when you use
table layouts, you see the grid lines in
| | 01:21 | Design View but there are no lines
to be visible here as we preview.
| | 01:25 | So that's something to consider as we
continue designing our form. You can see
| | 01:29 | the way things line up. It might not
look all that organized, so I do have some
| | 01:33 | additional adjusting to do and, of
course, there are no fields right now to
| | 01:37 | fill up. There is nowhere for me to
enter the Report Date, Start Date, End Date
| | 01:42 | or any of the other information for that matter.
| | 01:45 | Now the Preview button that I just used
to access this view has turned into the
| | 01:49 | Close Preview button. There are some
things I can do from this view, I can save
| | 01:55 | my form if I haven't save changes
likely, I can do that right from here. I
| | 01:59 | could print this out if I want it to
and access Print Preview. I can even check
| | 02:04 | Spelling from here in my Preview Mode.
But I am going to close the preview by
| | 02:08 | clicking Close Preview to return back
to Design View and I still have those
| | 02:13 | buttons here on my Standard toolbar as well.
| | 02:16 | Now the Preview dropdown button allows
us not only to preview our form but when
| | 02:20 | we click on it, we can adjust our
Preview Settings, the way you preview your
| | 02:24 | form. Let's go down there for a second.
The Preview Settings are found in the
| | 02:29 | Form Options dialog box, a dialog box we are
going to be revisiting throughout this title.
| | 02:34 | You can see there are a number of
categories and the one that selected is
| | 02:37 | Preview, just because we selected our
options from the Preview dropdown this is
| | 02:43 | what we see. So over here you can
see the following settings affect the
| | 02:46 | behavior of the form during preview.
| | 02:48 | User Role, specify the user role
with which to preview the form. Now this
| | 02:52 | doesn't apply at this point because we
haven't assigned any user roles. Same
| | 02:56 | thing goes for Sample Data and Domains.
If we had some sample data, if we had
| | 03:01 | actual fields that we could fill in
and dates that we could enter and so on.
| | 03:05 | We could choose a File Location by
using the Browse button to preview the form
| | 03:10 | not just the way it looks when we are
designing it but with actual data in
| | 03:14 | there. Of course, we would need some
sample data and we could browse to that
| | 03:19 | using our Browse button if we had any.
It doesn't apply at this stage of the
| | 03:23 | design process because we
don't have any data fields.
| | 03:26 | Domain, down below allows us to
optionally preview the form as it will be
| | 03:32 | appearing to those using the form
over the way it published to a specified
| | 03:37 | domain. So the setting only applies if
the security level of the form is set to
| | 03:42 | Domain. We haven't got in into that so
it doesn't apply either but you can see
| | 03:46 | there is a field here for us to enter
the Domain name and when we click OK, we
| | 03:51 | can actually preview the form the way
it's going to appear to those using the
| | 03:54 | form on that domain, probably using a
Browser. I am going to click Cancel down
| | 03:59 | below and now you are aware
of some of the Preview Options.
| | 04:04 | So as we continue to design our form,
we have got a long way to go yet. We are
| | 04:09 | going to be using that Preview button on a
regular basis just to check our progress.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Saving a form| 00:00 | As you invest time and energy into
designing the perfect form here in InfoPath
| | 00:05 | 2007, the last thing you would want to
have happen is to lose your work. So in
| | 00:10 | this lesson, we are going to talk
about saving techniques when it comes to
| | 00:14 | designing form templates.
| | 00:15 | I am going to continue to use my
Expense Report that we have been building in
| | 00:19 | previous lessons. Let's say that this
is the very first time we are about to
| | 00:23 | save our work. We have been designing
this, drawing in table layouts, making a
| | 00:28 | few adjustments and we
don't want to lose this work.
| | 00:30 | Let's say the power went out, well
everything we have done would be lost. So
| | 00:33 | let's save our work. Well, one way to
save is to go up to the Save button right
| | 00:39 | here on your standard toolbar.
Clicking this button the very first time you
| | 00:43 | save, will open up the Save As dialog
box. You will be prompted for information
| | 00:48 | like a form name, a location and even
a type. If you have already saved your
| | 00:54 | form clicking the Save button, it's
more of an update button. It will update
| | 00:58 | your form with the changes and will prompt
you for anything. Ctrl+S will do the same thing.
| | 01:04 | So let's just say that we haven't saved
our form yet, even though I have. I am
| | 01:09 | going to go up to File and down to Save
As. This is what you will see the very
| | 01:14 | first time you go to save your form.
You will be greeted with a little message
| | 01:18 | reminding you that you need to publish
your form once you are ready to start
| | 01:22 | sharing it with others.
That happens after we save it.
| | 01:25 | If you don't like seeing this message,
click the little checkbox next to don't
| | 01:29 | show this message again. It just
wants to make sure you don't forget that
| | 01:32 | saving your form doesn't mean that
other people are going to be able to use it,
| | 01:36 | you need to go through the publishing process.
| | 01:38 | I am going to deselect that for now and
click OK and that opens up the Save As
| | 01:43 | dialog box. So I can choose
information such as, where I am going to store
| | 01:48 | this, what I am going to call it and
the type. I am going to put this on my
| | 01:52 | Desktop. I am going to call it TSD_
Expenses2, so I could type that in. Now it
| | 01:58 | happens to be already there because I
had saved this before and just before I
| | 02:02 | hit Save to save this, I might want to
think about the people who are going to
| | 02:06 | be using this form, what are they
going to be using to fill out the form.
| | 02:11 | Well, maybe I have got a number of
InfoPath 2003 users who need to fill out
| | 02:16 | this form. So I need to make this
form compatible with that application. So
| | 02:21 | down below where it says Save as type,
InfoPath Form Template is the default
| | 02:25 | meaning InfoPath 2007. If I click the
dropdown, you will see InfoPath 2003 Form
| | 02:32 | Template is the other choice,
so I am going to click on that.
| | 02:36 | So with the location, the File name,
and the type selected, all I have to do
| | 02:40 | now is click Save. This updates my
form, it's now saved to the location I
| | 02:46 | specified and the name you can see it
up here is TSD_Expenses2. This is also a
| | 02:52 | version 2003 form, meaning it's going
to be compatible with people using that
| | 02:58 | version of the application to fill it
out. This also means if I start making
| | 03:02 | changes, let's just go down here to E-
mail Address and take out the dash. These
| | 03:07 | are minor changes but they are changes
never the last that need to be saved.
| | 03:12 | Now I am going to go up to my Save
button or Ctrl+S on your keyboard whichever
| | 03:16 | you prefer, I am going to give it a
click and my changes are saved. They are
| | 03:21 | saved to the same location, the same
file name TSD_Expenses2 and the same
| | 03:27 | format. It's still an InfoPath 2003 form.
| | 03:32 | So that's all there is to saving. One
little click at the Save button can save
| | 03:36 | you a world of hurt. The last thing
people need is to go back and repeat some
| | 03:41 | of the work they have done especially
in the design process where it can get
| | 03:45 | very technical and very intricate. Saving on
a regular basis is the best thing you can do.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
3. Adding Form ControlsUsing repeating tables| 00:00 | As you are designing your forms here
is InfoPath 2007, for the purpose of
| | 00:04 | gathering information, you should have
a couple of goals in the back of your
| | 00:07 | mind. One, to provide an easy way for
the end-user to provide that information,
| | 00:13 | the second goal to ensure the
information gathered is accurate, and the best
| | 00:17 | way to accomplish both those goals
is to add some control to your form.
| | 00:23 | The first control we are going to
look at in this lesson is the repeating
| | 00:27 | table. Repeating tables give the end-
user the ability to add rows as needed. So
| | 00:32 | you can see, I have opened up a form
that we are going to use in this lesson
| | 00:36 | already. It's called Training_Expenses1.
| | 00:39 | We are going to focus on this section
down below where we see an itemized list
| | 00:44 | of expenses. Now, this is a layout
table that was created in a previous lesson,
| | 00:48 | it's got the number of rows and columns,
and you will notice that where we have
| | 00:52 | got our labels here, Date, Description,
Category, and Cost, we have got one
| | 00:57 | blank row below that. As the end-user
filling this out, looks like I can add
| | 01:02 | one expense. What if I've been away
for several days and I have 25 expenses
| | 01:09 | that need to be listed here?
| | 01:10 | Well, one option would be to create a
layout table with 25 rows. But, what
| | 01:16 | about the person who is only away for
a day and has five expenses to list, or
| | 01:20 | the person who is away for two weeks
and runs out of room. The easiest way is
| | 01:24 | to insert, right here inside our
layout table, nest a repeating table. That
| | 01:29 | lets the end-user add rows as they are
needed. That's what we are going to do
| | 01:33 | right now in this area.
| | 01:35 | So the first step actually, because we
have got a table here and we are going
| | 01:39 | to nest our repeating table inside it
is to merge themselves together. We don't
| | 01:43 | need these two rows. So I am going to
click and drag from the Date cell across
| | 01:47 | and down to get both rows selected and
now a little bit of review, let's merge
| | 01:53 | those together using this button on
our Tables toolbar to merge cells.
| | 01:57 | Next I am going to remove the labels
now that appear over here on the left hand
| | 02:01 | side. I don't need those either. So I
am going to click and drag to make sure
| | 02:05 | that just the text is selected. I
don't want to see the entire cell selected
| | 02:09 | like that when it turns blue. Just the
text. Otherwise I might end up deleting
| | 02:14 | the entire cell, which I need. So
make sure it's just the text. It will be
| | 02:19 | highlighted in black. Hit your Delete
key on the keyboard to remove it. Now, if
| | 02:24 | there are any extra rows that need to
be removed, you can use your Delete key
| | 02:27 | or your Backspace key, but I like this
open space here. It's a perfect spot for
| | 02:31 | my repeating table.
| | 02:32 | Now we go over to our Tasks pane,
and click on Controls. When we click on
| | 02:38 | Controls, you can see there are
Standard Controls and then there are Repeating
| | 02:41 | and Optional Controls, which is where
we are going to find the repeating table.
| | 02:45 | So when we give it a click, we get to
choose the number of columns, not the
| | 02:49 | number of rows that will be determined
by the end-user. I want to bump that up
| | 02:53 | to 4 by clicking the up arrow or you
can type-in 4 and click OK, and there it
| | 02:58 | goes. You can see there is a header
row and that's perfect, it's ideal for us
| | 03:03 | to type-in our labels and then there
is one single row where data can be
| | 03:07 | entered.
| | 03:08 | Down below in my table, I have got my
Total Expenses down here. I have also got
| | 03:12 | my first row because I have nested
this inside another layout table. So let's
| | 03:17 | go up here and click in the first cell,
and type in Date. Notice there is some
| | 03:23 | formatting already in there. I have
got a shaded cell. Whatever I type is
| | 03:27 | bolded. I am going to go over to
the next cell. This is where I type-in
| | 03:30 | Description, and I put in a colon
and the next one is the Category.
| | 03:37 | Now, this is actually going to be
another control where we force people to
| | 03:40 | choose from a list of categories to
ensure accuracy. We will get to that later
| | 03:45 | on. The last one is our Cost where they
type-in cost of the expense, and now we
| | 03:50 | have got our Labels in.
| | 03:52 | Now, looking over the four columns that
were created for us, they are of equal
| | 03:57 | width and they really don't need to be.
I am going to slide the cost border
| | 04:01 | over here. When I move between
Category and Cost, and see the Double-arrow. I
| | 04:04 | can click and drag across. I am going
to try to line it up with my border down
| | 04:08 | below for Total Expenses because down
here, I want to see a total of everything
| | 04:13 | that's entered here under Cost.
| | 04:15 | Category doesn't need to be so wide. So
I am going to go in between Description
| | 04:18 | and Category, when I see the Double-
arrow, drag it over as well. Description, I
| | 04:23 | do want lots of room to type-in
descriptions for the item that I am listing
| | 04:28 | here. So I am going to go over here
between Date and Description, drag that
| | 04:31 | over, and that's where the date
for that expense is going to go.
| | 04:35 | We are going to add another control
here called the Date Picker where people
| | 04:39 | get to choose a date from a calendar.
We will also talk about validation rules
| | 04:43 | a little bit later on as well.
| | 04:45 | So there is my repeating table. I am
just going to do a little more formatting
| | 04:48 | up here. I am going to click and drag
over Itemized List of Expenses, just so
| | 04:52 | it matches a little bit better, there
is lots of formatting to come later on in
| | 04:55 | this title, but right now, I am going
to go up to my Formatting toolbar, click
| | 04:59 | on the Bold button, same thing for
Total Expenses down here. I am going to use
| | 05:04 | Ctrl+B on my keyboard shortcut, and
this is looking better. Not done by any
| | 05:09 | means, but let's test it out.
Let's see if this works.
| | 05:12 | We can go up to our Preview button to
see what this is going to look like so
| | 05:16 | far to the end-user. You can see
there is lots of room here for data to be
| | 05:21 | entered. But, down here, where we have
got our Itemized List of Expenses, our
| | 05:26 | repeating table shows up with one
blank row. Let's say I know I have got five
| | 05:30 | that need to be entered here, I can
click on this right down here where it says
| | 05:34 | Insert Item.
| | 05:36 | With each click, I get a new row. I am
in control of the number of rows in this
| | 05:41 | table. This also has a little dropdown
next to it. Click that if you want to
| | 05:45 | insert the item. The dropdown next to
the last row, when you click on that,
| | 05:50 | allows you if you needed to,
to remove or insert a new item.
| | 05:54 | Now, you can insert a new item, and
don't worry about the labeling, we will get
| | 05:57 | to that momentarily. If I wanted a new
item before the current item, I could do
| | 06:01 | that, or if I don't want too many, I
can remove just by choosing the Remove
| | 06:07 | Item, the third item on the list. So
this is going to work out perfectly for
| | 06:12 | our Itemized List of Expenses.
We will close the preview.
| | 06:16 | Now, there is a couple of things we
should do here. First of all, we noticed it
| | 06:20 | said, Insert item here, maybe it
should say Add Expense Item, for example.
| | 06:24 | Well, we can control that too just
by going into our repeating table
| | 06:29 | Properties. So couple of different ways
to do that, just click anywhere in the
| | 06:33 | table, and go up to the Table menu, and
down to not Table Properties. Remember
| | 06:39 | our repeating table is inside
another table. We want the repeating table
| | 06:43 | properties.
| | 06:44 | Another option is just to right-click
anywhere in the repeating table from the
| | 06:48 | pop-up menu, you will go down to the
bottom to find Repeating Table Properties.
| | 06:53 | We will give that a click. So under Data,
you can see we have got Bindings. We
| | 06:57 | will talk about those later. We have
got Default Settings as well. All we want
| | 07:02 | to do actually is change where it
says Insert item to something different.
| | 07:06 | Show Insert button and hint text is
selected by default. That's why we saw it
| | 07:11 | down there, where it says Repeating
Table here. Insert item showed up, we want
| | 07:15 | to change that to Add. So I am going
to just Backspace over once there, and
| | 07:20 | type-in Add Expense Item like so. When
I click OK, go up to Preview, you can
| | 07:32 | see now it says Add Expense Item.
So I can click on that, or the little
| | 07:35 | dropdown to add a new row.
| | 07:37 | I am going to close the preview,
return back to my design view. I am going to
| | 07:43 | click outside the tables here to see
the end-result so far. Now, there is more
| | 07:48 | to come. There is a lot of formatting
to do. There is a lot of control we can
| | 07:52 | add to our repeating table. So as we
move through the various lessons in this
| | 07:56 | chapter and title, we will build this expense
report to include some of those additional controls.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Repeating table properties| 00:00 | When you insert a repeating table
into one of your forms in InfoPath 2007,
| | 00:04 | there are certain defaults that are
applied; we saw that in the previous
| | 00:07 | lesson. Good news is that you have full
control over those defaults and you can
| | 00:12 | make changes to not only the Table
Properties, but the Field Properties inside
| | 00:16 | that table, and that's what we
are going to do in this lesson.
| | 00:19 | So you can see I am still working
with my Expense Report from the previous
| | 00:22 | lesson. Our Itemized List of Expenses
section down here has a repeating table
| | 00:26 | nested inside it. Now what we saw when
we inserted this was a header row where
| | 00:31 | we could put in our labels, and then a
single row where the data goes, what we
| | 00:36 | don't have is another row down below
and I can't add rows to the design. I can
| | 00:42 | only add rows when I am filling in the
form. So what if I wanted to have the
| | 00:47 | Total Expenses, totaled up for me but
I wanted it to be part of the table. In
| | 00:52 | that case, we need to change the Table
Properties, the Repeating Table Properties.
| | 00:57 | So the first thing I am going to do
is just remove this row from my layout
| | 01:00 | table. I am going to click and drag
from Total Expenses across to that empty
| | 01:04 | cell on the right-hand side. When it
turns blue, I will hit my Delete key,
| | 01:08 | gone. Now I need the extra row in my
repeating table. So I can click anywhere
| | 01:13 | in the repeating table and I can go up
to the Table menu and choose Repeating
| | 01:18 | Table Properties. I could have Right-
clicked anywhere in that table as well to
| | 01:22 | see this dialog box.
| | 01:24 | We have been here briefly in the
previous lesson to change the label for adding
| | 01:28 | a new expense item that appears to the
end user when they are using this form,
| | 01:33 | but now we want to add an additional
row. We saw the Header row, we saw the
| | 01:38 | data row, we didn't get that extra row
at the bottom known as the Footer Row
| | 01:42 | and that's under our Display tab.
| | 01:44 | So here we can see there is a header
included but not a footer. If we click
| | 01:49 | this checkbox and click Apply to see
what that looks like-- And now that we
| | 01:54 | have got this Footer Row by the way, we
can choose to insert additional rows to
| | 01:59 | our design, which we couldn't do without
the Footer Row enabled. So let's click OK.
| | 02:06 | This is the perfect spot for me to put
in my total. I want to merge these three
| | 02:10 | though here, because these three cells
should just be one big cell where I can
| | 02:14 | type in Total Expenses. So a little
bit of review again. We will click the
| | 02:18 | Merge button up here on our Tables
toolbar, the fastest way to merge those
| | 02:22 | together. Now let's just click inside
that cell to type in Total Expenses. That
| | 02:29 | should be bolded like the rest. So I
am going to click and drag over it and
| | 02:33 | bold it, perfect.
| | 02:34 | We will talk about aligning text
and so on later on when we get into
| | 02:37 | formatting. Right now, we want to come
in to this cell here underneath Cost and
| | 02:42 | put in a field where the Total will
appear for us. That also means adding a
| | 02:48 | formula by the way.
| | 02:49 | So right up here, where it says Cost,
you can see when I hover over this field,
| | 02:53 | just underneath the label it says
field43. I am going to right click, right on
| | 02:58 | that field and go down to Text Box
Properties. And up here, you can see under
| | 03:04 | Binding, the Field Name is field43 and
the type of data that goes in there is
| | 03:10 | set to Text, do I want to change that?
First the Field Name should be Cost and
| | 03:15 | the data type that goes in here is
actually going to be a number, not a whole
| | 03:19 | number, but one with a decimal, so I am
going to choose Decimal, which is double.
| | 03:23 | There is an example down below of
what that would look like. There is no
| | 03:26 | default value or anything; all I have
to do now is click Apply to apply that
| | 03:31 | change. Now you can see that it's
actually called Cost. That's important
| | 03:35 | because down below here is where I am
going to be adding my field that totals
| | 03:40 | up the Costs section. So I am
done, I am going to click OK.
| | 03:43 | I am going to click down here in my
table still modifying my repeating table.
| | 03:47 | This time I want to modify it by
inserting a field. So I am going to go back to
| | 03:52 | my Controls and if for some reason you
are not seeing the Insert Controls here
| | 03:56 | under Design Tasks, just click the
Design Tasks label, click Controls to get
| | 04:01 | back in here and all I want is a Text
Box. I am going to click on Text Box, it
| | 04:05 | fills up the cell, perfect and now the
way it set up, under field46 is someone
| | 04:11 | could go in there and just type in the total.
| | 04:13 | Of course, they have to pull out their
calculator, total up all the cost and
| | 04:17 | put in the value here, might be wrong,
might be right. The best way to control
| | 04:21 | this is to change the actual control
of this field, field46. So again, I am
| | 04:27 | going to right click on it. I am going
to go down to Text Box Properties. I am
| | 04:32 | going to change the Field Name from
field46 to Totals or just Total. The Data
| | 04:39 | Type should match, so it should also be
a Decimal. And now under Default Value,
| | 04:46 | well I don't want to put in a value. I
would rather put in a formula that gives
| | 04:49 | me the answer to the sum of all
of the items that are listed above.
| | 04:55 | So in that case, I come over here to
this little button that allows me to add a
| | 04:58 | formula. So when I click on it, it
says before using data validation or
| | 05:03 | conditional formatting etcetera, you
have to apply your changes now. So I have
| | 05:07 | made a change to the field name. I
have called it. To run click Yes.
| | 05:10 | This opens up my Insert Formula dialog
box and here is where I can type up the
| | 05:15 | formula. I can also get some help
inserting field or a group or a function and
| | 05:20 | I am going to start with inserting the
function. This is gong to be a sum, so
| | 05:24 | most recently used. I can look at All
categories, just the Math categories.
| | 05:29 | Here they are listed in alphabetical
order and I want a sum, click OK. Sum of
| | 05:35 | what? Look what it did for me, in
brackets it says, double click to insert the
| | 05:39 | field that I want to sum up.
| | 05:41 | So I am going to double click it. Here
is a list of the different groups on my
| | 05:46 | form. And you can see I have got Total
here, this is under a certain group in
| | 05:50 | my repeating table. I have got field44,
45, and the Total, the one that I just
| | 05:55 | changed. I don't see my Cost. That's
because it's part of a different group.
| | 05:59 | So I click this little plus sign here,
which includes group27, part of the
| | 06:04 | repeating table. There we go, there
is that top row and there is Cost. So I
| | 06:09 | click on cost, I click OK. There is my
formula, sum of the Cost field, I will
| | 06:16 | click OK, takes me back to my Text Box
Properties, I can click Apply. Nothing
| | 06:22 | really changes visibly on my form but
when I click OK now and I go to preview
| | 06:27 | this, let's see what happens.
| | 06:28 | So I could type in a date, I am going
to add some other controls to that to
| | 06:34 | allow people to pick a date from the
calendar, Description, Category, and here
| | 06:38 | for Cost, I am going to type in 55.99.
When I hit Enter on my keyboard, nothing
| | 06:46 | happens. I haven't set this up to do a
subtotal or total up what I have got here.
| | 06:50 | I am going to go over to add an Expense
Item, which adds another row, and check
| | 06:55 | out my total down below. I am going to
click in here without filling out Date,
| | 06:59 | Descriptions, or Categories, just to
test this out. I am going to add 45.67, so
| | 07:07 | I have an expense for $45 and 67 cents.
I am going to add another expense item.
| | 07:13 | Check out my total, $101.66.
This is working perfectly.
| | 07:17 | So I am going to close this preview to
return to the Design view where I would
| | 07:21 | continue now working with some other
controls on this form. That's all coming up next.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding a date picker| 00:00 | If I were filling in a form and I
was in a Date field and typed in the
| | 00:04 | following, 10/11/08. What date do you
think that would be? Would it be October
| | 00:12 | 11 or would it be November 10? Well,
it all depends on the format correct and
| | 00:17 | that's why I like to use the Date
Picker any time I design a form that requires
| | 00:22 | a date input. That way, the user is
going to select the date from a calendar,
| | 00:27 | the format is irrelevant, it will
always be the right date because they had to
| | 00:31 | choose it from a calendar that pops up.
It's called the Date Picker and that's
| | 00:35 | what we are going to investigate in this lesson.
| | 00:37 | We are going to continue to use our
Expense Report form. Now there are a couple
| | 00:41 | of various here, requiring a date input,
one is here in our Itemized List of
| | 00:46 | Expenses, field40, and we can also see
it up here for the Report Date, Start
| | 00:52 | Date and the End Date. So we are going
to use Date Pickers for all of these.
| | 00:56 | Let's start right up here under Report
Date. I am going to click right under
| | 00:59 | Report Date and here's where I want to
use a Date Picker field. So I go over to
| | 01:04 | my Insert Control section of the task
pane, if you are not seeing the Controls,
| | 01:09 | here under Design Tasks click on
Controls and now under the Standard category,
| | 01:16 | you will find the Date Picker. So we click on
that, it inserts the Date Picker and you are done.
| | 01:21 | So you have got this little calendar
icon over in the far right-hand side and
| | 01:26 | you are ready to start selecting dates,
we will test this out in a moment. Now
| | 01:31 | let's click here under Start Date, if
you can't, click after Start Date and hit
| | 01:35 | Enter. Do the exact same thing, click on
the Date Picker and it's inserted for you.
| | 01:41 | Now we can click on this field, you can
see it selected; let's try copying this
| | 01:46 | now because we do needed in a
couple other areas. One way to copy is to
| | 01:51 | right-click and choose Copy from the pop
-up. You could also do Ctrl+C or go to
| | 01:56 | your Edit menu. You could even
select Copy from the standard toolbar.
| | 01:59 | Whatever you like to do, just copy,
now let's click after End Date hit Enter
| | 02:04 | and paste it. We can use our Paste
button or Ctrl+V on the keyboard. Now we get
| | 02:10 | another one, let's go down here under
Date field 40, I am just going to click
| | 02:15 | on this. Now this is already a field
and it's a text field. In this case, we
| | 02:20 | don't want to paste it. We want to change it.
| | 02:22 | So I am going to right-click anywhere
on the selected field. Now when you do
| | 02:27 | that, you can go down to Change To and
choose Date Picker from there. So if you
| | 02:33 | have already got a field and you want
to change it to a different type of field
| | 02:36 | using Control, for example, you can do
that from the pop-up menu. Now we got
| | 02:41 | our Date Picker in there as well.
| | 02:43 | So time to test this out, let's go up
to the Preview button, give it a click.
| | 02:48 | Now you can see our form is starting to
come together up here for Report Date.
| | 02:52 | I click on the calendar icon and now
all I have to do is select the date. And I
| | 02:58 | can choose a Start Date, maybe it was
October 1 and maybe the End Date was 17
| | 03:05 | and down here for my Itemized List of
Expenses, again I have got a pop-up menu
| | 03:10 | on the first, type in a Description,
this is a just a standard text field that
| | 03:15 | was created for us.
| | 03:16 | I am going to type in the Taxi to
hotel from airport. Category, well wouldn't
| | 03:25 | that be nice if I could just click a
dropdown and select Transportation instead
| | 03:29 | of having to type it. I am going to
type it in for now and I am going to put in
| | 03:34 | the Cost $45 and go to add an Expense Item.
| | 03:39 | So there is my total down below. It's
totaling up and because I have had the
| | 03:44 | Date Picker inserted into the various
fields or cells in my tables using the
| | 03:49 | calendar icon, you can see the
format here, such as 10/1/2008, it doesn't
| | 03:54 | matter if that's October 1 or
January 10 because I selected it from the
| | 03:58 | calendar. It's going to be consistent
throughout my form and therefore the
| | 04:02 | information will be accurate.
| | 04:04 | I am going to close this Preview to
return to the Design view of my form. You
| | 04:08 | probably want to save your changes if
you are following along with me. We are
| | 04:12 | going to continue to work on this form
adding more control now as we move on to
| | 04:16 | the next lesson.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding text controls| 00:00 | Probably the most popular form control
you will use as you design your forms
| | 00:04 | here in InfoPath is the Text Box
control. There is actually a few different
| | 00:08 | kinds, so we are going to discuss them
in this lesson using our Expense Report
| | 00:12 | form that we have been
building in previous lessons.
| | 00:15 | You can see we do have some controls in
here. We have got the Date Pickers and
| | 00:19 | our repeating table down below. What
we are missing are areas for people to
| | 00:24 | type in information, such as, the
reason for the business expense, their name,
| | 00:28 | department, email address and so on,
ideal candidates for a text box.
| | 00:33 | So let's start up here
next to Reason for Business
| | 00:36 | Expense. We will click in the empty
cell next to our label, Reason for Business
| | 00:41 | Expense, and to Insert the text box
control, we go to our task pane and make
| | 00:45 | sure that Controls is visible and
right at the top in the Standard section,
| | 00:51 | there it is Text Box, and when we
click on it we have got our field, you will
| | 00:56 | see a field number probably different
from mine depending on how much work you
| | 00:59 | have been doing in InfoPath.
They do get numbered automatically.
| | 01:03 | Those are the names by default but
we can change that when we go into the
| | 01:06 | properties momentarily. Before we do
that though let's add some more. Let's
| | 01:10 | click under First Name and add one
there, and under Last Name, we can add one
| | 01:17 | there, and here's a little shortcut.
If you are just adding regular old text
| | 01:21 | boxes click on one, it becomes
selected, copy it and I am clicking the Copy
| | 01:27 | button but Ctrl+C on the keyboard would
work, you could go to the Edit menu or
| | 01:31 | right-click, and now all you have to
do is click where you want it to go and
| | 01:36 | paste a copy.
| | 01:38 | I am going to use my keyboard, Ctrl+
V. Here's the Text Box, click under
| | 01:42 | Employee ID, Ctrl+V, you can see how
fast this is. One click, Ctrl+V. I am
| | 01:46 | going to do the same for a Manager
Information, for the name and I need to hit
| | 01:53 | Enter after E-mail Address, Ctrl+V to
paste in and I have got a whole bunch of
| | 01:57 | text boxes in here.
| | 01:58 | All right now each of these have the
default properties assigned to them, let's
| | 02:02 | take a look at those quickly. Under
Reason for Business Expense, let's click on
| | 02:07 | the Text Box we just added. It's
selected. You can tell it by the little
| | 02:11 | handles, which we can use for sizing,
but by default it's automatically sized
| | 02:16 | to fit the entire cell in our layout
table. We will right-click on it and
| | 02:21 | that's the fastest way to access Text
Box Properties. Right at the bottom of
| | 02:26 | the pop-up menu, give it a click and it
opens up the Text Box Properties dialog.
| | 02:30 | You can see there are four tabs,
starting with the Data tab. Now the Field name
| | 02:35 | for me is field 56, you will probably
see a different number there, but it is
| | 02:38 | highlighted so you can type right over
it. I am going to change it to Reason,
| | 02:43 | make sense, I will rename it Reason
and that way later on, when I am working
| | 02:47 | with Controls and so on, I will have a
better idea what this Text Box is used for.
| | 02:52 | The Data type is definitely going to
be text. That's what people are going to
| | 02:55 | enter here, and you can see the other
types include Numbers and Booleans like
| | 03:00 | true/false or yes/no answers, Hyperlinks,
Dates and Times or Combos. I am going
| | 03:04 | to leave it at Text. If I wanted to
add a default value, I could just by
| | 03:08 | clicking in here and typing in but
really the reasons could be endless so I am
| | 03:12 | going to leave it blank, no default.
| | 03:15 | If I wanted to make sure that it
cannot be left blank, I can choose cannot be
| | 03:19 | left blank, it's just one of a whole
bunch of validation and rules that can be
| | 03:24 | set for the fields in your form. We
will talk about more about validation rules
| | 03:28 | later on. But right now let's leave it
checked off so that it cannot be left blank.
| | 03:33 | Let's go to Display now. Under Display
we can add Placeholders if we want to
| | 03:38 | Text Box, you can see click here and
type as an example of a placeholder, but
| | 03:43 | really it's right next to a label
that says Reason for Business Expense, we
| | 03:47 | don't need a placeholder, in this case,
in fact we don't need it for any of them.
| | 03:51 | We could make it read only, people
can't enter text, just view what's there, in
| | 03:56 | that case, we might want to have a
default value. The Spell checker and
| | 03:59 | AutoComplete features which are built
into InfoPath are usable in the Text Box
| | 04:04 | unless you deselect these. I am
going to leave them both selected.
| | 04:08 | If you don't think one line of text or
this space is sufficient for a reason,
| | 04:12 | you could turn it into a Multi-line
text box which will include paragraph
| | 04:17 | breaks if you want them, it will wrap
text if you leave this checked off. It
| | 04:21 | will show a scroll bar whenever it is
necessary, so if you have got more text
| | 04:25 | than fit, scroll bar will appear,
but there are other options for that.
| | 04:29 | So I am going to turn Multi-line off.
Now with that off you can then choose to
| | 04:34 | limit your text box to a set number of
characters if you want it to. I am going
| | 04:39 | to click Limit Text Box to, and over
here where it says 1, I can use the up
| | 04:43 | arrow or I can just type in. I am
going to type in 40 characters, and this
| | 04:48 | could be just to save space, to keep
the size of the overall form when it's
| | 04:52 | completed down, whatever your reasons
you can limit the characters just by
| | 04:56 | using this check box.
| | 04:58 | Move to the next control
automatically when the limit is reached is another
| | 05:01 | option, looks like the next control
would be First Name so when we reached the
| | 05:06 | 40 characters the cursor will
automatically move to first name if we choose to
| | 05:12 | click this check box to check it off,
Move to next control automatically. We
| | 05:17 | can adjust alignment. We will leave
everything lined up on the left to make
| | 05:20 | sense for the text.
| | 05:21 | This Conditional Formatting, we will
talk about that later as well, and the
| | 05:25 | size. I just want you to see that the
size is automatically adjusted according
| | 05:29 | to our table layout, you can see
the width is a 100% of the area that's
| | 05:34 | assigned for that particular
control and the height is automatic.
| | 05:39 | Now we can also create extra space.
Space around the control itself within the
| | 05:44 | table and that's what you see here, you
can see the default set to 1 pixel. We
| | 05:49 | can change that number. We can also
change the units of measure. If you want it
| | 05:53 | to be a half inch, for example, you
change to inches and type in 0.5. I am
| | 05:57 | going to leave it at 1
pixel, all the way around.
| | 06:01 | The other option is the text inside the
control, how close it comes to the edge
| | 06:05 | of the text box itself. You can see the
margins are also set to 1 pixel all the
| | 06:11 | way around. So after you test out your
format, if things go little bit crowded,
| | 06:15 | you could come back in here and
increase either Margins or Padding within the
| | 06:20 | table itself.
| | 06:21 | We have an Advanced tab as well. Here
you can add ScreenTips. So as people
| | 06:26 | hover over this, you might see
something pop-up telling them a little bit more
| | 06:31 | than what the label tells them that
this is the reason for business expense. I
| | 06:34 | am going to click here in ScreenTip
and just say You must enter a reason here
| | 06:43 | before moving on and we did make
this mandatory so that we have got our
| | 06:48 | ScreenTip in there.
| | 06:49 | We will talk about Merging Forms later
on and Input Recognition every thing is
| | 06:53 | good for now, so we click OK to save
those changes. Notice now it says Reason
| | 06:59 | instead of field 56 and I would
continue with the other fields or controls here
| | 07:04 | in my form doing the exact same
thing changing the properties.
| | 07:09 | Now there are certain properties that
they are all going to have, you'd change
| | 07:12 | the properties first and then copy
that text box control and paste it so you
| | 07:17 | wouldn't have to repeat a lot of those commands.
| | 07:20 | Now let's scroll down a little bit
further, because we do have an area here for
| | 07:25 | additional information. We have got
some other ones that need to be added as
| | 07:28 | well for Gift Amount and Recipient
name, and I am going to click here under
| | 07:32 | Recipient Name and I am going to add
text box. Same thing for Gift Amount, this
| | 07:38 | one is going to be different as is the
Additional Information down below. Let's
| | 07:43 | right-click on the Gift Amount field
and go down to Text Box Properties, field,
| | 07:48 | 60, well I am in here. I am going to
type in GiftAmount, no spaces. It won't
| | 07:55 | take spaces in the binding, and it's
not going to be text. It's going to be a
| | 07:59 | number. I am going to choose a
decimal number so I can use decimal places.
| | 08:03 | There is an example down below
of what that would look like.
| | 08:06 | If I want to format that any further
such as make it a currency format, I can
| | 08:10 | use the Format button here and change
it to Currency. I am going to click OK
| | 08:16 | and then click OK again,
I have saved that change.
| | 08:21 | Now down below where it says Additional
Information, I might need several lines
| | 08:24 | of text. Now we know we can create a
text box and change it to multiple lines
| | 08:28 | or you can click in here and add a
different type of control, a Rich Text Box
| | 08:35 | would allow us to do things, such as
add formatting to our text, change, font,
| | 08:40 | sizes, colors, bold, italics,
underlining, that kind of thing.
| | 08:45 | So if I click on this, you can see
the actual box that's added here, the
| | 08:49 | control is much larger than a regular
text box control. And if I right-click on
| | 08:54 | that and go to Rich Text Box Properties,
I see different options here. Field
| | 08:59 | Name, of course, I'd want to
change that to Information or something.
| | 09:03 | The data type is Rich Text and it can't
be changed. Under Display, you can see
| | 09:08 | I have got other options, now for
available formatting like paragraph breaks
| | 09:12 | and character formatting and so on, so
I can limit the formatting or just leave
| | 09:16 | all of the defaults the way they are.
| | 09:18 | I am going to click Cancel though, and
with this Rich Text Box selected I am
| | 09:22 | going to hit Delete. Another option is
a different type of control. I am going
| | 09:27 | to go over here to my Controls and just
click and drag down towards the bottom
| | 09:32 | because there is one here called
Scrolling Region and if I click on that notice
| | 09:37 | it doesn't say text box it says region
and when I click on Scrolling Region and
| | 09:41 | look what's entered here for me.
| | 09:43 | It's a great big area to increase the
size or at least the height of this cell
| | 09:48 | in my table. I am going to click on it
and it gets its own handles around the
| | 09:52 | outside. I am going to click and drag
from the bottom here up in the center to
| | 09:57 | make it a little bit smaller, doesn't
to be quite so large, but notice over
| | 10:01 | here there is a great out scroll bar here.
| | 10:04 | So if I do need more lines of text
than I have here in the space, it will
| | 10:09 | continue to allow me to type in text
and at the same time scroll bar will
| | 10:14 | become visible and allow me to
scroll. It's a scrolling region. So when
| | 10:18 | right-click on this and go down to
Properties, this is a little big different.
| | 10:23 | You can see it's going to show
vertical scroll bars always, horizontal never.
| | 10:28 | It will wrap text.
| | 10:30 | The size you can see is the current
size now. The height is a 110 but I can
| | 10:35 | adjust that, you saw I just did it.
The width is going to be a 100% of my
| | 10:38 | layout table cell, in this case 100%
means for width. Padding and Margins are
| | 10:45 | also available as well some Advanced
options which include a ScreenTip if I
| | 10:49 | wanted to.
| | 10:50 | ScreenTip I am going to type in a
little more than Additional Information, Add
| | 10:56 | useful information related to this
report and up here I will click OK. It's
| | 11:06 | time to see what this looks like now.
Let's go to our Preview button here, and
| | 11:10 | you will see our form is
really coming along now.
| | 11:13 | First check out Reason for Business
Expense. There is a little red star here,
| | 11:18 | asterisk, and as I hover over this
it says you must enter a reason before
| | 11:21 | moving on. The rest, standard text boxes.
As I scroll down to the bottom where
| | 11:27 | I see Additional Information as I
hover over that, Add useful information
| | 11:31 | related to this report.
| | 11:32 | Now if I click on it there's no word
to actually type. This is the scrolling
| | 11:36 | region now I need to add the text box
inside that region. So I am not quite
| | 11:41 | done yet, I click Close Preview and
here is where my text box needs to go right
| | 11:47 | inside here. So I click inside, go
back to my Controls all the way up to the
| | 11:52 | top. Do I want to be able to format
this? Sure, why not. I am going to choose
| | 11:55 | Rich Text and that enters it right in
there, you can see now it's selected. Now
| | 12:00 | I am going to size it up a little bit as well.
| | 12:02 | All right click on this to access the
Rich Text Properties. Let's go over to
| | 12:09 | Size, everything looks good there,
Display, everything looks good there. I can
| | 12:14 | do paragraph breaks and character
formatting, and when I come back over to
| | 12:21 | Data, all I need to do is just rename this.
| | 12:23 | I am going to take out field and the
number and type in AddedInfo, all one word
| | 12:29 | again and I will click OK. Now let's
preview this, see what it looks like. As I
| | 12:34 | scroll down towards the bottom, check
out the scroll bar here, if I need it,
| | 12:39 | and I start adding a little bit more
text, then it's visible. See how it's
| | 12:48 | growing here, reaches its limit and
now I am forced to use the scroll bar to
| | 12:53 | scroll through that region.
| | 12:54 | Excellent. I will close the preview,
click outside any selected tables or
| | 13:01 | controls and there is my end product.
It's important now at this point to save
| | 13:07 | all those changes, clicking the Save button,
I don't want to loose all of that work.
| | 13:11 | So just another type of control. Again
the most popular control is the Text Box
| | 13:17 | Control. Keep in mind though, you have
got properties and different types of
| | 13:21 | Text Box Controls.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding list and combo boxes| 00:00 | If you feel you need to have better
control over what users are allowed to
| | 00:04 | enter into one of your Text Box
controls, you might consider changing it to
| | 00:09 | something different. In this lesson,
we are going to talk about the List Box
| | 00:14 | control and there are a few different
options when it comes to working with List Boxes.
| | 00:18 | We are going to work with the same
Expense Report we've been building through
| | 00:22 | this chapter. We are going to scroll
down to the Itemized List of Expenses
| | 00:26 | section here, where we've got our
repeating table. Date; people will choose
| | 00:31 | from a Date Picker, Description, they
will need to type in the description for
| | 00:35 | the actual list item. Over here under
Category, currently because it's a Text
| | 00:40 | Box, they would have to type in the
category. Now, a person might not even know
| | 00:45 | what the Category options are. So if
we want to make sure that people are
| | 00:49 | entering the right categories and
they are doing it consistently, we should
| | 00:53 | provide them with a list of categories to
choose from. That's what we are going to do.
| | 00:58 | So the first thing we do is click on
this control, which is a Text Box. With
| | 01:02 | its selected, we need to change it to
something else. There is a couple of ways
| | 01:06 | to do that. We could right-click and
from the pop up menu, go down to Change To
| | 01:11 | and select either Drop-Down List, Combo
Box or List Box. Even easier though is,
| | 01:17 | with this control selected, we go over
to our Controls here in the Tasks pane
| | 01:22 | and just simply click on the one we
want. We've got Drop-Down List Box, Combo Box,
| | 01:28 | and List Box. Let's look at all three.
| | 01:31 | We'll start with the third one here
List Box. When I click on this, look what
| | 01:35 | happens. The height of this field just
grew and that's because whatever the
| | 01:40 | list maybe, and we can add the items
ourselves or connect to those items, they
| | 01:45 | will all appear here simultaneously,
and then the user would come in here and
| | 01:50 | click on the appropriate category.
| | 01:52 | Over here, you can see Cost and
Description on either side. Now, we've got a
| | 01:56 | much higher row that's using up space
that we don't want to lose, especially if
| | 02:00 | we start adding multiple items because
this is a repeating table. So this is
| | 02:05 | not the ideal option for Category.
| | 02:08 | Let's click on it again and go over to
Drop-Down List Box. When I click on this
| | 02:13 | one, it's really the same idea that
will be a list of items to choose from, but
| | 02:19 | the user will have to click on the
dropdown arrow to see that list. Once they
| | 02:23 | select an item, it will appear here in
this field. Let's click on that one more time.
| | 02:27 | The third option is called a Combo Box.
When I click on Combo Box, it doesn't
| | 02:33 | just say select, it says Select or Type.
Meaning, the person could select from
| | 02:38 | the list of items or type in their own
category which would then added to the
| | 02:43 | list for next time, but if you need
full control, not ideal. Let's click on
| | 02:47 | that one more time and we
will go back to Drop-Down List.
| | 02:53 | With Drop-Down List selected now, we
know that the user when they open up this
| | 02:57 | form will be able to click the Drop-
Down and select the appropriate category
| | 03:01 | from a list, where does that list
come from? Well, we can provide them with
| | 03:06 | that list by entering the items
manually ourselves as we design the form, or we
| | 03:11 | could connect to actual data sources
where that list of items appears already.
| | 03:17 | Let's explore it out a little bit more.
Now, we'll click on the field itself
| | 03:21 | and right-click once it's selected
to go down to the Drop-Down List Box
| | 03:26 | Properties, right down here at the
bottom of the pop-up menu. This opens our
| | 03:31 | Drop-Down List Box Properties dialog box,
and here under the Data tab, you can
| | 03:36 | see the Field Name needs to be changed,
Field and the Number doesn't say much
| | 03:41 | about the actual field.
| | 03:42 | This is our category field or list
of categories. I am going to type in
| | 03:48 | categorylist; all one word. We don't
want to use spaces here. The data going in
| | 03:53 | there will be text and maybe it
can't be left blank. You want to make sure
| | 03:58 | that whatever expenses listed here is
assigned to one of the categories. So
| | 04:02 | let's click in the check
box next to cannot be blank.
| | 04:06 | Down below is where we choose the list
itself. Three options here, three Radio
| | 04:11 | buttons, enter the list box entries
ourselves manually right now; we are going
| | 04:16 | to do that momentarily using our Add button.
| | 04:19 | We could also go to a data source list
of categories if it already exists, look
| | 04:25 | up values in the forms data source and
we haven't actually connected this form
| | 04:29 | to a data source yet. We haven't talked
about that in this title, so we'll save
| | 04:33 | that for later. Same goes for looking
up values from some other external data
| | 04:38 | source, like a database for example.
So we'll save that for later. Right now,
| | 04:41 | let's enter the List Box entries
manually. So with that selected, we go over
| | 04:46 | here to our Add button.
| | 04:47 | Now, the first item in here is what
we see in the dropdown itself, the word
| | 04:52 | Select and the default is Yes, but
that really needs to stay there. That's
| | 04:57 | what we want showing up in our Drop-Down,
but if you wanted to change that word
| | 05:01 | Select to something else, you could by
using the Modify button. I prefer it to
| | 05:06 | add to my list, so I am going to click
the Add button. The Value, I am going to
| | 05:10 | type in Transportation. The Display
Name will also be Transportation unless I
| | 05:18 | come in here and change it to something
else, but it speaks for itself. So I am
| | 05:21 | going to click OK.
| | 05:23 | There it is the first item. I am going
to add another one, which is going to be
| | 05:29 | Airfare; a little bit different from
Transportation. I am going to add another
| | 05:34 | one, Hotel, and that could be
accommodation. Hotel, I might want to change the
| | 05:41 | Display Name to Accommodation and
click OK. Let's add another one this time,
| | 05:52 | Meals, and let's add one
more, Entertainment, and OK.
| | 06:02 | Now, our list is created and I am
thinking maybe Transportation here should go
| | 06:06 | down a little bit. With it selected, I
can move it up or down the list. I am
| | 06:11 | going to move it down past Hotel,
Meals, Entertainment. Let's add one more,
| | 06:21 | Miscellaneous and OK.
| | 06:23 | Now, it gets added right in there, I'd
rather see that at the very end. So I am
| | 06:27 | going to move it down. If one of these
should be the default, I could actually
| | 06:32 | select it and set it as the default,
and I want this one here to be the
| | 06:36 | default, notice that the buttons
are not available to me at this point.
| | 06:40 | So all I have to do now is click OK,
saves my changes and to see if this
| | 06:46 | works, let's go up to our Preview
button and down here in our Itemized List of
| | 06:52 | Expenses, we'll select a Date. Let's
in the Description field type in Taxi to
| | 07:00 | Airport and from the Category,
we'll click the dropdown, check it out,
| | 07:06 | Transportation and over here under Cost,
we would type-in the amount and then
| | 07:13 | if we needed a new item because we've
got a repeating table, Add the Expense
| | 07:17 | item, you can see the next one is also required.
| | 07:20 | So this works beautifully. Come up
here to close the Preview takes us back to
| | 07:24 | Design view. If there is something
we've forgotten that we need to add later on
| | 07:28 | or something that nobody uses, we can
always come back here by right-clicking
| | 07:33 | down to Drop-Down List Box properties
and come back to our List. We can remove
| | 07:38 | an item, maybe Miscellaneous never
gets used, click Remove to take it out,
| | 07:43 | Apply the changes or just click OK when
you are done and you are back to your
| | 07:47 | form. This is the way it's going
to work from this point forward.
| | 07:52 | So if you really need to control what
people are allowed to enter into a field,
| | 07:56 | create a list for them to select them
using either a List Box, Drop-Down List
| | 08:01 | Box or even Combo Box.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using checkboxes and option buttons| 00:00 | In this lesson, we are going to
explore the use of check boxes and option
| | 00:04 | buttons on a form to provide our
end-users with an easy way to import
| | 00:08 | information without having
to type a single character.
| | 00:11 | Of course that means as the designers
of this form we'll be gathering accurate
| | 00:15 | information that's consistent across
the board, no matter who is filling out
| | 00:19 | this form, that data will look the same.
| | 00:22 | Now, option buttons, also known as radio
buttons will provide an option. It's an
| | 00:27 | either/or. You can provide as many
options as you want, but only one can be
| | 00:31 | selected. With a check box, it's a
little bit different. You can change it up
| | 00:35 | to allow the end-user to select more
than one option with the check box. So
| | 00:40 | let's start with the
option button or radio button.
| | 00:42 | We'll use our Expense Report that
we've been building in previous lessons. So
| | 00:46 | if you have been following along, you
are ready to go. We are going to go down
| | 00:50 | to a Layout Table that was added long
ago here for Gift Recipients. Maybe we've
| | 00:55 | decided this is a section that we
really don't need, but we are going to turn
| | 00:59 | it into something else. We don't need
to track Gift Recipients; rather we want
| | 01:03 | to know if the expenses on this
form are billable back to a client.
| | 01:08 | So here where it says Gift Recipients.
I am going to click and drag over that,
| | 01:11 | and I am going to type over it like
it's not even there. Client Billable, and
| | 01:17 | that's a question. So I am going to
leave a couple of spaces and here might be
| | 01:20 | a good spot for an option button or
a Yes or No option. So in this case, I
| | 01:26 | want to add a control known as an
option button by going over here to my task
| | 01:31 | pane. I want to make sure
that Controls is selected here.
| | 01:36 | In Standard section towards the bottom,
you'll find Option Button. When you
| | 01:40 | click on this, you have to decide how
many options you want to insert, and
| | 01:44 | check out this little note here,
Option buttons must be inserted together or
| | 01:48 | bound to the same field to function
correctly. In other words, if I put in five
| | 01:53 | choices here, they are all named the
same field. The selection that's made will
| | 01:58 | determine what data goes into that field.
So you'll see what I mean in a second.
| | 02:03 | We need two choices of Yes or No. So I
am going to change this default 3 here
| | 02:08 | to 2 by clicking the Down-Arrow. Now
when I click OK, watch what happens,
| | 02:12 | inserted where my cursor was flashing.
It's also put them on their own lines,
| | 02:17 | but we can change that.
| | 02:18 | Notice that the field names are
identical. Your numbers maybe different than
| | 02:22 | mine, but you can see Field and the
number are identical for both of these
| | 02:26 | options. All right, I am going to
click and drag over Field 77 here, and I am
| | 02:33 | going to type in No. I am going to
click and drag over the Label here for Field
| | 02:38 | 77, the second one, and type in
Yes. Now, it's still Field 77.
| | 02:42 | I am going to click up here next to my
question mark where I have left a
| | 02:47 | couple of spaces, and hit my Delete key
to bring the No option up onto the same
| | 02:52 | line as my title, and I am going to
click after it, leave a couple of spaces
| | 02:56 | there with my Spacebar and hit Delete again
to bring up the other option which is Yes.
| | 03:01 | Now, it doesn't matter which one you
click on here. Click on either of those
| | 03:05 | option buttons, you'll see Field 77
still pops up. Let's right-click now to
| | 03:10 | access the option button properties.
When we click on it, you can see the Field
| | 03:15 | name is still Field 77. I am going
to type right over that. I am going to
| | 03:19 | type-in the word Billable and the
Data type is going to be Text. The Value,
| | 03:26 | when selected this first button is
showing a 1. The other option is 2, but we
| | 03:31 | can change that. I am going to
click and drag. Actually, I am going to
| | 03:34 | Backspace over that 1, and I am going
to type in what should be there, 'No.'
| | 03:39 | Now you could if you wanted to make
one of these buttons selected by default,
| | 03:44 | the Yes or the No. I am going to leave
this one unchecked, and I am going to
| | 03:48 | click OK. Now, I am going to click
outside the selected option, and go over to
| | 03:56 | the second option button, as I hover
over it, now says Billable. I am going to
| | 04:00 | right-click on this one and go down to
the option button properties and in here
| | 04:06 | you can see the Value when selected is
defaulted to 2. I am going to click in
| | 04:10 | there, take that out and type in Yes.
| | 04:12 | So this is going to be created, as
people select these option buttons. This is
| | 04:17 | the data that's going to appear in
the record or in the field for this
| | 04:21 | particular form.
| | 04:23 | Now, this is the button that I want to
be shown as selected by default. That
| | 04:28 | way, the user may not even have to
select anything here. If most of the Expense
| | 04:33 | Reports that are billable back to a
client, they won't have to do a thing here.
| | 04:37 | If it's not, they'll have to select the
No option. So I am going to click this
| | 04:41 | check box, and I am going to click OK.
I'll click outside the form here just to
| | 04:46 | see the end result. Notice that
the Yes option button is filled in.
| | 04:51 | If we preview this, we get a better
look at it. Click the Preview button here
| | 04:56 | and scroll down and we've got Client
Billable? Yes or No. We do have some
| | 05:01 | fields down here to remove that apply
to our previous labels. So let's go back
| | 05:07 | out of our Preview by clicking the
Close Preview button, back to Design view,
| | 05:12 | and let's take out Recipient Name. I
am just going to click and drag over the
| | 05:15 | entire thing and Delete. Same thing for
Gift Amount, and the field down below,
| | 05:22 | click and drag over both, so they
are both selected, and hit Delete.
| | 05:25 | I am going to click outside the form
now again to de-select everything. I am
| | 05:30 | ready to move on to the check box. So
the check box I am going to use for the
| | 05:36 | Currency, and what are we using here?
Is it U.S. Currency, Canadian or
| | 05:41 | something else? So I am going to have
three options here, and I am going to use
| | 05:45 | this little field down here in my
Layout table this cell, right below Client
| | 05:49 | Billable. Now, I am going to hit Return
or Enter on my keyboard just to leave a
| | 05:53 | little bit of space, and I am going to
type in Currency, with a colon, and I am
| | 06:01 | going to leave a space after that. It
looks like I really don't need to have
| | 06:04 | three different columns, so we know we
can click and drag over those and just
| | 06:07 | merge them together. I am going to go up
to my Tables toolbar and click Merge Cells.
| | 06:13 | Now, I am going to click after
Currency and here is where I want to put in my
| | 06:16 | check boxes. So I am going to go over
to my task pane again, this time I am
| | 06:20 | going to click on Check Box, which
inserts a check box. Now, this is different
| | 06:25 | from our option buttons here. We can select
one or more of these options if we need to.
| | 06:31 | So if I leave a couple of spaces with
my Spacebar and click Check Box again,
| | 06:36 | you can see it's the next field up.
Your numbers may be different, but they
| | 06:39 | should be going up by one each time
you add one. I am going to leave a couple
| | 06:43 | of spaces and click Check Box over here
on the right again to add a third one.
| | 06:47 | So I've got three new fields. So I am
going to click and drag over Field 78,
| | 06:53 | whatever your number is, you can click
and drag over it and type-in U.S. and I
| | 06:58 | am going to leave a space.
| | 07:00 | For Field 79, whatever your number is,
click and drag over it, type-in CDN if
| | 07:06 | you are following along for Canadian,
and Field 80. I am going to click and
| | 07:10 | drag over that Other. If you do have
an Other option, you may want to have a
| | 07:16 | field that allows people
to input what that other is.
| | 07:19 | So I am going to leave a couple of
spaces and in brackets, if other, please
| | 07:28 | specify, leave a space, and here is
where I just simply want to put in a Text Box.
| | 07:34 | Click on that and look at the
size of the Text Box here that gets added.
| | 07:38 | Way too big. So I am going to click on
it. I am going to size it down, size it
| | 07:44 | down small enough that it actually
fits on the line above next to If other,
| | 07:49 | please specify. I still need to put
in closing round bracket here and that
| | 07:56 | still fits.
| | 07:58 | So I've got a new field here added,
and I can rename that. I am going to
| | 08:02 | right-click on it, go down to my Text
Box Properties, change it from field81.
| | 08:07 | You'll see a different number here,
no doubt. You can type right over that.
| | 08:12 | Currency, and click OK. Let's click
outside the form to see the end result.
| | 08:20 | To really see what this is going to
look like, when we go to fill it out,
| | 08:23 | we click our Preview button one more time,
scroll down, check it out. If I've got
| | 08:29 | U.S. and Canadian currencies on this
form, I can check both of those off.
| | 08:34 | Clicking the check box also deselects it
if it's already selected. I am going to
| | 08:38 | go over here to Other, coming here, and
type in Pounds. I am going to close my
| | 08:44 | Preview to return to Design view, good
idea to save your changes at this point
| | 08:48 | before we move on.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using validation rules| 00:00 | If you want to ensure maximum control
over the data that can be entered into
| | 00:05 | one of your forms here in InfoPath
2007, you might want to consider using
| | 00:09 | validation rules. With validation
rules, we can ensure that users are
| | 00:13 | inputting the correct data and if they
are not, display an error message. So
| | 00:17 | that's exactly what we are going to do
in this lesson using our Expense Report
| | 00:21 | form that we have been
building throughout this chapter.
| | 00:23 | So if you have been along, perfect, you
are ready to go. We are going to focus
| | 00:27 | on this one field here under Report
Date. The Report Date field, you can see,
| | 00:32 | has a little calendar icon; it's a
date picker field. So we have ensured that
| | 00:36 | the format of the date is going to be
accurate because users will click the
| | 00:39 | calendar icon, select the date, and
it will show up in this field for them,.
| | 00:44 | They don't have to take anything,
but we can take it a step further.
| | 00:47 | For, example, if the report date should
default to the current date, we can do that.
| | 00:52 | That means the user won't have to
do anything with this field unless they
| | 00:55 | want to change the date from the
current date. The other thing we can do is
| | 00:59 | force them to enter a valid date. In
other words, in this case, a date that is
| | 01:05 | either today or earlier. We don't want
people inputting future dates here. So
| | 01:10 | that requires one of those
validation rules I am talking about.
| | 01:14 | So let's click on the field itself.
It becomes selected; we see the handles
| | 01:18 | around the outside. Now we can right-
click on the selected field and from the
| | 01:22 | pop up menu, we will go down to the
bottom and click Date Picker Properties. It
| | 01:27 | opens up our Date Picker Properties
dialog box with the Data tab selected.
| | 01:32 | The first thing I am going to do is
change the name of this field from field
| | 01:35 | 47. You may see a different number
there. I am going to change this to
| | 01:39 | ReportDate. We can't use spaces, so I
am just going to type ReportDate all one
| | 01:45 | word. The Data Type is correct. It's
going to be a date, but here is where we
| | 01:48 | get to choose a default value. If I
came in here and typed in today's data.
| | 01:53 | That would be the data that appears in
that field every time. So even though we
| | 01:58 | move on to tomorrow or next week, it
will always be today's date and not the
| | 02:02 | current date that shows up,
so I don't want to do that.
| | 02:05 | What I really want is a formula. That
means going over to my Formula button to
| | 02:09 | the right of the value field, and when
I give it a click, I see a warning. I
| | 02:13 | changed the field name, as soon as you
make changes, you need to update those
| | 02:17 | changes or save them. I can do that on
the fly by clicking Yes right here, and
| | 02:22 | now you can see there is a warning
that when you make changes to a field in a
| | 02:26 | form that maybe is connected to a
data source that's already been used, you
| | 02:30 | could be messing things up. In this
case, we haven't used the form yet, and
| | 02:34 | we still want to continue. Yes.
| | 02:36 | That finally takes us to our Insert
Formula dialog box. Here is where we type
| | 02:42 | in our formula. Now if you don't have a
clue what you should type here, that's
| | 02:46 | okay, because we have got buttons down
below to help us out. We could insert a
| | 02:50 | natural field or a group from the
current form. We could insert a function.
| | 02:54 | That's what we are going to do, and even
verify the formula if we type it in ourselves.
| | 02:59 | So I am going to choose Insert
Function, and I am going to go over to my
| | 03:02 | categories here and select Date and
Time, because it's a date field. When I
| | 03:07 | click Date and Time, look at the
functions I see here, adddays, addseconds, now
| | 03:11 | and today. When you click on these,
you get a little description down below.
| | 03:15 | When I click on today, it's going to
return the current system date. That's the
| | 03:19 | date that my computer is set up with.
It will always be the current date.
| | 03:22 | Now let's take it a step further and we
will include the time. I just need the
| | 03:26 | date. So I am going to click OK and
the formula is written for me, so I could
| | 03:31 | have type this in today with the open
and closed brackets, but by using the
| | 03:35 | Insert Function I learned a little
bit. Next time I will just type it in
| | 03:38 | myself. I am going to click OK to save
that change. It now becomes the default
| | 03:43 | value right there in the Value field.
| | 03:45 | Now the other rule that I want to set
up is that it can't be left blank, so you
| | 03:49 | can't go in there and delete the
current date. I am going to click this check
| | 03:51 | box. That's the first rule, and now I
am going to go down to Data Validation to
| | 03:55 | set up a rule that will not allow
users to input a future date. So I am going
| | 04:00 | to click on Data Validation right here.
Conditions with the data validation,
| | 04:04 | nothing here, I need to add it.
So I am going to click Add.
| | 04:08 | So if someone tries to put in a
Report Date that is greater than today. So
| | 04:11 | ReportDate field is equal to. No, I
need to click this dropdown. Is greater
| | 04:17 | than, there we go, and I want today
to appear in here. You know what that
| | 04:23 | means. I am going to click the
dropdown and choose a formula, there is my
| | 04:26 | Insert Formula dialog box. I can type
it in now that I have learned it's today,
| | 04:31 | with an open and a closed bracket,
and when I click OK I had inserted that
| | 04:36 | first condition.
| | 04:37 | If someone tries to put in a date
that's greater than today in the ReportDate
| | 04:41 | field, what will they see? Now they
will see a little dialog box with a screen
| | 04:46 | tip and message inside. So I am going
type here Invalid Date and the message
| | 04:53 | down below, You cannot enter a future date!
| | 05:04 | Now when will they see this? By default
they will see this message when they go
| | 05:08 | to save the form, save the data, or
you choose to click this check box,
| | 05:14 | they will see the message instantaneously,
right away, and I like this because it
| | 05:19 | gives them an opportunity to fix it
right away before moving on to other parts
| | 05:23 | of the form. So I am going to click
this check box to show the dialog box
| | 05:27 | message immediately when users enter
an invalid date in this case. I am going
| | 05:32 | to click OK, and I am going to click OK
now. That's my one condition, the only
| | 05:36 | condition I need. I will click OK again,
and one more click of the OK button
| | 05:41 | saves my changes, and I will click
outside the form to see the end result.
| | 05:45 | Nothing has changed here in Design view,
but when we test this out by going up
| | 05:49 | to our preview button, here you can see
the current date shows up in the field.
| | 05:55 | This is my current date, you will see a
different date if you are testing this
| | 05:58 | out, and if I go to my calendar icon
to choose a date that's in the future, I
| | 06:04 | am going to the next of month and
choose any date next of month, and you can
| | 06:08 | see it turns red here and there is my
dialog box, there is my message, invalid
| | 06:13 | date. You cannot enter a future date.
So I click OK and I am going to go back
| | 06:18 | to my calendar icon and I am just going
to set it back to today by clicking the
| | 06:23 | today button. There we go.
| | 06:25 | Now that's just one field that we have
set up a validation rule for. You can do
| | 06:29 | this to any type of field. It doesn't
have to be a date picker; it could be one
| | 06:33 | of these fields under personal
information, if you wanted to set up rules for
| | 06:37 | First Name, Last Name, Email Address.
As we scroll down, any of the fields can
| | 06:42 | have rules assigned to them, and in
this case we might want to do it with a
| | 06:46 | couple of things, such as under
Currency here we have got check boxes where we
| | 06:50 | might want to ensure that this
can't be left blank, or under Additional
| | 06:54 | Information we can make that optional.
| | 06:56 | There are some other ways to enforce
validation of our data, such as setting
| | 07:02 | up sections that are optional, for
example. That's something we are going to
| | 07:05 | talk about in the next lesson.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using an optional section| 00:00 | You plan on having any areas of your
form that may or may not be used and you
| | 00:04 | want to leave that option up to the
end user, you will want to insert an
| | 00:09 | optional section. In this lesson we are
going to add an optional section to our
| | 00:13 | Expense Report form that we have
been building throughout this chapter.
| | 00:16 | So if you have been following along,
just scroll down to the bottom until you
| | 00:20 | see the Additional Information section
down here. We are going to focus on the
| | 00:24 | Additional Information area. Now we
have already added a scrolling region with
| | 00:29 | rich text box and giving us room to add
as much information as we want without
| | 00:34 | taking up too much room on the form,
thanks to the scroll bar, but an even
| | 00:38 | better if this section is not going
to be used at all, with an optional
| | 00:42 | section, it doesn't take up any room on
your form unless it's going to be used.
| | 00:47 | So let's click down here where it
says Scrolling Region. That selects the
| | 00:51 | entire region, you see the handles, hit
the Delete key on our keyboards, there
| | 00:55 | it's gone and now we are ready to
insert the optional section. To do that, we
| | 01:00 | go over to our task pane, under the
Repeating and Optional heading and we find
| | 01:05 | right at the top Optional Section.
| | 01:07 | So I am going to give it a click,
which inserts it into that area which is a
| | 01:11 | layout table on my form. I am going to
scroll down and you can see there is an
| | 01:15 | extra space here I don't need, I am
going to hit my Backspace key; it fits
| | 01:18 | nicely in that section.
| | 01:20 | Now what we see here in Design view is
not what the end users are going to see
| | 01:23 | when they go to fill out this section,
if they choose to use it. What they are
| | 01:27 | going to see is a link that will open
up this section if they need to use it.
| | 01:32 | So what we need inside our optional
section is an area for them to add that
| | 01:36 | additional information.
| | 01:37 | So I am going click inside it. It
looks a little bit different. There are
| | 01:40 | handles around the outside, but we see
that shaded border indicating now inside
| | 01:45 | the section and here is where I want
to add the rich text box. So I am going
| | 01:49 | to click up here on Rich Text Box
control here under the Standard heading. It
| | 01:53 | inserts it for me and now I can
click outside that section to see the end
| | 01:58 | result here in Design view.
| | 02:00 | Now we can also check out some of the
properties for our optional section. Just
| | 02:06 | by going to the Optional Section area
down here, clicking once means we have
| | 02:11 | selected the entire section. Right-
clicking will give us a pop up menu, where
| | 02:16 | we can select Section Properties.
I am going to give that a click.
| | 02:20 | What you will notice is that it's
actually Section Properties, it's not
| | 02:23 | Optional Section Properties, because
we can take any section, a repeating
| | 02:28 | section, just a standard old
section that we have added to our form and
| | 02:31 | converted into an optional section
just by going down to the Default settings
| | 02:36 | and selecting this second radio button
which is Do not include the section in
| | 02:40 | the form by default.
| | 02:42 | Typically, you are going to see this
radio button selected, include the section
| | 02:46 | in the form by default unless you
choose to insert an Optional Section, then
| | 02:50 | the new default becomes this one and
with Do not include selected you will
| | 02:55 | also see this check box which will
allow users to insert the section
| | 02:59 | themselves. By giving them the option,
there is no space taken up except for
| | 03:04 | one link on the form and when they
click that link, then the section is added
| | 03:08 | and they can start adding
their additional information.
| | 03:10 | You are going to also add Rules and
Default Values and Customized Commands, but
| | 03:15 | really what I am going interested in
is down here, Show the insert button and
| | 03:19 | hint text. So what they are going to
see is a little Insert button, just that
| | 03:24 | little arrow that you see and the
text that we enter here, Click here to
| | 03:29 | insert. I could be more specific, Click
here to add additional information that
| | 03:42 | may be useful in this report. They
will see that on the form, they will click
| | 03:52 | it and then the section will appear where they
can start adding that additional information.
| | 03:57 | Now just before I click OK, I am going
to click Apply here to apply that change
| | 04:01 | and I am going to go up to these
buttons here, where I can add Rules, Default
| | 04:06 | Values or Customized Commands. Now I
don't want to customize any commands or
| | 04:09 | enter any default values. It's just
going to be a text field. So I am going to
| | 04:13 | go up to rules. The rule is I am just
going to add one here that whenever they
| | 04:18 | go to this section to add it, I want
to give them a little more information
| | 04:22 | then just that link.
| | 04:23 | So I am going click Add. Rule 1 is the
default name. I can call this whatever I
| | 04:28 | want and I am not going to set up any
conditions. I am going to say this rule
| | 04:32 | always applies. So I don't use that
condition, but I do want to add the action,
| | 04:36 | which is to display a message. Show a
dialog box is at the very top and is
| | 04:42 | selected. That's what I want to use,
and the message is Use this section to add
| | 04:54 | useful details to the expenses in
this report. Be specific and you can type
| | 05:07 | whatever you like here. When you click
OK, you have added action. Click OK to
| | 05:11 | save that. There is one rule; you
can have as many rules as you like, but
| | 05:15 | that's all we need. I am going to
click OK and I now I am back to my Section
| | 05:19 | Properties to save all of those changes.
I click OK and I am back to my form.
| | 05:24 | Now we see it down here, taking up some
space on the form. I am going to click
| | 05:27 | outside that section just to see the
end result. As an end user, let's see what
| | 05:32 | they are going to see. We will go up
to our Preview button on the Standard
| | 05:36 | toolbar, give it a click and check out
the bottom of the form. It ends abruptly
| | 05:41 | here under Additional Information, but
there is a link, there is a button with
| | 05:45 | a link, Click here to add additional
information that maybe useful in this
| | 05:49 | report. When I click on this, look
there is my little message that I said
| | 05:53 | should up by default, use this section
to add useful details to the expenses in
| | 05:58 | this report, be specific. So I click OK
and now I have got my new section with
| | 06:03 | my rich text box. I can type in
here and start typing in any additional
| | 06:08 | information, just like that.
| | 06:14 | Let's close preview to return back to
our Design view, make sure nothing is
| | 06:18 | selected. You probably want to save
your changes at this point. Now that we
| | 06:22 | have added our optional
section, we are ready to move on.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Adding buttons | 00:00 | When you design forms in InfoPath
2007, it's typically for the purpose of
| | 00:04 | gathering information. End users input
data into your form; that data needs to
| | 00:10 | be stored somewhere. Without
connecting to a data source, end users who save
| | 00:15 | their forms, save the data wherever
they choose, on their own hard drives, for
| | 00:18 | example, and there is a reference to
the form template that was used to enter
| | 00:21 | the data. So when they go to view that
data, which is XML data by the way, it's
| | 00:25 | viewed in the form that
was used to enter that data.
| | 00:29 | Typically, as the person designing the
form, you want to collect the data for
| | 00:33 | yourself and you want to control
where that data goes. So in that case you
| | 00:38 | might want to add a Submit button.
That's what we are going to do in this
| | 00:42 | lesson; we are going to add a Submit
button to our expense report and we are
| | 00:45 | going to choose the destination.
| | 00:47 | Later on in this title, we do get into
connecting to data sources in detail.
| | 00:52 | For now though, adding the Submit
button allows us to connect to a destination
| | 00:57 | as we build the Submit feature.
| | 01:00 | So using our Expense report that we
have building in previous lessons, let's go
| | 01:04 | down to the very bottom of the form.
This is where our submit button is going
| | 01:08 | to go. I am going to click down here
and all we have to do to add the button
| | 01:12 | itself, very simple, is go to our task
pane, make sure Controls is selected up
| | 01:16 | here at the top, and go down to the
second last one in the Standard section.
| | 01:20 | It's Button. We give it a
click and now we have a button.
| | 01:24 | It doesn't do anything quite yet until
we tell it what to do. To do that, we
| | 01:29 | edit the button properties. So we can
right-click on it and from that pop up
| | 01:33 | menu choose Button Properties. I have
been showing you that method throughout
| | 01:36 | this title. The long way is with the
button selected, go up to Format, and no
| | 01:42 | matter you what object you selected on
a form, you can go to the Format menu
| | 01:45 | and at the bottom you see Properties.
In this case button properties, and the
| | 01:48 | keyboard shortcut is always Alt+Enter.
We will give it a click to open up our
| | 01:53 | Button Properties dialog box. We have
got four tabs, General, Display, Size,
| | 01:58 | and Advanced.
| | 02:00 | The button itself can do two
different things; it could do rules and custom
| | 02:05 | code. If you are a programmer, you can
actually write code to decide exactly
| | 02:09 | what this button is going to do and set
up rules. We are not going to get into
| | 02:13 | programming in this title, so we are
going to change it to Submit, and when I
| | 02:17 | click on Submit, look what happens down below.
| | 02:20 | The label changes to the word Submit,
it won't be button any longer, and down
| | 02:24 | below I have got one button for
selecting my Submit options, and that's where
| | 02:28 | we are going next. So we give it a
click. We have to configure this Submit
| | 02:33 | command or button to do what we want
it to do, and that is to allow users to
| | 02:37 | submit this form to a
destination that we choose.
| | 02:40 | So the first thing we need to do is
click this check box. This is going to
| | 02:44 | enable the connection to a destination,
something we have to have in our form
| | 02:49 | template for this to work. Now it's not
there by default, we can go through the
| | 02:53 | Connection Wizard and so on, or we can
do it as we build our Submit button here
| | 02:57 | and that's what we are doing right now.
| | 02:59 | Where do we want to send the form data?
We need to choose the destination from
| | 03:03 | this dropdown. It could be to an
email address, SharePoint library, Web
| | 03:08 | service, Web server, hosting
environment, even connection from a Data
| | 03:12 | Connection Library. You can also
perform custom action using code, if you are
| | 03:16 | into writing code again. I am going
to back up to the top here and select
| | 03:21 | E-mail. E-mail is where I wanted to go
| | 03:23 | What email? Well, it varies, depending
on who is filling out the form. We want
| | 03:27 | it to go to their manager using the
manager email field. So we need to add
| | 03:34 | that, and this what's going to launch
our Connection Wizard. Now it kind of
| | 03:38 | looks like we are about to fill out
an email, but this is a data connection
| | 03:41 | wizard for email, and down below you
can see our fields here for To, Cc:, Bcc:,
| | 03:47 | even a subject field.
| | 03:48 | I don't want to type in an actual email
address here, I want to use one of the
| | 03:52 | fields on my form, and whatever email
address appears in that field, I want it
| | 03:56 | used in the To filed. So I don't
type anything here, I just go over to my
| | 04:00 | Formula button. Give it a click and now
the formula is actually a field. There
| | 04:06 | is a button for selecting fields or
groups. I'll click on this, and you can see
| | 04:10 | myfields, and I'll clean this up. So
if you are using the form I asked you to
| | 04:14 | open, that's what you are going to see.
If you are not, you are going to see
| | 04:17 | lots of fields that aren't even used.
All of these are used on our form. And
| | 04:21 | the one that interests me is this one
here, the Manager e-mail. So I give it a
| | 04:26 | click, and click OK.
| | 04:28 | So that throws it into the formula area.
I am done with inserting my formula, I
| | 04:33 | click OK, and now you can see Manager
Email, the field is what's going to be
| | 04:38 | used in the To field of the email
message that's created. No, Cc: or Bcc: in
| | 04:44 | this case. In the Subject, I am going
to do Expense Form Submission. So that's
| | 04:52 | what the manager will see as the subject.
There is even an introductory message
| | 04:56 | created for you down below, you can
change that or type whatever you want, I am
| | 05:00 | going to leave to default
and move on to the next step.
| | 05:04 | Clicking the Next button takes me to
the spot where I need to choose how this
| | 05:08 | data is going to be sent. I can send
only the active view of the form, and no
| | 05:12 | attachment, so it will be right in the
message body, the form filled out with
| | 05:16 | the data, or I can send the form data
as an attachment. You can see the name is
| | 05:21 | going to be Form, I am going to extend
that to Expense Form, and down below I
| | 05:26 | can attach the form template as well,
so that whoever opens this up to look at
| | 05:30 | it, will be able to see it in the form
the way it was entered. So I am going to
| | 05:33 | choose that too, and I am going to click Next.
| | 05:37 | What's this connection going to be
called, because we can create many, many
| | 05:40 | different connections. If we name
them appropriately, they will be easy to
| | 05:44 | understand later on. So if I create
another form that needs to go to manager
| | 05:49 | email, I could select it from a list
as oppose to creating the connection
| | 05:53 | again. So this one, instead of Main
submit, I am going to take that out with my
| | 05:57 | Backspace key. I can type in Manager
Email, and when I click Finish, I have now
| | 06:06 | got my connection. Manager Email shows
up as the Choose a data connection for
| | 06:10 | submit, and I can click OK.
| | 06:13 | Now just before I do that, I want
you to see this old check box, Show the
| | 06:17 | submit menu item and the submit toolbar
button, and that's what end users will
| | 06:22 | see up here on their File menus, and
on their standard toolbars. Instead of
| | 06:26 | Save, they are going to see Submit. Now
if I don't want them to see that, I can
| | 06:29 | deselect it. That's not a bad idea to
be able to submit from more than one
| | 06:34 | spot, not just the button we are
creating right now. I am going to click OK.
| | 06:39 | With the Submit options now completed,
I am back to my Button Properties.
| | 06:44 | There are some other properties such
as, Display. If we want a conditional
| | 06:48 | formatting, here is a cool one. If
nobody has entered an actual email address
| | 06:52 | for the manager, and it is mandatory,
maybe the Submit button shouldn't be
| | 06:57 | usable, should look like its disabled. That's
conditional formatting. Let's go in there for a second.
| | 07:02 | Let's set up a condition by clicking Add.
So in this case, the condition we are
| | 07:07 | setting up is if the Manager Email
is blank, so I am going to scroll down
| | 07:11 | through myfields here, there is Manger
Email. I am going to change it from is
| | 07:16 | equal to, to is blank. Well, then what?
Well, we have got some options, Hide
| | 07:22 | the control, it's going to invisible,
Disable it. I want it to be visible, but
| | 07:26 | disabled, and there are some other
options I have for formatting as well.
| | 07:30 | I am going to click OK. When I click OK
that's the only condition that I want,
| | 07:35 | so I save that condition. I have a
couple of other options for my button. I can
| | 07:40 | adjust the size, width, and height
are both set to auto, so if I change the
| | 07:45 | label to more text, it's going to
grow with it, but if I want it to be
| | 07:48 | specific, I could come in to the
height or width field and type in exact
| | 07:52 | measurements, and I can use the unit
of my preference, so pixels, inches,
| | 07:57 | millimeters for example.
| | 07:58 | I am going to leave it at Auto.
The Padding is zero pixels around the
| | 08:04 | outside, so the button can go right up
close to another section. The Margins
| | 08:08 | are how close the word Button or in
our case the word Submit will come to the
| | 08:12 | edge of the button, and it's set to
Auto as well, but we could be specific if
| | 08:16 | we needed to.
| | 08:17 | I am just going to click OK to save
those changes. Now, this would be a good
| | 08:21 | time to save your form, because we
have done a bit of work here, saving your
| | 08:24 | form before you preview it to test it
out. Let's go to that Preview button.
| | 08:28 | All right, here is my form. Report Date
is defaulted to the current date. I do
| | 08:35 | have some red asterisks, so I am going
to type in my reason as Test, testing
| | 08:39 | out this form. E-mail address, I am
going to use a make believe one here,
| | 08:43 | drivers@lynda.com. That's the
manager. I am to type in DR to just have
| | 08:49 | something there. Let's add a couple of expenses.
| | 08:53 | I am going to click the date picker or
calendar icon, and the first expense, I
| | 08:57 | am just going to go back to the first
of the month and type in Flight to Japan.
| | 09:02 | The category has a red asterisk. It
cannot be blank. That's Airfare, and the
| | 09:08 | cost I am going to type in 1295, and I
am going to hit my Tab key, and see what
| | 09:13 | that does. It takes me down to
the Total Expenses field here.
| | 09:17 | Let's add one more by going to the Add
Expense Item, and I am going to click
| | 09:21 | the date picker again, I am going to
choose 2nd of the month, type in Hotel.
| | 09:28 | Category, of course, is going to be
Accommodation, and I type in, 790, hit tab
| | 09:36 | and there is my total. Great! Is it
billable? No. Let's choose US currency, and
| | 09:42 | we'll scroll down to see the rest of
the form. I am not going to add any
| | 09:45 | additional information, but I
am ready to submit this data.
| | 09:49 | When I click Submit, let's see what
happens. You can see it's busy thinking
| | 09:53 | here. There is the Expense Form
Submission message. You can see who it's going
| | 09:57 | to, if I wanted to add CCs or BCCs or
any more to the Subject and message, I
| | 10:02 | could, but it's all done for me. I
click Send, and off it goes. Form submitted
| | 10:08 | successfully; I click OK. So I
am ready now to close this up.
| | 10:12 | Just before I do though, you may have
noticed there is a Submit button up here
| | 10:16 | as well, and if I go up to the File
menu, I have also got Submit available to
| | 10:20 | me from this dropdown. I am not going
to do it again. I am going to close my
| | 10:26 | preview to return to the Design view.
| | 10:28 | That's all there is to adding a Submit
button to submit data to the destination
| | 10:33 | of your choice.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Enabling digital signatures| 00:00 | Signing a document is a way to
authenticate the data found in that document.
| | 00:04 | Before computers and even today we
still add our signature to a form or a
| | 00:10 | document by signing it, thus
authenticating the data in that document. On an
| | 00:15 | electronic form designed in InfoPath, we
can use something called a Digital Signature.
| | 00:20 | Digital Signatures first need to be
enabled in the form and then, of course,
| | 00:24 | the people signing the documents will
have to have set up a digital signature.
| | 00:27 | So we are going to talk about that in
this lesson, and we are going to use the
| | 00:30 | Expense Report we were working with
in the previous lesson. So if you were
| | 00:34 | following along with me in the
last lesson, you are ready to go.
| | 00:37 | Now here in Design view, we see the
form and as we scroll down, we do have the
| | 00:40 | Submit button added to this form. So
we are able to submit the form. In this
| | 00:45 | case, to an email address, the
manager's email, and if we go to the Preview
| | 00:49 | button for a second, just to take a
peak at this form. The way it's going to
| | 00:53 | appear to our end users.
| | 00:54 | I want you see something on the
standard toolbar, way over here to the
| | 00:58 | right-hand side. The second last
button is our Digital Signatures button. It
| | 01:02 | kind of looks like a ribbon. This
certification or Digital Signature icon is
| | 01:08 | not selectable at this time. It will
only become selectable when we enable and
| | 01:13 | set up a Digital Signature for this template.
| | 01:15 | So we are going to close the Preview
and we are going to go up to the Tools
| | 01:19 | menu and from here down to Form Options.
When we give this a click, we will see
| | 01:25 | the Form Options dialog box and down
the Category list there is a Digital
| | 01:29 | Signatures option right here. You can
see on the right-hand side now there is
| | 01:33 | three choices, Do not enable digital
signatures is the default, or we can
| | 01:38 | enable digital signatures either for
the entire form or just sections of the
| | 01:43 | form that we would choose. So we
would have to select the actual group of
| | 01:47 | fields or individual
fields that need to be signed.
| | 01:51 | So if go to Enable digital signatures
for the entire form, and click on it, and
| | 01:54 | you can see these options are now
selectable. Signatures will be stored in a
| | 01:59 | group called signatures1 that will be
set up for you by default right in your
| | 02:03 | form template. You can also prompt the
user to sign the form if it's submitted
| | 02:08 | without a signature, because
we do have a Submit button.
| | 02:11 | Clicking this little checkbox means,
if someone tries to submit the form
| | 02:15 | without signing it electronically,
they will be prompted to do so. So if I
| | 02:19 | click on this checkbox, you can see the
Submit Options show up. Submit Options
| | 02:23 | that we already created in a previous
lesson for this form template. So you
| | 02:28 | just have to click OK.
| | 02:29 | Now if you haven't set up a Submit
Option for this form you can do it now on
| | 02:34 | the fly, but we have already done it and
it all shows up here. So we will click OK.
| | 02:38 | Now I am ready to add or enable the
Digital Signatures and when we test it out,
| | 02:42 | we would have to sign it with our own
digital signature. Just to know that when
| | 02:46 | we do set it up for the entire form,
once it's signed you cannot change the
| | 02:50 | content on that form, it's built-
in insecurity, I kind of like that.
| | 02:54 | Another option is to enable signatures
for specific data or parts of the form.
| | 02:59 | We can do that by clicking this radio
button. Now down below, you can see Set
| | 03:04 | of assignable data, we need to add some
fields or groups that require a digital
| | 03:10 | signature, and we will do that by using
our Add button. We type a name for the
| | 03:14 | data that can be signed. I can't use
any spaces here. So let's say it was
| | 03:18 | Expense Items. I could type in
ExpenseItems and then go select the fields or
| | 03:24 | groups to be signed by
clicking this button right here.
| | 03:27 | This shows me my groups as well as my
fields and I am looking for the list of
| | 03:33 | items that I would put in this Itemized
List of Expenses section here. So I am
| | 03:37 | going to maximize group26. Now you
might see different numbers for your groups.
| | 03:42 | Group27 here has a little dropdown, so
I am going click on that. Check it out,
| | 03:45 | Date, Description, Category, Cost.
That whole group of fields is my Itemized
| | 03:51 | List of Expenses.
| | 03:52 | So I click on the group name 27 and
click OK. It's not going to be the area of
| | 03:59 | the form that requires a signature.
I can allow One signature, All the
| | 04:03 | signatures, if I wanted a co-sign
or like a manager's signature or Each
| | 04:07 | signature's signs a preceding signature,
and that sets up a counter-sign type
| | 04:11 | operation. So clicking OK would save
that and I'd be ready to move on by
| | 04:15 | clicking OK.
| | 04:16 | But I am going to go back to enabling
digital signatures for the entire form,
| | 04:20 | and I do want to prompt the user if
they forget to sign. I will click OK and
| | 04:25 | now my form has been set up for
digital signature. So you would want to save
| | 04:30 | your changes at this point, clicking
your Save button or Ctrl+S on the keyboard
| | 04:34 | and let's preview this for a second here.
| | 04:36 | We do have some fields with mandatory
entries, so I am going to go up here to
| | 04:39 | my Reason for Business Expense and
just type in Test. I am going to test this
| | 04:44 | out. E-mail Address for the Manager
is required because that's the email
| | 04:48 | address we are submitting to. I am
going to type in an imaginary one,
| | 04:51 | drivers@lynda.com.
| | 04:54 | You can try your own if you like, and
the Category has to be selected as well,
| | 04:58 | it can't be left blank. I am just
going to select Transportation in here and
| | 05:02 | add a Cost. I am going to add in $45
and hit my tab key, see the Total. I will
| | 05:08 | make it US Currency and as I
scroll down, now I am ready to submit.
| | 05:11 | Now notice up here on the standard
toolbar that my certificate, my Digital
| | 05:16 | Signatures icon is enabled, I am able
to use this now. If I forget to and click
| | 05:21 | Submit, check it out. There are no
digital signatures associated with this
| | 05:25 | form. Before you submit the form, it's
recommended that you sign it. So if you
| | 05:29 | click Yes, the Digital Signatures
dialog box will appear. The equivalent of
| | 05:33 | clicking this button on the standard toolbar.
| | 05:36 | If I click No, the form will be
submitted without a signature, so I can choose
| | 05:40 | to go to that Digital Signatures
section, choose No or Cancel this whole
| | 05:45 | operation. I am going to click Cancel
and do it manually myself by clicking the
| | 05:49 | Digital Signatures button.
| | 05:51 | Now a good idea would be to add some
information on the form that says don't
| | 05:55 | forget to sign digitally before you
submit. So I would probably want to do that
| | 06:00 | somewhere on the form, but I am going
to click the button. It brings up the
| | 06:04 | Digital Signatures dialog box. Now if
you have already got a digital signature
| | 06:08 | set up for yourself, you might see it
here on the list. The following people
| | 06:12 | have digitally signed this form. It's
set up to nobody right now. No one has
| | 06:15 | signed this form. We are going to add
one. You can see entire form does show
| | 06:20 | up, because that's how we set it up
for this particular template, click OK.
| | 06:25 | Get a digital ID from a Microsoft
partner, so you can actually purchase digital
| | 06:29 | IDs or you can create your own, which
is not quite as secure but it's a good
| | 06:34 | option for us for testing this out.
Click OK. There is my name, you can add
| | 06:39 | your own name. I am going to add
in my imaginary email address again.
| | 06:46 | Organization, I am going to type in
Lynda.com, you can type in your own.
| | 06:50 | Location, I am just going to
type Ottawa, and click Create.
| | 06:56 | Purpose for signing this document. You
are about to add digital signatures to
| | 06:59 | the form. The signature may not be
visible on any of the form views. Keep that
| | 07:03 | in my mind, but the signature, when we
go into the Digital Signatures dialog
| | 07:07 | box, will be visible there. So purpose
for signing this document is to complete it.
| | 07:14 | I am going to type Complete it. Signing
as drivers, now if I had other digital
| | 07:19 | signatures, I can change it from here,
but I am going to sign it and I am going
| | 07:23 | to close this up. You can see now that my
name does show up here as having sign the form.
| | 07:28 | When I click the Close button, I am
now able to submit. End submitting brings
| | 07:33 | open my Expense Form Submission message.
This is what's going to be sent to the
| | 07:37 | manager email address, and when I
click Send, form was submitted successfully
| | 07:42 | and off it goes. Check out the digital
signature here as I hover over the Email Address.
| | 07:48 | All right, I am going to close my
preview. That's just testing it out, we are
| | 07:51 | back to Design view, and now you know
how to set up digital signatures for a
| | 07:56 | form template in InfoPath.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
4. FormattingFormatting text| 00:00 | One of the most important things to
keep in mind when designing forms in
| | 00:03 | InfoPath is to make them easy to use.
You want your end users to actually use
| | 00:08 | the form and make it easy as possible
for them to enter the data correctly.
| | 00:13 | Another thing you will want to keep
in mind is making it easy to look at.
| | 00:17 | Making a form attractive also helps to
ensure that people are going to use the
| | 00:22 | form and fill it out with the correct data.
| | 00:24 | So we are going to start out with
some formatting in this lesson and we are
| | 00:28 | going to focus at formatting
on the text that's in our form.
| | 00:31 | Now we already do have some
formatting in some of the text you see in this
| | 00:35 | form. For example, at the very top in
the header. If I click right here on the
| | 00:39 | word Expense in the Expense Form title,
and look at my formatting toolbar, I
| | 00:44 | will see that I am using a font called
Arial Black, you can see it's 18 points,
| | 00:49 | the Bold button is selected as is the
Center Alignment button. So these are
| | 00:53 | some of the formatting attributes
applied to this particular piece of text.
| | 00:58 | If I come over here to Training
Services Department and click in there, you can
| | 01:01 | see it's the same font, a different size,
it's not bold, but it is italics and
| | 01:06 | it's also part of the centered title.
Another option for formatting text is to
| | 01:11 | use the task pane. If I go over here to
the task pane and click the dropdown at
| | 01:15 | the top, you will see that I have the
ability to format things like fonts,
| | 01:20 | paragraphs, bullets and numbering,
there is color schemes as well, and I am
| | 01:24 | going to go to Font right here.
| | 01:26 | And with the Font task pane open up,
you can see Italics is checked off. There
| | 01:30 | is the font name or font face, the size,
even the font color appears here and
| | 01:35 | down below you can see I am using the
Normal Formatting attribute. There are
| | 01:39 | some preformatted options for
different types of headings as well, and then
| | 01:43 | option to clear all the formatting
totally by clicking this option at the very
| | 01:47 | top.
| | 01:48 | So let's go into our form here and do a
little bit of formatting. I am going to
| | 01:53 | click and drag over Report Date
including the column, and that might look good
| | 01:58 | if it were bold and underlined. So I
could go up here to click on Bold and
| | 02:03 | Underline. I could use my keyboard,
which is Ctrl+B or Ctrl+U for underlining.
| | 02:09 | As soon as I do that, the check boxes
over here in my task pane appear with
| | 02:13 | Bold and Underline selected. I can
turn those off just as easy as I turn them
| | 02:17 | on using the check boxes. So I am
thinking Bold and Underline is good.
| | 02:23 | The font that's being used by default
in this particular form is Verdana and I
| | 02:27 | can click the dropdown here to select a
different font face. So if I wanted it
| | 02:31 | to be closer to my title, I might
scroll through this long alphabetical list of
| | 02:37 | fonts and choose the one that I like,
Arial Black. I think that's a little bit
| | 02:41 | too big, so I am going go back down to
the dropdown and just choose Arial. It's
| | 02:45 | a nice clean font. It's still bold
and underlined and you can see the font
| | 02:50 | color here is selected as black. If I
want to add a little bit of color to
| | 02:53 | this, maybe I will choose, maybe a
nice dark blue perhaps, and there is color
| | 02:59 | swatch to choose from there.
| | 03:00 | Now to see what that looks like, I
just have to deselect it. So I am going to
| | 03:03 | click outside the actual selected text
to see the end result. Now it looks a
| | 03:07 | little bit like a link, I don't want
it to see to people. So I am going to go
| | 03:11 | back into this text, select it and to
turn anything that I have turned on, off,
| | 03:16 | I will just do the exact same thing.
You can do it from up here in the
| | 03:19 | Formatting toolbar, turn Underlining off.
I can do it from the toolbar here for
| | 03:24 | the Font Color. I am going to go back
to black. So it's really up to as you
| | 03:28 | begin to develop your forms here in
InfoPath, you will decide which method you
| | 03:33 | prefer, whether it be to use the task
pane or to use your Formatting toolbar.
| | 03:38 | Okay, let's do a little bit more now.
Let's go up to Start Date and End Date
| | 03:42 | here. For Start Date and End Date, it
might be nice if I could select all of it
| | 03:48 | at once, because they are all going to
be the same formatting. Can I do that?
| | 03:50 | Well, as soon as I start to scroll
across cells, you can see the entire cell
| | 03:55 | gets selected. So we are going to
talk about formatting tables and cells a
| | 03:59 | little bit later on, but the contents
of the cells can also be formatted, so
| | 04:03 | let's do that.
| | 04:04 | Let's format them all the same. Let's
go over here to the task pane. I am going
| | 04:09 | to change it to Arial, so I am going to
scroll all the way up to near the very
| | 04:13 | top, and the last couple of fonts I
have used do appear at the very top of the
| | 04:17 | list. I am going to go to Arial. You
can see all three of them changed. I am
| | 04:22 | going to leave the size at 10 points.
That works well. The Font color, but I am
| | 04:26 | also going to make it bold, and let's
deselect now just by clicking outside the
| | 04:30 | form to see the end result. So we were able
to format the contents of all those cells.
| | 04:35 | So that should mean that I could come
down to where I see First Name, Last
| | 04:39 | Name, etcetera, all the way down to
Email Address and select everything except
| | 04:43 | the heading, Personal Information, and
do the exact same thing. So let's try
| | 04:48 | that just for a little bit of practice,
all the way at the top, we will see the
| | 04:51 | most recently used fonts including
Arial, Bold, Black, and 10 points is good.
| | 04:56 | Now Personal Information should look a
little bit different, because it is a
| | 05:02 | heading and we don't actually type
anything in this cell in the table. So I am
| | 05:06 | going to select it. If only I could do
the same for Manager information. Hold
| | 05:10 | down your Ctrl key and click in that
separate table in a separate cell and you
| | 05:14 | will see both become selected.
| | 05:16 | Maybe I want it to look like my
Itemized List of Expenses here. So it does
| | 05:21 | appear to be a little bit bigger,
maybe a little bit bigger. I am going to go
| | 05:24 | to 12. That's much bigger; I like that.
The font color black, it should be bold
| | 05:31 | I think, and maybe our headings could
be a different color. I am going to click
| | 05:36 | the Color dropdown and I am going to go
down to one of these darker colors, and
| | 05:44 | let's see what that looks like. So
you can select more than one cell from
| | 05:48 | different layout tables on your form.
| | 05:50 | So for a little bit of practice, why
don't you go through the rest of the form,
| | 05:54 | trying to make it look consistent and
easy to read, making it thus easier to
| | 05:59 | use, which should improve the amount
of usage you get out of your forms.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Aligning text| 00:00 | As you are designing your forms in
InfoPath and formatting them to look nice
| | 00:04 | and easy to use, one important factor
will be ensuring that the labels and
| | 00:09 | fields line up nicely. Now we use
Layout tables to accomplish that but when you
| | 00:14 | are in Design view and everything
looks nice and neat, previewing the form
| | 00:19 | really helps you to understand what
the end user is going to see and soon as
| | 00:22 | things don't line up properly, they
begin to look disorganized and actually
| | 00:26 | look difficult to use even though they are not.
| | 00:29 | So in this lesson, we are going to
talk about lining up labels, text and
| | 00:33 | fields. We are going to use the same
form we were working on in the previous
| | 00:36 | lesson. I finished all of my text
formatting. If you have done so as well, you
| | 00:40 | are ready to go and we do get to see
dashed borders for each of the Layout
| | 00:45 | tables, gives us a good idea what
this is going to look like but it's not
| | 00:49 | exactly what the end user is going to see.
That's why I love the Preview button.
| | 00:54 | So let's start by going up to the
Preview button. We will give it a click. Now
| | 00:58 | this doesn't look bad. We still have
some table formatting to do, but you will
| | 01:02 | also notice that things don't line
up nicely here. I have got Last Name,
| | 01:06 | Employee ID and then down below, E-mail
Address is kind of shifted over to the
| | 01:10 | left. It's not pleasing to the eye and
it almost starts to look disorganized.
| | 01:14 | Same thing when we see the ends of these
fields not lined up on the right-hand side.
| | 01:19 | So let's exit our preview by clicking
the Close Preview button up here. Back in
| | 01:24 | Design view, let's work on aligning
our text. Now the easiest way because we
| | 01:29 | are using Layout tables is to change
the borders of those Layout tables. So
| | 01:34 | down below where I see E-mail Address,
I can go just left of E-mail Address.
| | 01:38 | Instead of trying to move the text over,
I am going to go to the border of the
| | 01:42 | cell and when I see the double arrow, now I
can click and drag that over to the right.
| | 01:46 | Now I am not going to go as far as I
should here. I am going to go to about
| | 01:50 | there and now I am going to go up to
this table. When I see the double arrow in
| | 01:54 | between these cells vertically, I can
click-and-drag that over to the left. You
| | 01:59 | will notice that the fields
themselves inside the cells automatically size
| | 02:03 | themselves. They are set to Auto Width.
So as the cell gets wider, so does the
| | 02:08 | field itself, but what I am really doing is
having everything line up nicely on the left here.
| | 02:12 | Now let's go over here to this side. Now,
in this cell for E-mail Address, I do
| | 02:16 | have a text box control, a field here
for entering the E-mail Address, but you
| | 02:21 | can see on the right-hand side it
doesn't extend as far as the other ones and
| | 02:25 | in this case, there is no cell border
to adjust. I have to go to the Control
| | 02:29 | itself, click on it and when I see
those sizing handles, I can click-and-drag
| | 02:33 | it over to the right until it
lines up with the control above.
| | 02:38 | So that means down below where I see
the Manager Information, I might want to
| | 02:42 | do the same thing here with my Name
control. But you can see it's automatically
| | 02:46 | filling the entire width of the cell.
So in this case, I do want to go to the
| | 02:50 | border, click-and-drag it over to the
right until it appears that my control is
| | 02:56 | lined up on the right-hand side.
| | 02:58 | Let's test it out. We will go up to
the Preview button and although we have
| | 03:02 | made a few minor adjustments, this is
a much neater looking form. It's much
| | 03:07 | more pleasing to the eye and it
doesn't look disorganized. That means people
| | 03:10 | are actually going to use this form and
they should find it much easier to use.
| | 03:15 | I am going to click the Close Preview
button now to return to Design view, just
| | 03:19 | click outside the form to see the end result.
| | 03:22 | This might be a good time to
save your changes before moving on.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Formatting tables| 00:00 | Tables are typically a huge part of any
form design in InfoPath. We use Layout
| | 00:05 | tables to layout our form's design.
We might use repeating tables to allow
| | 00:10 | end-users to add additional rows of
data as is needed. So when we talk about
| | 00:15 | formatting our form and making it
look good, we have to consider formatting
| | 00:19 | those tables, not just the content
such as the text labels and so on.
| | 00:23 | So in this lesson, we are going to
focus on table formatting and we are going
| | 00:27 | to continue to use our Expense form
from previous lessons. Right at the very
| | 00:31 | top where it says, Expense Form -
Training Services Department, this is a
| | 00:35 | table. It is a single-column table. It
already has some shading and a border
| | 00:40 | around the outside. So how do we apply
some of that to some of the other tables
| | 00:45 | we see here in our form?
| | 00:47 | Well the first thing I would like to do
is just click anywhere inside the table
| | 00:50 | where it says Expense Form and you will
notice that this little handle appears
| | 00:54 | in the top left corner. This allows
you quick and easy access to selecting an
| | 00:59 | entire table. For example, I click
down here where it says, Personal
| | 01:03 | Information. This table is much larger.
Many more rows and columns but clicking
| | 01:08 | once on that handle selects the
entire table. So if you want to apply
| | 01:12 | formatting to an entire table,
it is a great way to do it.
| | 01:15 | So let's click up here and we will
click on that handle. You will notice that
| | 01:19 | we do have a Table toolbar and I don't
want you to be fooled by this. Currently
| | 01:23 | it says, No border. You can see for
Border Width, its showing 1 point. So if we
| | 01:28 | did select a border, we could choose a
width or thickness. We could also choose
| | 01:32 | a Border Color as well as some shading
for the cells in the table and you can
| | 01:37 | see this doesn't match
with what we are looking at.
| | 01:39 | Shading color is actually a Burgundy
type color and it says None. That's
| | 01:43 | because what you select here will be
applied to tables you create. Tables that
| | 01:47 | already exist, the best way to format
them is to go up to the Table menu and
| | 01:53 | down to Borders and shading. You can
also access this dialog box by right
| | 01:57 | clicking on the selected
table. You will see this menu.
| | 02:00 | I am going to choose Borders and
Shading from here, which opens up the dialog
| | 02:04 | box. Now we do have two tabs, one for
borders, the other for shading and we
| | 02:08 | will start with borders. Now the style
that you see selected here is a solid
| | 02:13 | line. You will look over here, you
will see outline as a thick line going
| | 02:17 | around the outside. The color is
black and the width is 1 point. That's the
| | 02:21 | current formatting for this table.
Let's change it up though. Let's change the
| | 02:25 | style.
| | 02:26 | We could go Dashed or Dotted. I am
going to this fancy one right here which is
| | 02:30 | a thick line with a thin one
underneath it. You can see the color is still
| | 02:34 | black but the width has changed to 3
points. I am going to change the color as
| | 02:39 | well to this dark blue and when you
click on the Color drop down, you are going
| | 02:43 | to see color swatches and you are
also going to see a set of colors appear
| | 02:46 | across the top. These are the colors
used in the form's Default Color Scheme.
| | 02:52 | We will be talking about color schemes
later. Right now though I want you to
| | 02:55 | see there is a shortcut to those
colors used in the form's color scheme right
| | 02:59 | here at the top. So you do not have to guess.
| | 03:01 | I am going to choose this dark blue
here at the very top. I am going to leave
| | 03:06 | the width at 3 points and I want to
make sure this is applied to the outline
| | 03:10 | around the outside of my table. So I am
going to click on that. Now you see the
| | 03:14 | color, the points and a preview of that
here around the outside of my makeshift
| | 03:21 | table. Now to really see this, we
will click OK to save those changes.
| | 03:25 | I am going to click outside the table
and you can see what that looks like in
| | 03:29 | Design View. Let's go into our Preview
once again to see what it is going to
| | 03:33 | look like to the end-user. Looks
pretty good. I like that improvement but I
| | 03:37 | might want to change the shading now
for this table. So let's close our preview
| | 03:42 | and we will click anywhere in the
cell. I don't really have to select the
| | 03:45 | entire table because it's really just
one big cell here. So anywhere in the
| | 03:50 | cell will also work.
| | 03:51 | Let's go up to Table and down to
Borders and Shading. This time we are going to
| | 03:57 | the Shading tab where the color appears
as a red burgundy color. I am going to
| | 04:02 | keep Color selected but I am going to
click the drop down, there is my Color
| | 04:06 | Scheme colors at the top again as
well as the others. If I am looking for a
| | 04:10 | more specific color, I can click More
Colors, which opens this Color dialog box
| | 04:14 | and checkout the array of
colors I can choose from here.
| | 04:17 | I am going to click Cancel for that
because what I really want is one of the
| | 04:22 | complimentary colors as part of the
color scheme. I am going to go with this
| | 04:26 | light blue color here. So I am going
to click on that, I will click OK. Let's
| | 04:33 | see what that looks like. Click
outside the table. That shading is probably a
| | 04:37 | little bit too light. So I am going to
click back inside the cell and let's go
| | 04:41 | make it a little bit darker. It's
either that or we should change the text
| | 04:45 | inside to be darker so
there is more of a contrast.
| | 04:48 | I am going to go back to Borders and
Shading, back to my Shading tab, the drop
| | 04:52 | down and choose this darker blue and
now when I click OK, that's a lot easier
| | 04:57 | to read. I like that. All right, let's
go down to the next table, which is a
| | 05:01 | Layout table, and we do see that
border around the outside. You can see it's
| | 05:05 | dashed or dotted. It is kind of gray
and that's just for design purposes. We
| | 05:10 | see that, the end-user doesn't. Let's
go back up to that preview for a second.
| | 05:14 | Check it out. Report Date, Personal
Information, Manager Information, just
| | 05:19 | looks like one big section. There is
no definition between the sections. So
| | 05:24 | when we close our preview, we can
create that definition, distinction between
| | 05:29 | the sections, by going into a table. I
am going to click here next to Report
| | 05:33 | date, select the entire table and go
up to my Table menu and down to Borders
| | 05:39 | and Shading.
| | 05:41 | Now over here for borders, I am going
to go with a solid line, I am going to
| | 05:45 | choose a different color, a dark blue
from my color scheme. The width I am
| | 05:50 | going to make it a little bit thicker
and I want this applied to the outline,
| | 05:54 | the outside of my table. So I will
click on that and click OK. Now when I click
| | 06:01 | outside the table, you can
see the end-result. That's nice.
| | 06:04 | Now how about the borders inside the
table? The inside lines. We can also
| | 06:09 | format those. So I am going to click
on a handle, to select my entire table
| | 06:14 | again. Go up to Table > Borders and
Shading. This time I am going to leave the
| | 06:20 | width at a very thin line, change the
color to that dark blue so that matches.
| | 06:26 | Keep the style at a solid line. This
time I want that applied to the inside. So
| | 06:31 | these are the inside lines. It's
leaving the border around the outside alone
| | 06:35 | and you do see a preview of that and
we can adjust these individually using
| | 06:38 | these buttons as well but by selecting
a preset, we can see the end-result down
| | 06:43 | below, let me click OK and then click
outside the table, we see the end-result.
| | 06:48 | That's very nice.
| | 06:50 | How about some shading now? If you
want to apply shading to an entire table,
| | 06:54 | you know how to select the entire
table but if you only want shading for
| | 06:57 | certain cells such as the top cells
here in this table, we can click and drag
| | 07:02 | across the cells we want to format and
that will leave the bottom row alone. We
| | 07:07 | will go up to Table, let's go down
to Borders and Shading, this time the
| | 07:13 | Shading tab and we are going to apply
a color here which will be a nice light
| | 07:17 | blue, one that's compatible with
the colors and the color scheme.
| | 07:21 | That's very convenient at the top. We
give it a click. Click OK and let's see
| | 07:26 | the end-result. This would be a good
time to save your changes. I would suggest
| | 07:32 | now as an exercise, you might want to
go ahead and format the remaining layout
| | 07:37 | tables in this form. The same as the
table that we just formatted here at the
| | 07:42 | top. It is good practice.
Repetition will make it stick.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Background colors and schemes| 00:00 | In this lesson, we are going to explore
a couple of more formatting options to
| | 00:04 | really make your forms stand out here
in InfoPath. Background colors as well as
| | 00:08 | color schemes, a potential time saver.
You will see what I mean in a moment.
| | 00:13 | We will continue to use our Expense
form from previous lessons. You can see I
| | 00:17 | have gone ahead and finished the
formatting for the tables in this form. If you
| | 00:21 | have done the same and you have been
following along, it doesn't have to look
| | 00:23 | exactly like mine, you are ready to go.
| | 00:26 | Let's start with the background color.
Right now, in behind the form itself,
| | 00:30 | you can see this white space. This is
the background and if you want your form
| | 00:35 | to really stand out, you can change the
background by applying a color or even
| | 00:39 | a picture if you prefer. We are going
go up to our Format menu and down to
| | 00:45 | Background Color. Even though
background color can also include a background
| | 00:49 | picture. Here in the General tab under
View Properties, we do have a Background
| | 00:53 | section that includes a Background
Color drop down as well as a check box for
| | 00:58 | selecting a picture to appear in the background.
| | 01:01 | So if you have got an image you want
in the background, excellent. When you
| | 01:04 | click this check box, you will be able
to go browsing through your pictures for
| | 01:07 | it. If you prefer just to add some
color like I am going to do, click the drop
| | 01:11 | down here next to Background Color. We
will see the color scheme colors at the
| | 01:16 | top. So always at the top of your
color swatches, you will see the current
| | 01:20 | color scheme that's being used. That
set of colors, that's complimentary to one
| | 01:24 | other as well as the rest of the color
swatches including an option to get even
| | 01:29 | more detailed with your
color by selecting More Colors.
| | 01:33 | But I am going to go to a very subtle
background here, a light blue. It is part
| | 01:37 | of the color scheme. I am going to
click on it and you are can see it appears
| | 01:40 | here in my Background Color drop down
now. When I click OK, it's applied. Very
| | 01:46 | subtle. You can see in the background
but it suddenly made my fields really
| | 01:50 | stand out because they are white.
| | 01:52 | When I go up to Preview this form,
you can see it uses the background color
| | 01:57 | that I just selected. So this form
looks nice and organized and neat. I think
| | 02:02 | the end-users will like this form and
use it. I am going to click Close Preview
| | 02:06 | to return to design view now and
let's talk about Color schemes.
| | 02:10 | I mentioned earlier it's a potential
time saver. Color schemes are used in
| | 02:15 | forms but only on certain parts of
a form. If you have decided to use a
| | 02:20 | repeating table like I have mentioned
before, it has the default color scheme
| | 02:25 | applied to it automatically. So you
will see some formatting with repeating
| | 02:29 | tables as well as tables with titles.
If I go up to my Layout option here in
| | 02:34 | the task pane, table with title at the
top whenever we insert one of those, we
| | 02:39 | see that default color scheme
automatically applied for us but we don't see it
| | 02:44 | for other types of tables like the
Custom tables that we have used here.
| | 02:49 | So if I was to go up to the Format menu
and go down to Color schemes, you will
| | 02:55 | see a list of color schemes over here
on the right-hand side. None at the top,
| | 02:59 | so if you do not want any color
schemes applied as well as the one that's
| | 03:03 | currently selected by default, this blue scheme.
| | 03:06 | We have got other color combinations,
all these colors that go with one
| | 03:10 | another. So if I want to change the
color scheme, I could. Now I can change it
| | 03:15 | for the entire form just by clicking on
one of the color schemes. I am going to
| | 03:19 | go to one that's totally different from
blue. I am going to go down to this red
| | 03:23 | one and when I click on it, not much
has happened, has it? If I scroll down and
| | 03:27 | look at my repeating table, it has been
applied there. I see the red border and
| | 03:32 | that red shading. I am going to click
my Undo button to return back to the
| | 03:37 | previous color scheme.
| | 03:39 | So in this case, using a color scheme
is not going to save me any time at all
| | 03:43 | because I have got all of these Custom
Layout tables and I haven't used many
| | 03:47 | repeating tables or tables with titles
and headings will also be automatically
| | 03:52 | formatted. So here for Personal
Information, Manager Information, etcetera, I
| | 03:57 | didn't use the Preset Heading
options when choosing a font.
| | 04:01 | If I had, my color scheme would be
applied. So I am going to do that now. I am
| | 04:05 | going to come up here where it says,
Personal Information. I am going to click
| | 04:08 | and drag over that and I am going to
open up the Font task pane by going over
| | 04:13 | to Color Schemes here at
the top and go down to Font.
| | 04:17 | Now in here, I can choose Font
formatting. We have talked about this in a
| | 04:20 | previous lesson including the color
and size or we can choose from these
| | 04:25 | pre-formatted headings. So for example,
if I go to heading 4, you can see the
| | 04:30 | end-result. I didn't really change the
font or the look of my text much until I
| | 04:35 | de-selected. Now you can see it's
actually using a different color.
| | 04:39 | It is a much better color to go with
my color scheme because headings do use
| | 04:44 | the form's color scheme. So let's click
and drag over Manager Information, hold
| | 04:49 | down our Ctrl key, click and drag over
Itemized List of Expenses, scroll down,
| | 04:54 | do the same for Client Billable as
well as Additional Information and we will
| | 04:59 | make those Heading 4 as well.
| | 05:02 | Now when I click outside my form, I
see it has been applied to all of those
| | 05:07 | sections. So color schemes can save
you a lot of time if you are using the
| | 05:12 | right components in your form.
Otherwise you are on your own formatting
| | 05:16 | individual tables and the contents like
we have been doing throughout this chapter.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
5. Finishing a FormProtecting a form| 00:00 | As you put the finishing touches on
the design of your form here in InfoPath
| | 00:04 | 2007, you might want to think about
form security. Now Form security is made up
| | 00:10 | of several different levels and the
level of security applied to a form will
| | 00:14 | depend on what you plan on doing with that form.
| | 00:18 | So in this lesson, we are going to
look at security levels using our Expense
| | 00:21 | Form here. Now to access security levels,
we go to the Tools menu and then down
| | 00:27 | to Form Options. From our Form Options
dialog box, we go to the Category column
| | 00:33 | over here, and click on Security and Trust.
| | 00:36 | There is two sections here on the
right: Security Level and Form Template
| | 00:41 | Signature. We will talk about both. Let's
start at the top though with our Security Level.
| | 00:46 | By default, you should be seeing
a check mark in this box, next to
| | 00:49 | Automatically determine security
level. This is recommended. InfoPath is
| | 00:55 | analyzing the form that we have in
front of us and selecting a level of
| | 00:59 | security based on the form itself.
| | 01:02 | So for example, the form doesn't have
any code behind it. We didn't do any
| | 01:07 | programming in the form; the form is
not connected to a data source, at least
| | 01:12 | not yet. We will talk about that later on.
| | 01:14 | So in that case, the lowest level of
security has been assigned by default to
| | 01:19 | this form, and you can see it in the
background here. The radio button that's
| | 01:23 | selected is Restricted, and
restricted level means the form can't access
| | 01:28 | content that's outside the form.
| | 01:30 | This is really the type of form
where you are going to do some basic, a
| | 01:34 | collecting of information, that can be
deployed by email or just you can share
| | 01:39 | the excess end file. Restricted forms
however, cannot have any data connections
| | 01:44 | or any of that managed code I was
talking about in the background.
| | 01:48 | Also, you should know that restricted
forms can't be deployed as browser forms,
| | 01:53 | something else we'll talk about later on,
and since our restricted form is kind
| | 01:58 | of separate from a server based
deployment point, there is no automatic update
| | 02:03 | capability in a restricted mode form.
| | 02:06 | Now if we de-select this checkbox, we
have the ability to select our own level
| | 02:11 | and I can switch over to Domain if I
wanted to. Domain Security Forms are kind
| | 02:17 | of right in between Restricted and the
next level, which is Full Trust Forms.
| | 02:21 | Now they have to be deployed to a
fixed location that's consistent to every
| | 02:26 | single user who is going to be
using this form. So your best option for
| | 02:30 | deploying Domain Security Forms
would be for example, Windows SharePoint
| | 02:35 | Services or Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.
| | 02:38 | Now with Domain Security, a form can
only connect to the server that it's
| | 02:43 | hosted on. That's unless it's using
trusted data connection libraries, and
| | 02:48 | browser forms in this security mode
can't have any code built into them but you
| | 02:53 | can use this for Browser Based forms.
| | 02:55 | The last one and the highest level of
security is Full Trust. Like the name
| | 03:01 | implies, these forms are fully trusted.
So they run on any managed code, they
| | 03:07 | can run across domain boundaries with
data connections and so on. Now keep in
| | 03:13 | mind though, that with Fully
Trusted forms, since this is a significant
| | 03:17 | security risk, Fully Trusted forms
must either be digitally signed by the
| | 03:22 | designer, Something we are going to
do in a second, installed with an MSI
| | 03:26 | installer, or they can be part of the .NET
code group indicating full trust on the assembly.
| | 03:32 | If you are into all of that stuff you
will know what it means. Full Trust forms
| | 03:35 | publish to a SharePoint location must
be activated by an administrator at the
| | 03:41 | local console before they can be used.
So with that selected, we would then
| | 03:46 | think about down here the
Form Template Signature.
| | 03:49 | We talked about digital signatures a
while back and we can digitally sign forms
| | 03:54 | that we are filling out, and set up
sections for digital signatures. This is
| | 03:58 | little bit different.
| | 03:59 | The Form Template Signature is the
entire form here as the designer we are
| | 04:03 | certifying this form. We do that by
clicking the box next to Sign this form
| | 04:08 | template. When we do that we have to
select a certificate, and if we haven't
| | 04:13 | created one yet, we have the
ability here to create the certificate.
| | 04:17 | Earlier, when we talked about digital
signatures, if you are following along
| | 04:20 | with me, we did create a certificate.
You can see mine is issued here to me,
| | 04:26 | and you can see the Expiration
Date. All I have to do is click OK.
| | 04:31 | So now I have assigned the certificate,
I am going to be allowed to use this
| | 04:35 | template, assigned with the
certificate in Full Trust mode. If I click OK, I
| | 04:40 | have just changed the security level.
| | 04:43 | I do want to go back here to Tools,
Form Options, and back to Security and
| | 04:49 | Trust, and let's see what happens
if we turn this off, and let InfoPath
| | 04:55 | determine the security level best
suited for this particular form. By clicking
| | 04:59 | this checkbox you can see it switches
back to Restricted, and that's the one I
| | 05:04 | am going to use, by
clicking OK, I save that change.
| | 05:08 | So form security, a big part of your
form, and depending on what your form is
| | 05:12 | designed to do, there are
different levels to choose from.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Inserting pictures| 00:00 | A nice way to add a finishing touch
to your form is to insert some kind of
| | 00:05 | graphic or picture and here in
InfoPath 2007 it's easily done. In this lesson
| | 00:10 | now, we are going to talk about
inserting pictures into your form design;
| | 00:14 | we are also going to show you how to
allow your users to insert pictures such as
| | 00:19 | scanned receipts for example.
| | 00:21 | We use our Expense Form from the
previous lesson. If you have been following
| | 00:24 | along you are ready to go. We are going
to move down to the bottom of the form.
| | 00:28 | Here in Design view, we are going to
make a few changes down towards the bottom
| | 00:32 | of the form, where we see additional
information for example; we have an
| | 00:36 | optional section in here where a user
can add some additional information by
| | 00:40 | typing it into this text box.
| | 00:42 | I am going to click down here just
below the optional section into the right.
| | 00:46 | So I can hit my Enter key to create
some extra space. In here, I want to
| | 00:51 | provide the ability for the end user to
add receipts that they have scanned. So,
| | 00:56 | I am going to type in a title first of
all, Add Receipts, and I am going to do a
| | 01:03 | little bit of formatting so it looks
like additional information. The easiest
| | 01:06 | way to do that is to borrow it from here.
| | 01:08 | So I am going to click anywhere in
Additional Information, go up to the Format
| | 01:12 | Painter right here. With one click, I
have now borrowed the formatting, so I
| | 01:16 | can click-and-drag over Add Receipts
and when I let go and click outside of
| | 01:20 | what's exactly like Additional
Information. I am going to hit Enter again and
| | 01:24 | here is where I want to add the
ability to add as many receipts as needed.
| | 01:29 | So in that case, a repeating table
would be good. We are going to go over here
| | 01:33 | to our Controls and under Repeating
and Optional select Repeating Table. This
| | 01:40 | table only needs to have two columns.
One for the description and one for the
| | 01:44 | actual receipt itself. So I am going
to knock this down to 2 and click OK.
| | 01:50 | I have got my table in here. The
first row I can add in some labels such as
| | 01:56 | Description and over here Scanned
Receipt. Then down below the rows will appear
| | 02:07 | as needed. So if I have got ten
receipts to scan in, that's exactly what I will
| | 02:12 | be able to do by adding additional rows.
| | 02:14 | Now just up here next to Add Receipts,
I am going to click, so I can type in
| | 02:18 | some Additional Information in
brackets. Only add receipts over, let's say,
| | 02:27 | $500. So that's descripted. Now all we
need to do is add a placeholder where
| | 02:35 | the user will be able to add that
picture. Right now, there are two text box
| | 02:39 | fields, field77 for me you may have a
different number in there and this field
| | 02:44 | over here the next one up, for me it's
78. I am going to click on it and delete
| | 02:48 | it. I don't need a text field or
control, what I need is a picture control.
| | 02:53 | So there is a couple of ways to get
that. Of course, I could go over to my
| | 02:58 | Controls task pane here and try to
find picture and as I scroll through here
| | 03:03 | you can see File and Picture appears
with the Picture option right in there.
| | 03:08 | Another option is to go up to the
Insert menu and down to Picture and you will
| | 03:12 | notice that Clip Art > From File, and
there it is Control are the three options.
| | 03:18 | I am going to select Control, which
inserts it into the form in my table
| | 03:23 | according to my selection here. Do I
want to actually see the receipt on this
| | 03:28 | form or do I want to see a link to
that receipt? It's totally up to you. Now
| | 03:32 | receipts can get large. So if you are
going to view receipts right on the form
| | 03:36 | it will take up a lot of
space, keep that in mind.
| | 03:38 | So you might want to choose As a link.
Then to view the actual receipt you will
| | 03:43 | click the link and the picture would
open up. So I am going to choose Included
| | 03:47 | in the form just to test this out, so
you can see it and click OK. So there is
| | 03:51 | my control now it says, Click here to
insert the picture and if I wanted to, I
| | 03:55 | could size this. I am going to right-
click on this control and go to the
| | 03:59 | Picture Properties.
| | 04:00 | I am going to change the Field name to
ScannedReceipt, no spaces. Show picture
| | 04:08 | placeholder. So I am going to see where
the picture goes. If I wanted a default
| | 04:12 | picture I can do that. Doesn't make
sense here. Allow the user to browse,
| | 04:15 | delete and replace the pictures?
Absolutely and we can also adjust the
| | 04:19 | position. It's going to be inline
with text, but we are not actually typing
| | 04:22 | text. Where do we want it, in the
left side or the right side of this
| | 04:25 | particular table cell?
| | 04:27 | It's totally up to you, I am going to
leave it In line with text and I am going
| | 04:32 | to click OK and I am just going to size
it up a little bit. Then I am going to
| | 04:37 | go back to those Properties. Now it's
filling the entire cell width. I am going
| | 04:40 | to right-click, go down to Picture
Properties, this time go up to the Size tab
| | 04:45 | for my Scanned Receipt and you can see
the actual Width in pixels and Height.
| | 04:50 | It's no longer Auto, this is the actual
Height and Width that I have chosen and
| | 04:54 | if you want to be more specific, you
can do that as well and it will effect
| | 04:57 | what you see in the form when the
Scanned Receipt is added. So I am going to
| | 05:01 | change this to inches and actually the
Height it can be Auto. So I am going to
| | 05:06 | take out the 30 and type in Auto.
| | 05:10 | The Width, I am going to make sure
the Width doesn't go any more than two
| | 05:13 | inches. So I am going to take out the
319, type in 2, change my units to inches
| | 05:18 | and click Apply. And you can see what
happens down below. I am going to click
| | 05:22 | OK, just scroll down the form, you can
see the placeholder has been resized and
| | 05:27 | this is going to help keep the size
down when we scan in documents. Because
| | 05:31 | some receipts can get quite large and
you can imagine how much space will be
| | 05:34 | taken up just by a single receipt.
Add ten receipts and now you are getting
| | 05:38 | into some fairly lengthy forms.
| | 05:41 | Now that's the control. We will test
that out in a moment. You can also in
| | 05:45 | Design view add pictures to the form
itself. For example, if we wanted a
| | 05:49 | company logo up here at the top, we
can just click we want it. I am going to
| | 05:53 | click right here after the word
Department and I am going to go up to Insert,
| | 05:58 | down to Picture and my options are
Clip Art. Clip Art is the images that you
| | 06:04 | have with InfoPath 2007 and images you
can download from the Internet. In this
| | 06:09 | case, we want a specific one so
we are going to choose From File.
| | 06:13 | When I click From File, I need to
navigate to the Lesson5 folder and here we
| | 06:17 | are going to see our company logo,
it's a bitmap. I am going to click on it.
| | 06:20 | Your little icon may look different up
here depends on your default programs
| | 06:24 | you use for working with bitmap images.
But with CoLogo selected, click Insert,
| | 06:30 | and you can see what happens. It's
inserted right there where I click and the
| | 06:33 | default size. This can be adjusted
of course and we need to do that.
| | 06:38 | So I am going to click on the image
itself. I don't suggest using the handles
| | 06:42 | to resize because there is no way to
ensure that the proportions you see here
| | 06:47 | stay frozen. In other words, if I start
clicking-and-dragging, you can see it's
| | 06:51 | a little bit confusing. It gets skinny
and short and lot of funny things can
| | 06:55 | happen. So I am going to let go. I am
going to click Undo to resize it back
| | 06:59 | where it was and I am going to use
the Properties to size it properly.
| | 07:03 | So I am going to right-click, go
down to Format Picture and here from the
| | 07:07 | Format Picture dialog box, I can
choose Text Wrapping. So I do wanted on the
| | 07:12 | right side actually. When I click Apply,
it's going to move over to the right
| | 07:16 | side of my table cell. The Size, I am
going to specify the Size from here and
| | 07:21 | you can it's perfectly square. I am
going to change it to inches for both of
| | 07:26 | the Height and Width fields and now I
am going to come in here. I am going to
| | 07:30 | take out what's there, just deleting
and I would like it to be one inch by one
| | 07:34 | inch.
| | 07:34 | As soon as I type in 1 in Height, I
see 1 for the Width because Maintain
| | 07:38 | proportions is selected by default. If
you wanted an alternate text, let's say
| | 07:42 | someone is not able to view your image
you can choose to have Alternative text
| | 07:46 | appear there instead. I am just going
to type in Company Logo, instead of that
| | 07:51 | little red X that people are accustomed
to seeing when they can't load an image
| | 07:55 | on the screen. They will see the word
Company Logo. I am going to click Apply.
| | 07:59 | You can see the size over there,
doesn't quite fit next to the Training
| | 08:04 | Services Department. So I might want
to adjust the Size down to maybe half an inch.
| | 08:09 | So I am going to take out the one and
type in 0.5 and click Apply. You can see
| | 08:14 | that's starting to fit there. That's
not bad. Let's try 0.3 and Apply. That's
| | 08:24 | working much better. Click OK, click
outside the box to see the end result.
| | 08:30 | That looks pretty good. So I have
added a little bit of graphic creativity to
| | 08:33 | my form if you will to add some interest,
but also to identify the form by the
| | 08:39 | company logo. Keep in mind now down at
the bottom we have a spot or a control
| | 08:44 | for adding an image. In this case, it's
going to be the user who does it here.
| | 08:48 | So it's time to save our changes. I
want to save up your changes clicking the
| | 08:52 | Save button or Ctrl+S and now we are
going to preview this form. If we click on
| | 08:56 | Preview you can see my logo up here
at the top, doesn't look too bad. I am
| | 09:00 | going to scroll down now and down here
where it says, Click to insert picture.
| | 09:05 | So let's say I had a receipt for
software. I am going to type in
| | 09:08 | Microsoft Office 2007 of course, Ultimate.
Click here to insert the pictures. I have
| | 09:17 | already scanned the image when I click
here. You can see it takes us right to
| | 09:21 | Pictures. Now I have copied the
pictures that are in the Lesson5 folder of the
| | 09:25 | Exercise Files right to my Pictures
folder and you can do the same thing or
| | 09:29 | just navigate to wherever you stored
the Exercise Files if you have got them in
| | 09:33 | the Lesson5 folder, you will see your
company logo, but also the software receipt.
| | 09:37 | So I am going to click on that and
choose Insert to insert it right into that
| | 09:41 | placeholder. Now you can see I have got
my receipt there attached to my Expense
| | 09:46 | Report. Just click outside the box to
see the end result. When we are done
| | 09:51 | previewing, click the Close Preview
button to return to Design view. If you
| | 09:55 | have a few tweaks you need to make,
go ahead and do that and of course,
| | 09:58 | remember to save your changes before moving on.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Working with objects| 00:00 | When you start adding objects to a form
like pictures in the design or picture
| | 00:04 | placeholders for the user to add
pictures, you may need to go back and make
| | 00:09 | some adjustments. That's what we're
going to do in this lesson using our
| | 00:12 | Expense Form from previous lesson. So if you
have been following along, you are ready to go.
| | 00:16 | We're going to start with this little
image that we added up here in the top
| | 00:20 | table of our form. Now, if I click on
that, you can see it's selected. It's got
| | 00:24 | those handles. We shouldn't resize
this image using those handles, it's very
| | 00:28 | difficult and we can't constrain the
proportions. So it's always best to go to
| | 00:32 | the Picture Properties by
going through Picture Format.
| | 00:36 | So let's right-click on our image and
go to Format Picture. Now in here, we've
| | 00:41 | got three tabs, Text Wrapping, Size and
Text and we saw these when we're first
| | 00:45 | inserting the picture. Now let's say
we want to make an adjustment. I don't
| | 00:49 | like it down here in the bottom right
corner; I like it to be up here with the
| | 00:52 | rest of the text. So in that case, I
would change the Position or Text Wrapping
| | 00:57 | from Right either to Left or Inline
with text. Let's see what happens if we
| | 01:01 | choose Left and click Apply.
| | 01:03 | Now it's on the left side of my table
cell. I really want it right after the
| | 01:07 | word Department. So Right is pretty
close. If I click Right and click Apply,
| | 01:12 | it's close. But rather, I think it
should be Inline with text and if I click on
| | 01:16 | Inline with text and click Apply, you
can see it moves up here next to my text.
| | 01:20 | Now I can treat it like a character
that I type. So if I click OK and I click
| | 01:26 | after the world Department here and
let's click right after the t without
| | 01:29 | clicking on the image itself and hit
the Spacebar, you can see I am able to
| | 01:33 | leave a little bit of space. Hit the
Spacebar again, and that's as if I am
| | 01:37 | putting space between two characters.
| | 01:39 | Let's right-click again and go back to
Format Picture because if you find the
| | 01:44 | size needs to be a little bit bigger,
you can do that right from the Size tab.
| | 01:48 | It's right now 0.3 inches by 0.3 inches.
I am going to bump that up to a half
| | 01:52 | inch, so 0.5 by 0.5. When I click
Apply, you can see that still fits on the
| | 01:56 | same line and it's a little bit easier to read.
| | 02:00 | It's maintaining proportions, thanks to
this checkbox and if I go over to Text,
| | 02:03 | we've already put in Alternative text.
In those cases where somebody goes to
| | 02:08 | open up your form maybe it's over
the web for example and they don't see
| | 02:12 | images, maybe they're filtered out.
They are going to see this alternative
| | 02:15 | text, which is Company Logo. So let's
click OK to save our changes and click
| | 02:20 | outside the form to see the end result.
| | 02:22 | Now, we go to the bottom of the form.
Here's where we added a placeholder for
| | 02:27 | pictures. This is where the end user
when filling up the form is going to be
| | 02:31 | able to add a picture. First thing I
would like to do is get rid of this extra
| | 02:36 | space here. We've already resized this
so that it's a certain or a fixed size
| | 02:41 | height and width and that's going to
control the image that's actually added here.
| | 02:46 | So first thing I am going to do is go
to the border between the two columns
| | 02:50 | here. When I see the double arrow, I am
just going to click and drag this over
| | 02:53 | because I am wasting space. I might
need more space for the description to go
| | 02:57 | in here. That looks better.
| | 02:59 | Now, let's right-click on the Control,
the actual picture placeholder here and
| | 03:03 | go down to Picture Properties,
little bit different than formatting the
| | 03:07 | picture. We've already renamed this
to ScannedReceipt and it will show the
| | 03:12 | picture placeholder when the user is in
there. But there are some other things
| | 03:15 | that we can do. For example, allow
the user to browse, delete and replace
| | 03:19 | pictures. Maybe if you've inserted the
wrong receipt, you need to go back to
| | 03:23 | that, click again to insert the correct
receipt. We want to give our users that
| | 03:26 | ability, and this is not a mandatory field.
| | 03:30 | If you type in something for
Description, you'll definitely want to have
| | 03:33 | something scanned as far as receipts
go when they are over $500. So you could
| | 03:39 | if you wanted to force people to put
that in, but if they don't have receipts,
| | 03:42 | then they're forced to add something
when they don't have anything to add. So
| | 03:46 | that's why we are leaving
this blank in this case.
| | 03:48 | The Position, we can actually adjust
the wrapping style just like we did for
| | 03:53 | company logo, do it inline with text,
left or tight. Now it's a standalone
| | 03:57 | control and it does sit inside a table.
So we'll just leave it as is and go
| | 04:02 | over to Display, Conditional Formatting.
You can Change the appearance of this
| | 04:07 | control based on other values in the
form. For example, if there is something
| | 04:11 | in Description, so if somebody actually
types something in here, you might want
| | 04:15 | this control to change color. So it's
brought to their attention they should be
| | 04:19 | adding a receipt. So let's go to Conditional
Formatting for a second and add a condition.
| | 04:24 | When we click Add, you can see the
condition is true for ScannedReceipt is
| | 04:29 | equal to that appears there by default.
Well, the condition I want is if the
| | 04:34 | Description field, which is actually
numbered-- I didn't rename it. So if I go
| | 04:38 | down to my dropdown here, I can select
a different field or group. You can see
| | 04:43 | there are some other fields here.
These are the ones that we added for our
| | 04:47 | Description and our Picture. So I am
going to field77, and if it's equal to
| | 04:53 | anything, so actually all I want to
make sure is that it contains something.
| | 04:58 | Now you can see my other options down
below for the control here is contains,
| | 05:03 | does not contain, begins with, doesn't
begin with, matches or doesn't match a
| | 05:07 | pattern. You can see is blank and is
not blank are options as well. So I am
| | 05:12 | going to choose is not blank. So if
my Description field is not blank, then
| | 05:18 | what? Hide the control,
Disable the control or format it.
| | 05:23 | You can see I have got some options
over here for Font color and Shading. If it
| | 05:27 | is not blank, I want to make a change
to the way it appears. Remember, this is
| | 05:32 | the condition for our picture
control even though we're basing it on the
| | 05:37 | contents of our Description field here.
So over here you can see Font color and
| | 05:42 | Shading. I am going to go to my
Shading dropdown and I am going to shade this
| | 05:46 | in Red.
| | 05:48 | Font color, if I wanted to, I could
change that and I go to White and click OK.
| | 05:53 | So I have added the condition for that
control, I click OK. If I wanted some
| | 05:59 | more Conditional Formatting, I could
that again for different conditions. If
| | 06:03 | it's blank, it shows up a different way.
I am going to leave the default. So
| | 06:07 | move over to Size, here's where we
set our size, for the Height should be
| | 06:11 | automatically adjusted but
the Width has to stay 2 inches.
| | 06:14 | There's Advanced here as well, a
ScreenTip, not a bad idea for this one because
| | 06:18 | users might have difficultly
understanding what they're supposed to insert
| | 06:22 | here, what kind of picture. So I am
going to type Add scanned receipt image
| | 06:30 | here, just like that and when I click
OK, I will be saving those changes and
| | 06:36 | let's test it out. We'll go up to Preview now.
| | 06:39 | Here's our form with our logo at the
top, looks good, different size and
| | 06:43 | location. When I come down here, you
can see Scanned Receipt is the title.
| | 06:48 | Click here to insert a picture, but
when I hover it, it says Add Scanned
| | 06:52 | Receipt image here. Let's go over to
Description and type in MS Office 2007
| | 06:59 | Ultimate. If I hit my Tab key, you can
see, moves me over to the next field,
| | 07:08 | locks in this and changes the
appearance. So that just really stands out. I
| | 07:12 | need to click here to insert the picture,
go find my software receipt to insert
| | 07:18 | it.
| | 07:18 | If you've got the Exercise Files,
you'll find the software receipt in the
| | 07:22 | Lesson5 folder of your Exercise Files
and there it is. That looks much better
| | 07:27 | right there. So the height is
adjusted automatically but the width does not
| | 07:31 | change. Done previewing that, I am
going to click my Close Preview to return to
| | 07:36 | Design view and click outside
the form to see the end result.
| | 07:41 | So when you are adding pictures whether
it be to the design or picture controls
| | 07:44 | to allow users to add pictures, you have
full control over how those objects behave.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Enabling a form for the web| 00:00 | In this lesson, I would like to
introduce you to something called Form
| | 00:03 | Compatibility. When you are designing
your forms here in InfoPath 2007, you'll
| | 00:08 | need to consider who the end user will
be, what they are going to be using to
| | 00:12 | fill out your form and
where they are going to do that.
| | 00:15 | For example, do you want them on their
own computers with InfoPath installed?
| | 00:19 | In that case, there's probably no
compatibility issues as you create your form
| | 00:23 | unless they are using
older versions of InfoPath.
| | 00:26 | What about web browsers? You can
enable a form to be filled out over the web
| | 00:32 | using a web browser. In that case,
there's definitely some compatibility issues
| | 00:36 | to consider. So in this lesson, we'll
use our Expense Form and enable it for
| | 00:40 | the web. You can see I am using the
Expense Form from previous lessons here. So
| | 00:44 | if you've been following
along, you are ready to go.
| | 00:46 | Now, we want to enable this so that end
users will be able to fill it out using
| | 00:50 | their own web browsers. To do that, we
go up to the Tools menu and down to Form
| | 00:55 | Options. Here in the Category section
at the very end or at least very close,
| | 01:00 | you'll see Compatibility. Let's give it
a click. By default, you can see there
| | 01:05 | is no Browser compatibility set up
for this form and it's not backward
| | 01:10 | compatible either for InfoPath 2003.
| | 01:13 | So if you needed to make it
compatible for filling out a form over the web,
| | 01:18 | then you click on this first checkbox
next to Design a form template that can
| | 01:21 | be opened in a browser or InfoPath.
Now as soon as you click that checkbox,
| | 01:27 | you've enabled it for browsers. Down
below, you can choose to hide errors for
| | 01:31 | code that uses InfoPath only features
and if you do that, your end users won't
| | 01:36 | see those errors. They probably
wouldn't understand them anyways. It depends
| | 01:39 | again on the users who will be filling out
the form. I am going to leave it unchecked.
| | 01:44 | Then, down below, you may not be ready
for this information yet but you would
| | 01:48 | enter the URL of the server that's
running InfoPath form services, something
| | 01:53 | you need to be able to fill out a form
using the browser. If I don't have that
| | 01:57 | information yet, that's okay. I don't
need to fill it in at this point. I can
| | 02:00 | come back later and do that. In
fact, we will later on in this title.
| | 02:05 | Now, let's consider users who may
have InfoPath 2003. Do we want to show a
| | 02:09 | report on compatibility with InfoPath
2003? If so, we'll click this checkbox.
| | 02:15 | That's going to take us to something
called the Design Checker that we're going
| | 02:18 | to talk about in the next lesson. So
I am going to leave it deselected, but
| | 02:21 | watch what happens anyways when I
click the OK button down here to make this
| | 02:25 | form Browser compatible.
| | 02:28 | Right away, you can see I have jumped
into the Design Checker and it looks like
| | 02:33 | I have got a few errors here as well
as some messages. In the next lesson,
| | 02:39 | we're going to dive deeply into what
those messages and errors are and take a
| | 02:43 | better look at the Design Checker.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using the design checker| 00:00 | In this lesson, we are going to take a
closer look at the Design Checker that
| | 00:04 | handy new tool in InfoPath 2007 that
will allow you to quickly and easily
| | 00:09 | pinpoint any compatibility issues you
might have with the design of your form
| | 00:14 | before you actually publish it, and
allow end-users to start filling it out.
| | 00:18 | In the previous lesson, we thought
it would be a good idea to allow our
| | 00:22 | end-users to use a web browser to
fill out their form, and when we change
| | 00:26 | compatibility settings to allow for
that, the Design Checker pop open right
| | 00:31 | away because there are some design
features in our form that are not possible
| | 00:36 | in a web-enabled form.
| | 00:38 | When you go to your task pane, and
click the dropdown at the top, and select
| | 00:42 | Design Checker, you will see those
messages and errors I am talking about. Now
| | 00:46 | before we tackle those,
let's open up another form.
| | 00:50 | So here in design view, when I go to
the Open button or use Ctrl+O on my
| | 00:54 | keyboard, I will be opening a form in
design mode. So let's got ahead and do
| | 00:57 | that. We will open up this one here
called ExpReportNoWeb. This is the exact
| | 01:02 | same form that's not web-enabled. So I
am going to click OK or Open, opens up
| | 01:07 | my form in design view.
| | 01:09 | Over here in the task pane, where I see
Design Tasks, I can go directly to the
| | 01:13 | Design Checker right from here by
clicking the link, and you will notice no
| | 01:17 | errors, no messages. This form's ready
to be published and used by end-users
| | 01:23 | who can fill it out.
| | 01:24 | Now it is not web-enabled, so they
will be limited in how they can fill out
| | 01:27 | this form, but it is sound and ready to be used.
| | 01:32 | If I make changes to the design in any
way, I might want to click the Refresh
| | 01:36 | button down here to see if there're
any errors, and if not, I might go ahead
| | 01:40 | and publish this or I am going to
close this form by going up to the very top
| | 01:44 | right corner, and clicking on the red
area up here to close that up, returns me
| | 01:48 | back to my previous form which does
have some issues; three errors as well as
| | 01:54 | a couple of messages.
| | 01:55 | Now the errors that appear with a red
circle and the X, I have to take care of
| | 02:00 | before I actually let end-users use
this form. I might want to change the
| | 02:04 | compatibility settings, so they can't
fill it out over the web. That would fix
| | 02:08 | the errors and there is a
fast and easy way to get there.
| | 02:11 | Notice here in the task pane for
Design Checker, I've got a link to change
| | 02:15 | compatibility settings. If I click
on this, it takes me directly to that
| | 02:19 | category under Form Options, where I
can de-select the ability to open this in
| | 02:25 | a browser and click OK, and notice
that I have no errors or messages.
| | 02:30 | That's not really what I want to do. I
do want my users to be able to open this
| | 02:34 | form up in a web browser. So back I
go to change compatibility settings,
| | 02:39 | re-select this checkbox under Browser
Compatibility and click OK. My errors and
| | 02:45 | messages are back.
| | 02:46 | Now what is really cool is that if you
didn't have the Design Checker opened
| | 02:50 | for some reason, your task pane wasn't
enabled, as you scroll down through the
| | 02:54 | form, you are going to see
those red circles with Xs as well.
| | 02:58 | In this case, you can see my
additional information. It's a big text box for
| | 03:02 | rich text and as I hover over it, I
see the exact same message, I see in my
| | 03:06 | Design Checker. I can't do rich text
formatting in a browser enabled form
| | 03:12 | template.
| | 03:13 | Well, the fastest and easiest way to
tackle that is to click on the message
| | 03:17 | itself. When I click on Selected
rich text formatting options are not
| | 03:21 | supported, you can see it selects that
rich text box for me so I can delete it.
| | 03:27 | So hitting my Delete key removes it,
and now I might want to put something else
| | 03:31 | in there like a regular text box.
| | 03:34 | So in that case, I go up to my task
pane here, go down to my Controls, and
| | 03:40 | maybe just insert a regular text box.
Now when I go back to my Design Checker,
| | 03:45 | and I am going to do that from the
dropdown here at the top. Now this side I
| | 03:50 | still have those three errors but when
I click Refresh, one of them disappears.
| | 03:55 | So I am going to click outside the
form, and now that's ready to be used.
| | 03:58 | What about signing the entire form is
not supported? Well, there is no message
| | 04:03 | here on the form itself, although
that because we are talking about digital
| | 04:06 | signatures. So if I go up to Tools, and
down to Form Options, and then click on
| | 04:12 | Digital signatures, I see the exact
same message here. Signing the entire form
| | 04:17 | is not supported.
| | 04:18 | So in this case, I would want to
disable my digital signatures, do not enable
| | 04:23 | digital signatures. Back down below I
can't enable digital signatures for a
| | 04:27 | specific data in the form, such as a
section of the form that needs to be
| | 04:31 | signed. And what would happen when I
click OK? Click OK, refresh my list,
| | 04:37 | everything is cool. That one gone.
| | 04:39 | If I go back to Tools, Form Options
and over to Digital signatures, can I go
| | 04:45 | back? No, I can't enable this for the
entire form. And it says so up here why I
| | 04:51 | can't do that. I can't enable the
signatures for a specific sections or data in
| | 04:55 | the form if I wanted to.
So I am going to click OK.
| | 04:58 | Picture Control, not supported when
I click on it, takes me right to that
| | 05:02 | section of the form. There is the
Picture Control where end-users would be able
| | 05:06 | to attach scanned receipts, can't do
that in a web browser, so it's selected, I
| | 05:10 | hit Delete. It is removed, and instead,
I might want to put something else in
| | 05:15 | there or just totally remove
that whole section from my form.
| | 05:18 | When I refresh, that one is gone as well.
Now I do have some dialog box actions
| | 05:24 | and messages that will pop open when
the end-user does certain things. You can
| | 05:29 | see these things don't actually show in
a web enabled or browser enabled form.
| | 05:34 | Clicking the link here, the message
shows me a little bit more information, and
| | 05:39 | I can edit Properties if I
want to go and fix those as well.
| | 05:42 | Now the messages are okay. We can get
by with just those messages, knowing that
| | 05:45 | our end-users won't see certain
dialog boxes, for example. So I am going to
| | 05:49 | click OK, and I could publish the
form at this time, but you would probably
| | 05:53 | want to take care of the messages as
well as the errors, which you have to take
| | 05:58 | care of using the Design Checker. I
am going to click outside the form, and
| | 06:02 | just scroll up to see the
end product to this point.
| | 06:06 | So keep in mind that good all Design
Checker which is new to InfoPath 2007 is
| | 06:11 | going to give you some valuable
information about the compatibility of your
| | 06:15 | form design before you go ahead and publish it,
and allow end-users to try to fill it out.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
6. Viewing and Printing FormsCreating views| 00:00 | In this lesson, we are going to
explore a huge time-saver when it comes to
| | 00:03 | creating a form that might be
used by different sets of users.
| | 00:07 | If you need that form to look
different for one group of users as opposed to
| | 00:11 | another, instead of creating
multiple forms, you can create one form with
| | 00:15 | multiple views. That's what we are
going to right now in this lesson, using our
| | 00:19 | Expense form from previous lessons.
| | 00:21 | Now this particular expense form says
Training Services Department, but let's
| | 00:25 | say if a different department were to
open this form, they should see their own
| | 00:29 | department name as well as some different
options. That constitutes a different view.
| | 00:34 | If you are following along with me, you
got the Exercise Files, open up Report1
| | 00:38 | from the Lesson 6 folder, and here in
Design View, you will see the same form
| | 00:42 | that I see. When you create forms here
in InfoPath, there is one default view
| | 00:47 | that is created for you and it's
numbered automatically, but we can change that.
| | 00:52 | So here is what we going to do. We are
going to use our task pane here under
| | 00:55 | Design Tasks. You will see a link to
different views. So if we click on the
| | 01:00 | Views link, now you can see that default
view, which is automatically numbered View 1.
| | 01:06 | In the next lesson, we will talk
about changing some of the properties, but
| | 01:10 | right now we want to create another
view for a different department and that
| | 01:14 | form may have different options that are
visible and usable when they open up the forms.
| | 01:19 | So all I am going to do is come over
here to the Edit menu and go down to
| | 01:23 | Select All. You can also use your
keyboard Ctrl+A to select everything on the
| | 01:28 | form. Since you do that, the entire
form's selected, which means you can go up
| | 01:31 | to the Copy button or use Ctrl+C on
your keyboard to copy the entire contents
| | 01:37 | of this form. This is a shortcut if the
second view you are about to create is
| | 01:42 | very similar to this view.
| | 01:44 | So with everything copied, now we can
create our brand new view and we do that
| | 01:49 | from our task pane here under Views.
You will see Add a New View. So we click
| | 01:53 | that link and we get to name our
view. I am going to call this one
| | 01:58 | ClientServices just like that all one
word. Now we can use spaces if you want,
| | 02:03 | but I am in the habit of not using spaces,
some things will accept spaces, some will not.
| | 02:08 | In this case, I am going to just type
in ClientServices, one word, click OK,
| | 02:12 | and here is my new view. You can see
there is nothing in this view. It also
| | 02:15 | shows up over here on the task pane.
Now because I have copied everything from
| | 02:19 | my first view, I can paste it using the
Paste button or Ctrl+V on the keyboard
| | 02:25 | right here into my brand
new view ClientServices.
| | 02:28 | If I scroll up, I will see that. Really,
I have got a little bit of tweaking to
| | 02:32 | do because it's not the Training
Services Department that's going to use this
| | 02:36 | form, but rather the Client Services
Department. So let's start up there where
| | 02:39 | it says Training, I am going to double-
click on that word and type in Client.
| | 02:44 | There one change, maybe we could
color code this form a different color.
| | 02:48 | So anywhere here in this cell, as long
as you click in there, go up to Table
| | 02:52 | and then go down to Borders and Shading.
This is a little review. We go over to
| | 02:56 | Shading and let's change the color to
a nice deep red crimson color and click
| | 03:01 | OK. So Client Services, their form will
look a little bit different. And maybe
| | 03:06 | for Client Services, they don't
actually bill a client. So they don't even need
| | 03:10 | this section down here.
| | 03:12 | So we can click on the border of the
section, you can see when we see the
| | 03:16 | four-sided area of the entire section
is selected, hit the Delete key on the
| | 03:19 | keyboard, it's gone. Hit Delete one
more time to close up that space, maybe one
| | 03:23 | more time, and that works good.
| | 03:25 | Now all I am doing is changing the view
not the form itself. There is no saving
| | 03:30 | involved. It's just another view for
this format. I go back to the previous
| | 03:34 | view, give it a click, there is my
Training Services Department. Now in this
| | 03:38 | case, it's different color. It says
Training Services and as I scroll down, I
| | 03:42 | have got the Client
Billable section still in there.
| | 03:45 | So how does is this work for the end-
user. Well if we were to preview this by
| | 03:50 | clicking the Preview button up here,
you will notice that I have got my current
| | 03:54 | form that I was viewing, the Training
Services Department or View 1, but if I
| | 03:58 | go up to the View menu, I can
then choose from a different view.
| | 04:02 | If I am Client Services, I can click
on that to access that view which has a
| | 04:06 | different color, it says Client Services,
and down below, you will notice there
| | 04:10 | is no Client Billable section.
| | 04:11 | I can switch over to the previous
view again from the View menu, give it a
| | 04:16 | click, and I am back to my first view.
I am going to click Close Preview to
| | 04:20 | return back to my design view and that's
all there is to creating different views.
| | 04:25 | You can create as many different views
as you want. They all appear selectable
| | 04:29 | from the View menu to the end-user.
In the next lesson, we will talk about
| | 04:33 | making some changes to the View Properties
that you have set up, including our default view.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Setting view properties| 00:00 | When you create different views for a
form to allow different sets of users to
| | 00:04 | see different options, for example,
you may want to go into that view and
| | 00:10 | adjust some of the properties. Just
like you would go into Form Properties, you
| | 00:14 | can also just change the properties
for an individual view by accessing the
| | 00:18 | View Properties from the task pane.
That's what we are going to do right now
| | 00:21 | using our Expense Form from the previous lesson.
| | 00:24 | So if you are following along with me
you have got two different views, the
| | 00:27 | default view as well a ClientServices
view that we set up and you will notice
| | 00:33 | that each of these views has its own
little dropdown button. So we do have some
| | 00:37 | options available to us from the
dropdown. For example, with ClientServices
| | 00:40 | selected here in my task pane, I click
the dropdown and if I want it this to be
| | 00:45 | the default form, so this is what users
will see when they open it by default,
| | 00:50 | in this case, because maybe most of the
people using this form will be from the
| | 00:54 | Client Services department, I click on
Set as Default. When I am done with the
| | 00:58 | view I can also click the dropdown and
select Delete to remove it, and I will
| | 01:03 | be prompted to confirm that in case you are
wondering. I am not going to delete that view.
| | 01:07 | But this second view down here,
which was the default view originally
| | 01:11 | automatically named View 1. I am going
to click on that view. It shows me that
| | 01:16 | form which is the Training Services
department; really it should be called
| | 01:20 | Training Services as opposed to View 1.
So the change other properties of a
| | 01:24 | form view just like we would change the
properties of a form, we go down to the
| | 01:30 | View Properties here in our task pane.
So with that view selected click View
| | 01:34 | Properties, and it's much like Form
Properties but it does say View Properties
| | 01:38 | up here, and you can see there are
view settings including the View Name
| | 01:41 | instead of Form Name.
| | 01:42 | With View 1 selected, I can type
right over that. I am going to type in
| | 01:46 | TrainingServices. Again just in the
habit of not using spaces even though we
| | 01:52 | could with a view name. If I wanted to
set this the default view, I could do it
| | 01:55 | from here as well. Let's switch this
back to the default view. Show on the View
| | 02:00 | menu when filling up the forms, so
this is available to end-users. They can
| | 02:04 | select different views from the View
menu so along as they are checked off
| | 02:07 | here. If I wanted it to be read only,
in other words a form that people will
| | 02:10 | just view and not actually fill out. I
could do that from here too, just like
| | 02:14 | with Form Properties for the entire
form. I can change background colors and
| | 02:19 | pictures just like I could for a form
there is layout settings if I wanted to
| | 02:23 | change some of the settings like a
custom width for example and show scroll
| | 02:27 | bars when necessary.
| | 02:28 | I have also got text settings if I
want to change the default fonts for text
| | 02:33 | boxes, rich text boxes, date
pickers and so on and you can see the Font
| | 02:37 | Properties over here including the
font name, size, color as well as these
| | 02:41 | attributes like bold, italic and underline.
| | 02:44 | Under print settings I could designate
a print view for this. We are going to
| | 02:48 | get into a little bit later on.
Selecting an existing view, which we have
| | 02:52 | currently selected to use when
printing in this view. That's a little bit
| | 02:57 | different; we will talk about that in
the next lesson. There is also some page
| | 03:00 | setups stuff for the printer that we
are going to print to. You can select it,
| | 03:03 | the paper size and source, even
margins. So when we click OK, we save those
| | 03:08 | settings. Now you will notice that
the default from is the TrainingServices
| | 03:12 | view and its all part of one form.
Remember this form is called Report 2, even
| | 03:18 | though I have got different views of
this form for different sets of users.
| | 03:22 | So any time you need to adjust the
properties, click the view that you want to
| | 03:26 | adjust, then click the View
Properties button down below.
| | 03:30 | In the next lesson we will talk about
creating a print view for one of your
| | 03:35 | current views here in InfoPath.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating a print version of a form| 00:00 | In InfoPath 2007, you can create
separate views for different sets of users who
| | 00:05 | may be filling out your form, but there's
another type of view specifically for printing.
| | 00:10 | For example, if you've created an
elaborate looking form, full of colors and
| | 00:14 | special effects, well some of that may
not translate well to a printout, and
| | 00:19 | you may not need all of that in
a printed version of your form.
| | 00:22 | So in that case, you may want to
create a separate view for printing that's
| | 00:27 | based on one of your current views, and
that's what we are going to do in this
| | 00:30 | lesson, still using our
Expense Form from previous lessons.
| | 00:33 | I am here in Design view. You will see
the two separate views that I have here
| | 00:37 | from the Views task pane. Now, you may
also notice that way down at the bottom,
| | 00:43 | we've got links under Actions for
creating New Views, a Print View for Word, so
| | 00:51 | if you have already got a View Setup
in Microsoft Word, you can use that.
| | 00:55 | But here is what we are going in this
lesson, Create Print Version for This
| | 00:59 | View. All right, let's click on our
TrainingServices View, and just like when
| | 01:04 | we create a separate view, we may want
components of our current view, so I am
| | 01:08 | going to go up to the Edit menu and
select everything, Select All, Ctrl+A on
| | 01:13 | your keyboard will also do the same
thing. That means we now have everything
| | 01:16 | selected on the form and we can copy
it because we might want to bring that
| | 01:20 | into our new view, even though it's
going to be a print version of the current
| | 01:24 | view, so Ctrl+C or click the Copy button.
| | 01:27 | Now, we can go down to create print
version for this view, and when we do that,
| | 01:32 | you can see the new name will
automatically be Print Version TrainingServices,
| | 01:37 | and if that's okay with you, click the
OK button, but you could rename it to
| | 01:40 | whatever you like.
| | 01:42 | Notice this new view; it doesn't have
anything on it. Luckily, we copied the
| | 01:46 | entire view from our TrainingServices
view and we can paste it here by clicking
| | 01:50 | the Paste button or using
Ctrl+V on your keyboard.
| | 01:55 | Now, this is an identical view right
now to the TrainingServices view that we
| | 01:59 | had as our default. So now it's a
matter of coming in here, and just
| | 02:03 | simplifying this form. For example,
if I click in here and I don't want any
| | 02:07 | shading, I can go up to my Table menu,
down to Borders and Shading, and when it
| | 02:12 | says Shading, I am going to
choose No color at all and click OK.
| | 02:16 | Now, if I want to do that for the
entire form, I could do that but you will
| | 02:20 | notice that I do have some adjusting
to do for fonts and colors and so on. So
| | 02:24 | maybe that should be black, we'll do that
right there from our Formatting toolbar.
| | 02:29 | And now if we wanted to select the
rest of the tables, we could do that, just
| | 02:33 | click on the table, then click on the
little handle in the top-left corner, and
| | 02:37 | hold down your Ctrl key and click on
the next table click on its handle, same
| | 02:42 | thing on the next table, and the next
table, I am going to keep got the idea
| | 02:48 | once you've got everything selected
that you want to adjust, and I am going to
| | 02:52 | select all of my tables down here, I
could have just done that with Ctrl+A, but
| | 02:56 | I already made changes to the first table.
| | 02:58 | So with these table selected, I don't
want any shading in there so I am going
| | 03:03 | to go up to Table again, Borders and
Shading, go to my Shading tab, and choose
| | 03:07 | No color, and there is a mix of colors
and shading here. That's why neither of
| | 03:11 | these are selected, and I all choose No
Shading, No color, and now you can see
| | 03:17 | this looks better. All I am seeing for
color is the background that's coming
| | 03:20 | through my tables. That's great.
| | 03:23 | What about all the text? Same thing. If
you want it too, you could select Text
| | 03:27 | and change its color. I can do that for
each of my headings, for example, which
| | 03:31 | are blue and change them back to black.
I can click and drag to select multiple
| | 03:36 | cells, and do the same thing and change
everything to black. In this case, all
| | 03:40 | I really need to do is select the cell
with the heading in there because that's
| | 03:45 | the only place I see color.
| | 03:47 | So pretty much I am turning this
into a Black and White form. I have a no
| | 03:52 | shading and by changing my Fonts to
Black. The borders around the outside of
| | 03:57 | the table, I could do the exact same
thing, if I want to change them to black.
| | 04:00 | And I think, you've got the idea, the
changes we are making are only to the
| | 04:04 | print version of our
TrainingServices view, we are not changing the form
| | 04:08 | itself, which is called in my case
Report3. We are changing the view, and
| | 04:13 | that's all we are changing.
| | 04:14 | So if I go up to Preview now and
take a look at this, you can see the
| | 04:18 | backgrounds there. If I go to Print
Preview, let's see what that looks like.
| | 04:22 | Very plain, just the blue border that's
the only thing that stands out. That I
| | 04:25 | might want to change to solid
black but that's totally up to you.
| | 04:29 | I am going to click the Close button
up here to return to my form, close the
| | 04:34 | preview by clicking the Close Preview
button to return back to my Design view.
| | 04:39 | And now I can switch between each of
these views, and as an end-user if I click
| | 04:44 | Preview one more time, and go up to
my View menu, you can see I've got the
| | 04:48 | Print version of TrainingServices.
| | 04:51 | I can go to any of these views right
from my View menu. I'll click Close
| | 04:54 | Preview to return to my Design view.
In this case, I probably want to save my
| | 04:59 | changes because I am updating this
form; I am up to my third view now. I
| | 05:03 | probably want to do same thing for
ClientServices, create a print version of
| | 05:06 | that one as well, maybe it would be based
on my Print Version of TrainingServices.
| | 05:11 | But typically, if you are going to have
a Print Version, or a Print view of any
| | 05:16 | of your form views, click on that
view first before you go down to click on
| | 05:21 | Create Print Version for This View.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Using Print Preview| 00:00 | On some occasions or in some scenarios
your end-users may need to print out a
| | 00:05 | form you've designed here in InfoPath,
maybe it's to fill out the form or maybe
| | 00:09 | it's after they filled out the form to
keep a backup. Whatever the reason using
| | 00:14 | Print Preview before you actually print
a form is not a bad idea, just in case
| | 00:18 | there are some changes that need to
be made, things aren't going to look
| | 00:21 | exactly the way you want. No sense in
wasting paper, so in this lesson we are
| | 00:25 | going to talk about using Print Preview.
| | 00:28 | You'll notice that over here under
Views in the task pane if you want to go
| | 00:31 | ahead and select Views there is only
view and I have named it Training, it's
| | 00:35 | the default view. I am not going to
create a print version for this view
| | 00:40 | because I want to show you another
option and that is to adjust the actual
| | 00:44 | options for printing by default.
| | 00:47 | So with this form, if I was to print
this out just the way it appears, it might
| | 00:51 | not look the way it does here on my
screen when it shows up on paper. To do
| | 00:56 | that we'll use our Print Preview
option. We can access it in many different
| | 00:59 | ways. One is from the Standard toolbar
here. Print Preview you'll see it right
| | 01:03 | next to your Print button. Ctrl+
F2 on the keyboard is the shortcut.
| | 01:08 | We could also go up to File and access
Print Preview from here, and if you went
| | 01:13 | to Print and open up the Print dialog
box from the File menu, you've also got a
| | 01:18 | Preview button down here. So however
you like to Print Preview go ahead and do
| | 01:23 | it and here in Print Preview you'll
notice that my form doesn't look exactly
| | 01:28 | like it did on screen. For example,
this top table has no shading and in the
| | 01:34 | background there is no color and it
looks like this font here, the color has
| | 01:38 | changed because my background has
been removed. So let's go up here to the
| | 01:43 | Close button to close this up.
| | 01:44 | I want to show you something. We'll go
up to Tools and down to Options we will
| | 01:50 | be coming back here in detail later
on in this title but for now under the
| | 01:54 | General tab I want you to see one
check box that is not selected by default.
| | 01:59 | Print background colors and pictures.
By default they are not printed. If I
| | 02:04 | click on this check box and click OK to
save that change and now I'll go up to
| | 02:09 | Print Preview, you'll notice now it
looks very much like my form on screen.
| | 02:15 | The only shading you don't see is
around the outside of the form but it is in
| | 02:19 | the background, you do see that shading
up here in my top table, you are going
| | 02:23 | to see pictures as well if there are
any, there is an opportunity for the
| | 02:28 | end-user to scan receipts and
add a picture to this table.
| | 02:33 | So that's more like what I am use to
seeing on my screen but keep in mind if I
| | 02:37 | am using a color printer I am going to
be using up a lot of blue. If I am using
| | 02:41 | a laser printer that's not color I
am going to be using up a lot of toner
| | 02:45 | cartridge. So I am going to close this
up, go back to my Tools menu, down to
| | 02:50 | Options and I am going to go back to
this little check box under the General
| | 02:55 | section to deselect Print background
colors and pictures and click OK to save
| | 02:59 | that.
| | 03:00 | So sometimes you don't necessarily need
a Print View created over here in your
| | 03:05 | Views task pane because by default the
Print View is actually different from
| | 03:11 | what you are use to seeing on screen
and Print Preview help us to see that.
| | 03:15 | Let's go back to Print Preview just
for a second because there are some other
| | 03:18 | options on the screen. There everything
is back to normal. We do have access to
| | 03:23 | print our document. So if you like what
you see you don't have to close this up
| | 03:28 | and go back to the Print command. You
can do it right from here. Ctrl+P on your
| | 03:31 | keyboard will also work.
| | 03:33 | Now, this particular Print icon with a
little check mark you see there, it's
| | 03:37 | very difficult to see but that icon
means that it's automatically going to send
| | 03:41 | your entire form to your default
printer using default settings. So you don't
| | 03:45 | get to select how many copies, you
don't get to select which printer if you've
| | 03:50 | got multiple printers
connected to your computer or network.
| | 03:54 | Over here you've got some
Navigation buttons for long forms. Now, this
| | 03:58 | particular form fits on one page. And
one page by default is 8.5x11. Now, it
| | 04:06 | doesn't quite vary, you'll see down at
the bottom things start to get cut off
| | 04:09 | and that's why up here where it says
Page 1, I can actually click on the Next
| | 04:14 | Page button or a Last Page
button but I can't go back.
| | 04:17 | So I am going to click on the Next
Page button and you can see there is the
| | 04:21 | rest of my form where I can insert my
picture and table. So that's the way it's
| | 04:25 | going to print. Not ideal perhaps,
but keep in mind when the people start
| | 04:29 | adding Itemized List of Expenses in this table
of rows, things will move on to the next page.
| | 04:35 | Another handy option is to zoom in or
out. I like to zoom out; right now I am
| | 04:40 | looking at this form in actual size a 100%.
If I zoom out by clicking the minus sign here,
| | 04:46 | you can see I get a better
view of the entire layout of my
| | 04:50 | entire page. I can go back a little
further and now I am seeing both pages
| | 04:54 | where things are getting cut off.
| | 04:56 | I can change my zoom level backup by
clicking the plus sign or by clicking the
| | 05:00 | dropdown here for zoom levels. I am
going to any zoom level I so choose right
| | 05:06 | from here. We can go back
to a 100% and click Close.
| | 05:11 | So once things are looking the way
you want according to Print Preview it's
| | 05:15 | time to think about
printing. That's coming up next.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Printing forms| 00:00 | When it comes to printing a form here
in InfoPath whether it would be in Design
| | 00:04 | view or in Preview mode, or after
filling out a form, printing in InfoPath is
| | 00:09 | not much different than printing a
document in any other application. We are
| | 00:13 | going to explore that
now using our Expense Form.
| | 00:15 | I am going to go over to Views for a
second here, where I see I have got one
| | 00:19 | view which is the default view called
Training. I am going to add an additional
| | 00:23 | view here for printing. So as I go
down to Actions here where I can Add a New
| | 00:28 | View, Add Print View for Word, or
Create Print Version for This View, I am
| | 00:33 | going to give that a click. I am
going to leave the default name as Print
| | 00:36 | Version of Training and click OK.
| | 00:38 | So now I've got a second view. Of
course there is nothing in this view at this
| | 00:42 | time, so I am going to go back to
Training. I am going to select all, using
| | 00:46 | Ctrl+A, I am going to copy everything
using Ctrl+C on the keyboard, go back to
| | 00:52 | Print Version of Training and Ctrl+V
to paste. Little review of creating
| | 00:58 | different views and now I've got my
Print Version. I only want to have a couple
| | 01:01 | of different view because it is one of
the options when it comes to printing
| | 01:05 | out your form.
| | 01:06 | So here we are in Design mode. Let's
go up to the File menu and we'll go down
| | 01:10 | to Print from here. Notice that Ctrl+P
is a keyboard shortcut. I prefer to do
| | 01:16 | this as opposed to selecting the Print
icon from the standard toolbar because
| | 01:20 | that will automatically send your
current form to the printer using all of the
| | 01:24 | defaults, which is a single copy. It's
going to your default printer, if you've
| | 01:28 | got multiple printers you don't get to choose.
| | 01:30 | So I like to go down here where I see
Print with the ellipses indicating about
| | 01:34 | to open up a dialog box. So when I
give that a click there is my Print dialog
| | 01:38 | box and you can see I can change the
Name of my printer. If you've got multiple
| | 01:43 | printers connected to your computer
or on the network, you can click this
| | 01:46 | dropdown to select the appropriate
printer. You can access that printer's
| | 01:50 | properties using the Properties button.
| | 01:52 | We can also choose a Print Range, you
could print all the pages or just select
| | 01:56 | pages using the Pages radio button
and choosing those pages. I am going to
| | 02:00 | leave it at All. You can also choose
the Number of copies. Now just keep in
| | 02:04 | mind that if you've got multiple pages
of a form, you will want to make sure
| | 02:07 | that Collate is selected. If you bump
this up to anything passed one. That way
| | 02:12 | you don't have to do the collating,
you will see pages 1, 2, 3 etcetera come
| | 02:16 | out before pages 1, 2, 3 etcetera come
out again for a second and a third time
| | 02:21 | in this case for three copies.
| | 02:23 | I am going to bump that back down to 1.
Leave collating on and if I want to
| | 02:27 | preview from here I can do that
too, I am just going to click OK.
| | 02:30 | Now, just notice that's all I have
got here in the Print dialog box. When I
| | 02:34 | click OK, off it goes to the Printer.
So you can do that if you want to print
| | 02:38 | out the form in Design view here or
click Cancel. Let's preview this form. When
| | 02:44 | I click Preview, now I am going to see the
form the way the end user is going to see it.
| | 02:49 | So in this case, an end user might
want to retain a hard copy of their form
| | 02:53 | after they filled it out. So they
would come in here and they would start
| | 02:56 | filling out things. I am going to use
my little Date Picker here to select a
| | 03:01 | date range. I need to type in a Reason
for Business Expense. I am going to type
| | 03:07 | in Client Visit and you would enter
the rest of your information, of course
| | 03:12 | anything with that red asterisk it
has to be filled in, this is going to be
| | 03:15 | simulated via E-mail. So I'll use an
imaginary E-mail Address here lynda.com.
| | 03:21 | I have to choose a Category; I am
going to type in Airfare. I am going to use
| | 03:25 | the Date Picker here and type in Fly to
California. I'll put in a Cost just to
| | 03:35 | have something there, hit my Tab
key to see the Total and now I've got
| | 03:41 | everything I need at least the
bare minimum to print this out.
| | 03:45 | So now when I go to Print, I am going
to do the same thing as I did in Design
| | 03:49 | view, I am going to avoid this button
right here and go up to File and choose
| | 03:54 | Print from here, Ctrl+P. The keyboard
shortcut does open up the dialog box.
| | 03:59 | Everything looks pretty much the same
except for one additional option; you'll
| | 04:03 | notice down here we've got a
checkbox for Multiple Views.
| | 04:07 | So I do have a Print view and I have
got the current form view. If I want to
| | 04:11 | print Multiple Views, I can do that
and as soon as I click on that I get to
| | 04:15 | select the additional view I want to
print which is my Print Version for
| | 04:18 | Training and how do I want to separate
the different views. Currently there is
| | 04:23 | No break, so just flow one into the next.
| | 04:26 | If I want them on separate pages I
could use a Page break or have a Horizontal
| | 04:31 | line appear between the different views.
I am going to choose Page break, click
| | 04:35 | OK and now I've set up that option over here.
| | 04:38 | If I need to go back to those settings
I can by clicking the Settings button.
| | 04:42 | So again I can choose my Range, I can
choose the Number of copies whether or
| | 04:46 | not I need to Collate and clicking OK
is going to send those off to my printer.
| | 04:51 | I am going to click Cancel, close my
Preview and return back to Design view
| | 04:58 | before we move on.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
7. Publishing InfoPath FormsPublishing to a central location using Xcopy| 00:00 | Once you have completed the design of
your form template in InfoPath 2007, you
| | 00:05 | have tested it out, made the necessary
adjustments, what happens next? Well,
| | 00:10 | typically, you will want your end-
users to be able to fill out your form and
| | 00:15 | that requires publishing your
form to an accessible location.
| | 00:19 | In this lesson, we are going to talk
about the simplest approach to publishing
| | 00:22 | a form and that is simply to copy
it to a specific location where your
| | 00:26 | end-users will have access to it.
| | 00:29 | I have got a form opened up here
already called Agenda 1. We've tested this
| | 00:33 | out, it's ready to go, we want to share
it with others. There is the Publishing
| | 00:37 | Wizard. We will talk about
that in upcoming lessons.
| | 00:39 | In this case, we are going to use xcopy
technology to simply save a copy of our
| | 00:45 | form template in a location
where the end-user will access it.
| | 00:48 | Now it's also the most restrictive
method for publishing a form because we will
| | 00:53 | be in Restricted mode for security,
which means of course, if you were following
| | 00:58 | along in the previous lesson when we
discussed this, that you will not be able
| | 01:01 | to add any code to your form and it
also means that you wouldn't be able to
| | 01:06 | connect to any data sources. You are
just simply storing it in a location
| | 01:10 | where other users will access it.
| | 01:11 | So let's go up to File and choose
Save As. I am going to save this to my
| | 01:17 | desktop. So when I click on Desktop, I
am going to change the name because I
| | 01:21 | don't want to have the same template in
two locations here. I am going to take
| | 01:25 | out the 1 and just leave it as Agenda.
When I click Save, it's now been saved
| | 01:30 | on my desktop.
| | 01:31 | If I want to fill out this form now as
an end-user, I would go to File and Fill
| | 01:37 | Out Form. This will open up the
Getting Started window. Before I do that,
| | 01:41 | though I am going to click Close to
close up the form I have been working on,
| | 01:44 | which also opens up the Getting Started
window, and now to fill out a form, all
| | 01:48 | I have to do is go find it on my computer.
| | 01:51 | I can do that by clicking on My
Computer, go to the Desktop and there it is.
| | 01:57 | It's called Agenda. Double-clicking it
now opens it up to be filled out. Check
| | 02:02 | at the bottom one, the Status bar
here. The form template's location is
| | 02:06 | being tracked and stored with this form.
| | 02:09 | So we always have to know where that
is and the form once it's been opened up
| | 02:14 | to be filled out, does a
very good job of tracking that.
| | 02:17 | So let's just fill in some of the
information in this form. Title of this
| | 02:21 | meeting, I am going to type in
Weekly Status. I am going to put in the
| | 02:26 | Organizer as K. Corey. Location, let's do
Boardroom C. Leave the current date in there,
| | 02:35 | so whatever date you want, you
can use the date picker if you so choose.
| | 02:39 | I am going to type in 10, which is 10 am.
| | 02:42 | When I hit my Tab key, I move to the
next field, so one hour meeting, 11 am is
| | 02:45 | filled in for me. Perfect. Objective,
let's review past week's events.
| | 02:55 | Attendees will be added here. I am
going to type in my own name. You can type
| | 02:58 | in your own name as well and add your
own email address. I have got a fake one
| | 03:02 | here, drivers@lynda.com. I am going to
add one more attendee because this is
| | 03:08 | kind of neat, this form. Under here,
I am going to type in Karen Corey,
| | 03:14 | the organizer and let's make one up
for her too, kcorey@lynda.com.
| | 03:22 | Now Discussion Item. We can add as many
as we want. Let's just add one here.
| | 03:27 | I am going to type in Revenue. The
presenter dropdown has those two attendees.
| | 03:33 | So I am going to put myself in here,
and the note I am going to type in here is
| | 03:39 | Slump. That's to discuss.
| | 03:41 | Down below, we can also add some
Action Items if we wanted to. I am going to
| | 03:45 | leave that as it is and you will notice
there is no Submit button on this form,
| | 03:50 | but if I go up to the Standard toolbar,
there is a Submit button here so there
| | 03:54 | is some technology built in to the form that
allows me to submit this to the attendees.
| | 04:00 | Thanks to their email addresses here,
but I could also just choose to save
| | 04:04 | this. Now check out up here what it is
called. For me, it's form1. You may see
| | 04:08 | a different number. Form1 is the default name.
| | 04:11 | If I click Save, a little dialog box
will appear here giving me the option to
| | 04:16 | Save As. So Rename this and choose a
location, or submit it using the Submit
| | 04:21 | button that now appears here. Same as
clicking Submit Up here, which would send
| | 04:26 | copies to those email addresses under attendees.
| | 04:29 | I am going to choose Save As and
choose my Desktop. Form1 is what it's called
| | 04:35 | by default, but I am going to change
the name, and remember this is the filled
| | 04:39 | out form. This is the data not the
template. So it's not an XSN file, it's
| | 04:44 | actually an XML file that's being
created. So I am going to call this Week1.
| | 04:49 | You can call it whatever you like.
When you click Save, you have now saved it
| | 04:54 | to the Desktop.
| | 04:56 | So let's minimize InfoPath and checkout
our desktop here. We have got two icons
| | 05:02 | that look similar. Agenda has this blue
bar across the top. It's the template.
| | 05:07 | Week1 is the form itself or the data
and the data needs the form to be able to
| | 05:13 | display the data.
| | 05:14 | So if I double-click on Week1, it will
open it up, and you can see down below,
| | 05:19 | the form template's location got
restored with the form, Agenda.xsn, which is
| | 05:24 | on the desktop.
| | 05:26 | So if I was to lose either of these
files, or delete them accidentally, you can
| | 05:31 | see the trouble I could get into and
that's why xcopy publishing, if you will, is
| | 05:37 | not very popular. It is one way to
allow users to fill out your forms but it's
| | 05:42 | not all that popular.
| | 05:43 | I am going to go up to File and
choose Close to close up this form and I am
| | 05:48 | back to Getting Started. In the next
lesson, we will explore some more secure
| | 05:52 | ways to allow end-users to have
access to your form templates.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Publishing to a network location| 00:00 | When it's time to give other users
access to your form template to start
| | 00:03 | filling it out, a better alternative to
simply copying your form template to a
| | 00:08 | location where they have access to it
and the ability to lose it is to use the
| | 00:13 | Publishing Wizard. In this lesson, we
are going to use the Publishing Wizard to
| | 00:17 | publish our form template to a network location.
| | 00:20 | We are going to use our Meeting Agenda
Form that we have been working with in
| | 00:24 | previous lessons, but really any form
will do at this point. The next step is
| | 00:29 | to access the Publishing Wizard and we
can do that a couple of different ways.
| | 00:33 | If we click on the File menu, you will
see Publish about half way down. Another
| | 00:38 | option from your task pane with Design
task showing up here at the top is to
| | 00:42 | click on at the bottom, Publish Form Template.
| | 00:45 | Either way you are going to launch the
Publishing Wizard, so let's do that. The
| | 00:49 | Publishing Wizard gives you four
options for where you want to publish your
| | 00:53 | form template. Is it to a SharePoint
server, something we will talk about
| | 00:56 | later, is it to a list of email
recipients or there it is, to a network
| | 01:01 | location? Now, to follow along with
me, you are going to need access to a
| | 01:05 | network file share or a web server.
| | 01:08 | Another option that we won't be
covering is to publish to an installable form
| | 01:13 | template, which will require using
Microsoft Visual Studio. So if you don't
| | 01:17 | have that installed on your computer,
you won't be able to create the Microsoft
| | 01:20 | Installer File that's part of that package.
| | 01:23 | So we are going to go back to a
network location and click the Next button to
| | 01:28 | go to the next step. Here we see two
fields that need some information. The
| | 01:33 | first field being the form template
path, and the file name. Now, you could
| | 01:37 | type that in and you can see the
example down below of how that would look if
| | 01:41 | you know that information. Otherwise,
you might want to use your Browse button
| | 01:45 | to browse to the network file share or
the web server that you are going to be
| | 01:49 | storing this template on.
| | 01:51 | Also we need a form template name
different from the file name that's part of
| | 01:55 | the template path. So let's use the
Browse button. Again, if you have got
| | 01:59 | access to a file share at this point,
you can locate it wherever it may appear
| | 02:04 | down here on the left-hand side. I am
going to type-in the file name first,
| | 02:08 | what do I want to call this. I
am going to call it Meetings.
| | 02:13 | Now I am going to browse to my
Network Share which is right here Network
| | 02:17 | Location 1, it's called Public, and I
click on it, and then click OK, watch
| | 02:22 | what happens. I now access that folder,
the name Meetings will be used and
| | 02:27 | there is the path right at the top. I
click OK again, and it appears here in my
| | 02:33 | Form Template Path and the File Name.
So the Form Template Name. I can have it
| | 02:38 | be something different, something more
explanatory or I can use the same name,
| | 02:42 | which I am going to do. Meetings and click Next.
| | 02:45 | Now, the next step is for me to confirm
that path that I have in here is going
| | 02:51 | to be the same for the end-user. If you
really want to avoid any hassles, make
| | 02:55 | sure that the path you are accessing
here as the designer of this form template
| | 03:00 | is the same as the path that the end-user
will use to access your form to fill it out.
| | 03:05 | If they are using a different drive
letter for example, you will want to match
| | 03:09 | them up. So at this point, you are
asked to confirm that and if it's going to
| | 03:13 | be different, you would use your
Browse button to browse to that different
| | 03:16 | location to try to avoid any of those
hassles. But, if they are identical which
| | 03:21 | they are for me, then you won't have
a problem. I am going to click Next.
| | 03:26 | Now, I am just verifying the
information. You can see Form Name is Meetings,
| | 03:29 | you can see the Publish Path and the
Access Path are identical. Security Level
| | 03:34 | happens to be Restricted. Keep in mind
though, if you have set up your form for
| | 03:38 | Domain Security, a level higher
than Restricted, you would require this
| | 03:42 | information, the Domain Path or the
Publish Path and Access Path are needed
| | 03:47 | with that level of security. So I
am going to click Publish to actually
| | 03:50 | complete the process.
| | 03:52 | Says that was published successfully.
Down below, I have two options now to
| | 03:56 | send this form. To E-mail Recipients,
so they can start filling it out and they
| | 04:00 | will be filling it out from this access
path. Or I can open this form template
| | 04:05 | from the published location, if I want to
check it out by clicking this check box.
| | 04:09 | So I am going to do that and click Close.
You can see there is a warning, after
| | 04:14 | the form is open, any information you
enter can be sent back to the server.
| | 04:17 | It's just a security notice. If
you're okay with that, and you trust the
| | 04:21 | location which I do, since I created, I
can click OK, to go pass that, and now
| | 04:26 | I am filling out my form, and check out
the path down below, the form template
| | 04:30 | location is on my network share, and
when I am done, I can click Submit or Save.
| | 04:36 | That information will be submitted, in
this case to am email address or saved
| | 04:41 | to that network location and as the
designer of this form, all of the XML files
| | 04:47 | that get created from this will be
stored in that location, so I can access
| | 04:51 | that information if I
want to do anything with it.
| | 04:53 | I am simply going to come up here
though and close this without filling it out,
| | 04:58 | returns me back to the original form in Design
view. So that's publishing to a network location.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Publishing to SharePoint| 00:00 | Probably your best option and most
secure option for allowing other users to
| | 00:05 | have access to your form template to
fill it out is to publish to a SharePoint
| | 00:09 | library. If you have got a SharePoint
site, you can follow along with me in
| | 00:13 | this lesson. We are going to use the
Publishing Wizard and this form to do just
| | 00:17 | that, the meeting agenda from previous lessons.
| | 00:19 | Now with the SharePoint site, if you
don't have one, you can watch and learn,
| | 00:23 | or you can set up a trial and follow
along with me if you prefer. A trial
| | 00:28 | SharePoint site will allow you to do
everything I am doing in this lesson and
| | 00:31 | we do it by accessing the Publishing
Wizard. We know we can do that from the
| | 00:35 | File menu. There it is Publish, or
from the Design Tasks task pane here, the
| | 00:41 | last option is Publish Form Template.
| | 00:43 | When we give it a click, we will see
what we did last which was to publish to a
| | 00:47 | network location. This time we are
going to publish to a SharePoint server. So
| | 00:51 | I am going to click the first Radio
button. What's really important here is
| | 00:55 | that, that SharePoint server may or
may not have InfoPath form services
| | 01:00 | installed. See how you don't need
InfoPath form services to do what we are
| | 01:04 | doing and I don't. So I am going to
click Next. Now, it's a matter of typing in
| | 01:09 | the site. So I would have to know the
address of my SharePoint site. It is a
| | 01:13 | trial. I have entered it once already.
So if I click the dropdown, I should see
| | 01:17 | it. Yeah, there it is. It's an HTTP
site, and now it's added. I could have
| | 01:21 | typed that in manually if I wanted to.
| | 01:24 | When I click Next, I will be prompted
with a question. What do you want to
| | 01:28 | create or modify, a document library
or site content type? Document libraries
| | 01:35 | are very popular, and if I leave this
selected, I will be publishing my Form
| | 01:39 | Template as a template in the Document
Library, and it stores the forms based
| | 01:45 | on my Form Template. So they will be
able to open up my form and fill it out
| | 01:49 | right in the library, and of course the
data is stored in that library as well,
| | 01:53 | it appears as columns in that library.
Same thing for a site content type
| | 01:57 | except that this site will allow this
form template to be used in multiple
| | 02:03 | libraries and sites, and it's a little
more advanced, requires a little more
| | 02:06 | setup. So we are going to leave it
at Document Library, the most popular
| | 02:10 | option and click Next.
| | 02:12 | Now, what do you want to do, create a
new document library or use an existing
| | 02:16 | one? You can see Update the form
template in an existing document library is
| | 02:20 | also an option. I haven't actually gone
to this site and done anything yet. So
| | 02:24 | I don't have a Document Library to
select down below. I am going to leave it at
| | 02:29 | Create a new document library, which
will happen on the fly. When I click Next,
| | 02:34 | I need to type a Name and
Description for this document library.
| | 02:37 | So I am going to call it Agendas and
in Description, Weekly, monthly, and
| | 02:50 | quarterly meeting agenda content and
when I click Next, I move onto the next
| | 02:58 | step, which is going to list the
columns that will be available in the
| | 03:02 | SharePoint site and Outlook folders.
Keep that in mind for when we talk a
| | 03:06 | little bit later on about
publishing to email recipients.
| | 03:10 | The column names you see here like Title,
Organizer, Date, and then we get into
| | 03:15 | Number of Attendees, Discussion Items,
and Action Items, these are groups and
| | 03:19 | because I have used repeating sections
on my form, I can add entire groups, ad
| | 03:25 | that means that this can grow. I can
actually add additional Discussion Items
| | 03:29 | and Action Items on the fly as the
person filling out the form and now, I have
| | 03:34 | got some others that are simply fields
from the various actions, such as the
| | 03:37 | Title from this first section. The
Organizer comes from there as well and the Date.
| | 03:43 | Now, if I want to add some additional
ones, I have got an Add button. If there
| | 03:46 | are any fields or columns here that I
won't need, I can remove them, I can even
| | 03:50 | modify them. So I am going to go up
here to Title, just click right at the top,
| | 03:55 | and add another field. So here you
can see my different sections or groups,
| | 04:00 | meeting there is attendees, that's
this section down below, then discussion
| | 04:05 | items and action items, which appears
down a little bit further on the form.
| | 04:08 | So maybe I want meeting location, which
was not one of the columns, the meeting
| | 04:13 | location. That's in the meeting group,
I click the plus sign and I look
| | 04:17 | for location, there it is. That is the
field. Notice down below, Allow users to
| | 04:21 | edit data in the field by using a
datasheet or properties page. If you want
| | 04:25 | them to be able to do that, click this
check box. If not, leave it unselected.
| | 04:29 | I have to enter that data manually, I
am going to click OK, and it now gets
| | 04:34 | added down here to the bottom.
| | 04:36 | Now, every field and group will have
certain properties. With Meeting Location
| | 04:40 | added, I can click the Modify button to
go back to that Properties dialog box,
| | 04:45 | and make changes here if I needed to.
But, the defaults are fine, it's going to
| | 04:49 | create a new column in this library,
column name will be Meeting Location. If I
| | 04:53 | want to change any of that, I could.
I am going to click Cancel, and that's perfect.
| | 04:58 | Now, I am going to click the Next
button to move onto the next step, which is
| | 05:01 | where I verify the information. You
can see the Location, the Server Type:
| | 05:06 | Windows SharePoint Services. The
Security Level is Restricted, but I could
| | 05:10 | choose any Security Level for this
particular form template and would work on
| | 05:14 | my SharePoint site.
| | 05:15 | Now, I am ready to publish it, I click
the Publish button and you can see its
| | 05:19 | busy working and in a moment, it will
successfully publish to the SharePoint
| | 05:23 | site. You can see that it's saving it
as with the entire path template.xsn.
| | 05:30 | Once it's done, you can see the message
here, your form template was published
| | 05:34 | successfully and there is the
information we've verified in the previous step,
| | 05:38 | and now we have the same options as
when we publish to a network site. Send the
| | 05:42 | form to e-mail recipients to fill
out or Open this document library.
| | 05:47 | I am going to choose this option here
to open it up and I am going to click
| | 05:51 | the Close button. Now, I don't have to
do any of those things. I could be done,
| | 05:54 | just close it up. But, I do want to
take a look at this document library on my
| | 05:58 | SharePoint site. You can see now, I am
connecting to the site. I have got my
| | 06:02 | User-name and my Password already
entered there. All I have to do is click OK.
| | 06:07 | You can see now I am in the
Agendas site here, the team website on my
| | 06:12 | SharePoint site, and now I have got
documents for review, and there is Agendas
| | 06:16 | right there. Give it a click, check out
the different fields or columns across
| | 06:20 | the top, and this information can be
filled out this way or when people fill
| | 06:24 | out the form itself, I will see the
data here and then I can work with that
| | 06:29 | data on my SharePoint site. We won't
get into SharePoint at this time, so I am
| | 06:33 | going to close up my browser. Returns
me back to InfoPath. I am in Design View
| | 06:38 | with my meeting agenda ready to move on.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Publishing via email| 00:00 | Back in InfoPath 2003, you did have the
ability to send your form templates off
| | 00:05 | to a list of e-mail recipients who
would receive your message with an e-mail
| | 00:09 | attachment. They would open up the
attachment or the form, fill it out and send
| | 00:13 | it back to you. Now in InfoPath 2007 in
conjunction without Outlook 2007, things
| | 00:19 | have been simplified and improved. You
can actually publish your form template
| | 00:24 | to a list of e-mail recipients who will
receive an e-mail message with the form
| | 00:27 | embedded right in the message; they
don't need to open up the InfoPath to fill
| | 00:31 | out the form. They can do it right inside
their message and submit it back to you.
| | 00:36 | Not only that, folders will be
created in Outlook to control the data and
| | 00:41 | manage it. So you can go into those
folders, manage your data, run analysis on
| | 00:46 | it quickly and easily, all thanks to
this integration between InfoPath and
| | 00:50 | Outlook 2007. We are going to do that
right now using our Meeting Agenda and
| | 00:55 | the Publishing Wizard. We access either
from the File menu and Publish or from
| | 01:00 | your task pane under Design tasks and
you can click Publish Form Template. Now
| | 01:05 | this time we are going to select to a
list of e-mail recipients. Remember we
| | 01:09 | are not sending out our form template
as an attachment that people need to open
| | 01:12 | up with InfoPath; we are actually
creating e-mail messages with the form
| | 01:17 | embedded right inside the message.
| | 01:19 | So we click Next and now we get to give
our form template a name. The name that
| | 01:23 | appears here by default is the name
that we have used in the design process
| | 01:27 | Agenda1, but if I want to change that
I can to make it more descriptive to the
| | 01:33 | end user. So I am going to type in
Meeting Agenda and I am going to take out
| | 01:37 | the 1 and click Next. Now, I am
going to see a list of column names.
| | 01:43 | The columns names are what's going to
be used to create those Outlook folders
| | 01:49 | I was talking about. In the Outlook
folder you will see all of this data sorted
| | 01:53 | in a table format using these column
name and if you see a column name, which
| | 01:58 | is based on a field or a group in
your form, that's missing, you can add it
| | 02:03 | using the Add button.
| | 02:04 | For example I see Title, Organizer
Date and then I see these different groups
| | 02:08 | representing the groups I see on my
form, such as Attendees, Discussion Items,
| | 02:13 | and Action Items. But here under the
top section all I see it Title, Organizer
| | 02:19 | and Date. I don't see the Location,
I don't see Objective for example.
| | 02:22 | Maybe I want the Location. If you were
following alone with me in the previous lesson
| | 02:27 | when we publish to SharePoint we did
add the location, so you may see it down
| | 02:31 | here. If you don't, click the Add
button, open up the Meeting section of your
| | 02:36 | form by clicking the plus sign.
There are the fields including Meeting
| | 02:41 | Location. When I click on it, I can
adjust the column name if I need to.
| | 02:45 | I don't. So I click OK and it's added to my list.
| | 02:50 | If I want to remove it, any one of
these I click on them and choose Remove and
| | 02:57 | we can modify any of these as well if I
click Modify under Title. I might want
| | 03:01 | to be more descriptive with the column
name for example, like Meeting Title and
| | 03:07 | now when I click OK, I have adjust the
column name but I haven't adjusted any
| | 03:11 | of the information on the form itself.
| | 03:13 | Ready to move on to the next step, I
click Next and now it's time to actually
| | 03:17 | publish this. When I publish this by
clicking Publish I am actually going to be
| | 03:21 | launching my default e-mail application,
Outlook 2007, and check out the message
| | 03:26 | that's been created here. It has the
form built right into it and this is where
| | 03:31 | the end user will go to fill out the
information. This is what they see when
| | 03:35 | they receive my message. Who is the end
user? Whoever I add to the To field here.
| | 03:39 | So if you have got Contacts setup and
Groups, you could add the group name
| | 03:43 | here, they all get the message and
send it back. If it's a single user again
| | 03:47 | you can select them from your contacts
or simply type it in, I am going to type
| | 03:50 | in drivers@lynda.com, my dummy e-mail
address. That's the one person who is
| | 03:55 | going to receive this
and now I actually send it.
| | 03:58 | Now, notice there is the Submit button
up here. We are not submitting the form.
| | 04:03 | We haven't filled out the form and
submitting the data. That's what the end
| | 04:06 | user will do. We are sending this to
the end users. So when we click on Send,
| | 04:11 | off if goes and we are done.
| | 04:13 | So at their end they open up their e-
mail message. Right there in the message
| | 04:18 | itself is the form, they fill it out,
hit Submit and we receive it back in our
| | 04:22 | Inbox and the folder that's created
with the different columns headings gives
| | 04:27 | us easy access to the data that
we have received from that form.
| | 04:31 | Keep in mind too that we also receive
the e-mail message that we can keep with
| | 04:35 | all of the data. So if for example you
didn't select every field to be included
| | 04:40 | in columns that will allow us to track
our data and manage it, you will have
| | 04:44 | access to the e-mail message with the
form and all of the data there as well.
| | 04:48 | So not much to it. It's very simple now,
thanks to InfoPath 2007's integration
| | 04:54 | with Outlook 2007.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
8. InfoPath IntegrationCreating a data connection| 00:00 | When we examine InfoPath 2007
integration possibilities with other
| | 00:05 | applications, a very important part
of that is the ability to connect to
| | 00:10 | external data sources. External data
sources could be databases, could be email
| | 00:14 | messages, could be a SharePoint form
library for example. This allows you to
| | 00:20 | either submit data to those
external sources where the data can then be
| | 00:24 | manipulated and analyzed for example,
or you can even connect to other data
| | 00:29 | sources to receive information, to
query fields for example that will populate
| | 00:34 | some of the fields on your InfoPath form.
| | 00:37 | So in this lesson we are going to look
at a couple of different ways to connect
| | 00:40 | to an external data source. That's why
I have closed up everything here, and if
| | 00:44 | you ware following along with me you
can close up anything you might have
| | 00:47 | opened, and we are going to go up to
the File menu down to Design a Form
| | 00:51 | Template. From the Design a Form
Template dialogue box, you will notice that we
| | 00:56 | have some options here. First of all,
we can open a form template on your
| | 01:00 | computer or one that's already on a
SharePoint site for example, customize a
| | 01:04 | sample if we want to do it that way,
or over here, because we are designing a
| | 01:09 | form template from scratch, we can
then choose what our form template will be
| | 01:13 | based on. If Blank is selected, which is
normally the default, we'll be creating
| | 01:18 | a form template that allows us to
define the data source while we are designing
| | 01:21 | the form, and then manually if we
needed to connect to an external data source
| | 01:25 | we would do that. But if you have already
got your Web service you can do it from here.
| | 01:30 | If I choose Web Service I will be
creating a form template that queries and
| | 01:33 | submits data to a Web service, now
you will have to have access to that Web
| | 01:38 | service before you go here. Same thing
for database. If you've got an existing
| | 01:42 | access or SQL database that you want
to connect to, choosing Database and
| | 01:46 | clicking OK will prompt you to go
and find that Access or SQL database to
| | 01:52 | connect to and if the database is
blank, you might be able to submit data to
| | 01:57 | that actual database, whether it
would be Microsoft Access of SQL database.
| | 02:02 | If you wanted to click on XML or Schema,
then of course you would have to have
| | 02:09 | your XML Schema as the data source,
you would have to have an existing one to
| | 02:12 | choose, and Connection Library, again
search a Microsoft Office server for data
| | 02:18 | connections that you can use to start
your form template, meaning you already
| | 02:22 | have to be connected to that server.
| | 02:25 | So let's go the manual route by
clicking Blank, and then clicking OK. When I do
| | 02:31 | that I get a blank screen here and I
am ready to start designing my form. So I
| | 02:36 | could chose Layout, for example, choose
Table With Title. That inserts it. Now
| | 02:42 | I am ready to start putting in some
additional tables like a one column table
| | 02:45 | and building my sections. At any time
I can choose my connection and I can do
| | 02:51 | that by going to the Design tasks,
and down to Data Source. When I click on
| | 02:56 | that, I'm just going to see a blank
folder here called myFields. We'll
| | 03:00 | build in myField as the data source,
but if I want to manage a data connection
| | 03:05 | I can come down to Manage Data
Connections down here and here is where I add
| | 03:10 | the data connection. Now it could be
one of those Web services, so I kind of
| | 03:14 | skip the automated step by going to a
New Blank Form here, but I can always
| | 03:19 | click the Add button, and from here I
can choose to create a new connection to
| | 03:23 | either submit data.
| | 03:24 | So if want data that goes into this
form to go to that external data source I
| | 03:28 | can choose Submit. If I want to extract,
receive, or query information in an
| | 03:34 | external data source, I will make this
selection, if I do want to submit this
| | 03:38 | to a data source. If I have a
Microsoft Office SharePoint Server connected, I
| | 03:43 | can search for connections on SharePoint.
I am going to talk about that in the
| | 03:47 | next lesson, so let's leave
submit data selected and choose Next.
| | 03:52 | Now when we see our Web service. Here
is our Document Library on a SharePoint site.
| | 03:56 | An Email Message, or to the
hosting environment like an ASP.NET page or
| | 04:01 | any other hosting application you may
have set up in your environment. I am
| | 04:05 | going to go one that most people should
be able to follow along within that as
| | 04:08 | an email message and when I click Next,
I get to type in who it's going to.
| | 04:14 | Now I may use an email address on my
form, so that when people hit Submit on
| | 04:19 | this form, it goes to that email
address, in which case I will click the
| | 04:23 | Formula button, choose to Insert a
Field or a Group, I would see in my list of
| | 04:28 | fields, which I haven't added yet, an
Email Address field and I would select
| | 04:33 | that. But I am going to click Cancel
here, Cancel here again, and I want all of
| | 04:37 | the data to be submitted to me
by email. So I am going to type in
| | 04:41 | drivers@lynda.com. You can see down
below the introductory message is that this
| | 04:48 | was created by a Microsoft Office
InfoPath form, and the form data may be included
| | 04:52 | as an attachment, depends
what we choose in the next step.
| | 04:55 | Let's put in a subject here, I am
going to be using this form for asset
| | 04:59 | tracking. I am going to type in Asset
Tracking Data and when I click Next, I
| | 05:07 | move on to the next step. Send only
the active view of the form and no
| | 05:11 | attachment, so as the receiver of this
email I can see the entire form filled
| | 05:15 | out, or do I want to be able to take
that data and do stuff with it? In that
| | 05:19 | case I want to use Send the form data
as an attachment. The attachment name is
| | 05:24 | Form by default, but I can change that,
Asset Tracking Form. And actually I am
| | 05:31 | going to take out any spaces just to
be safe, and you can see down below here
| | 05:36 | is an example, Status report,
concat("Status Report -", field 1),
| | 05:40 | etcetera, attach the form template to
ensure that users can open the form.
| | 05:44 | I have it, but just to be sure I am going
to be attach the form template to this
| | 05:48 | email message that get sent by the
users who fill out the form, and I am going
| | 05:53 | to click Next.
| | 05:55 | So here I see a Summary down below,
and I can choose to modify the name for
| | 06:00 | this data connection that will be
created. I can have more than one data
| | 06:03 | connection. Right now this is an Email
Submit type connection, so I am going to
| | 06:07 | leave it just like that and click
Finish. So there is my first connection.
| | 06:12 | When I click Close, I continue
designing my form knowing I've got that external
| | 06:17 | connection. At any time I can go back
to manage my data connections by clicking
| | 06:22 | here, selecting the data connection
that I either want to remove, or modify, or
| | 06:28 | add additional data connections.
Let's click Close, and continue from here.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Populating controls from a data source| 00:00 | When it comes to connecting to a data
source from your InfoPath form template,
| | 00:04 | the most popular option is typically a
SharePoint Form Library. In this lesson
| | 00:10 | we are going to explore SharePoint
integration and if you are going to follow
| | 00:13 | along with me you are going
to need a couple of things.
| | 00:16 | You will need access to the Exercise
Files if you want to have the same form I
| | 00:19 | am working with and you will also need
a SharePoint site setup and ready to go.
| | 00:24 | And this form is partially designed;
you will notice there is a Submit button
| | 00:28 | down below. When connecting to a
SharePoint library there are two steps:
| | 00:32 | setting up the connection and of course
setting up the form to submit the data
| | 00:37 | to that connection.
| | 00:38 | So the order you choose is totally up
to you. If you want to manage your data
| | 00:42 | sources ahead of time, it will save
you a step during the Submit options. So
| | 00:47 | for example with my form open here,
if I go over to Data Source and down to
| | 00:51 | Manage Data Connections, I can add
the new connection by clicking the Add
| | 00:55 | button, choosing whether I am going
to submit or receive data or search for
| | 01:00 | connections on an existing SharePoint
server. I could choose Submit Data, click
| | 01:04 | Next, choose to a document library on
a SharePoint site, click Next. Then I
| | 01:09 | would need the URL of that site that
would go in here, a file name. Notice this
| | 01:14 | is the Data Connection Wizard that's opened up.
| | 01:17 | But I don't have to do it in separate
steps. So I am going to click Cancel and
| | 01:20 | Close to return to my form design and
instead I am going to go to my Submit
| | 01:24 | Options. You can right click the Submit
button and choose Button Options or go
| | 01:28 | up to the Tools menu, like I am, and
select Submit Options from here. Well we
| | 01:33 | definitely want to allow users to
submit the content in this form to our
| | 01:38 | SharePoint server. So we have to
enable that by clicking the check box, Send
| | 01:42 | form data to a single destination is
selected, but the destination is not going
| | 01:47 | to be e-mail, and it's not going to be
any of these other options. The one I
| | 01:50 | want is SharePoint Document Library.
Now if I had set up my data connection
| | 01:55 | ahead of time, it would appear
down here as an item I can choose.
| | 01:59 | Right now I don't have any data
connections, so I need to add one. I could do
| | 02:03 | it on the fly right from my Submit
Options dialog box and this does open up the
| | 02:08 | Data Connection Wizard. It takes me
directly to the Document Library. I have my
| | 02:12 | SharePoint site open. I am going to Alt
+Tab over to it and I have got a site
| | 02:17 | here for asset management. If I go up
here to the address bar in my browser and
| | 02:22 | click and drag over that address all
the way to Forms. It is a form library so
| | 02:28 | that's why forms appears here at the
end. I don't need this extension. I am
| | 02:32 | going to copy this. Ctrl+C on my
keyboard. Now I am going to switch back to my
| | 02:37 | Connection Wizard and Ctrl+V for Paste
pops it in there. And I am going to hit
| | 02:42 | my Tab key now to move to the next field.
| | 02:45 | Here is where the file name appears as
Form by default but if I want it to be
| | 02:50 | more descriptive like Assets, for example,
that might make sense. This way when
| | 02:56 | I see it in the SharePoint library I
will know this is Assets. I don't want to
| | 03:00 | allow the overwriting of this file if
it already exists. I want to compile
| | 03:03 | them all and then from SharePoint
there are so many things that I can do with
| | 03:06 | the data once I receive it. Manipulate,
manage, view it, even analyze it. So
| | 03:12 | Assets will be the file name. You know
what? I am going to leave this as form.
| | 03:16 | Let's just leave it as the default
to see what happens and click Next.
| | 03:22 | Up here, enter a name for this data
connection. Of course you can have many
| | 03:25 | different data connections and this
one is our SharePoint connection. So Main
| | 03:30 | Submit doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
I am going to take out Main and type
| | 03:33 | in SharePoint. When I click Finish, I
have setup my connection. It now appears
| | 03:40 | here as SharePoint Submit. I don't
need to add it. If I want to manage it and
| | 03:44 | make changes to it, I can from here,
but everything looks good so I am going
| | 03:48 | to click OK. So now I have got my form
connected to a data connection I setup
| | 03:54 | on the fly.
| | 03:55 | I am going to go up to File and choose
Save As and I am going to save this to
| | 03:59 | my Desktop. Let me keep the same name,
Assets. Save it up. That way I can
| | 04:04 | close it. I am going to go up to File
and Close. Now I am ready to fill out a
| | 04:09 | form. The form that I want to fill
out is my Assets form which is on my
| | 04:13 | computer, on my Desktop,
easy to find right there.
| | 04:16 | So I click on Assets and I am going
to click Open and I am ready to start
| | 04:22 | filling this out. So I am going to
type in my own name here, David Rivers,
| | 04:27 | Department, Training. I am going to put
in an Asset ID of 001, the Description,
| | 04:35 | which is going to be Laser Printer, and
now as I tab down you will notice that
| | 04:42 | some of these fields are filled in for
me according to the information I just
| | 04:45 | entered. The make I need to enter, HP,
we will make up a model, 110, serial
| | 04:52 | number. I am going to make that up as
well, just so I have some sample data in
| | 04:56 | here and the location, I am
going to put that on the 2nd Floor.
| | 05:02 | Category, well that could be Computer
Hardware probably or Office Equipment. In
| | 05:07 | this case I am going to choose
Computer Hardware, any additional notes, I can
| | 05:11 | click down here to type them in. I am
going to type in Black and white laser.
| | 05:16 | Now I am ready to submit this and
because I have set up my Submit Options to
| | 05:20 | use my data connection. When I click
Submit and I just sit back and wait for it
| | 05:25 | to connect to my SharePoint site.
| | 05:27 | If you are already logged in, excellent.
You are probably prompted for your
| | 05:31 | login credentials anyway, once you
submit the form to that site. So you will
| | 05:36 | need to okay those credentials before
it actually shows up there. So let's give
| | 05:41 | this is a second to connect
and submit our form successfully.
| | 05:46 | There is our message. The form was
submitted successfully. I click OK and now I
| | 05:50 | am left with the form. So I could
save the form locally if I want to keep a
| | 05:54 | copy for myself or I could simply go up
to File and Close. I am going to click
| | 05:59 | the Close button, I will be prompted to
save the changes, if I don't need to I
| | 06:03 | click No and it returns me back to
my Getting Started windows. I have now
| | 06:08 | submitted data to SharePoint.
| | 06:10 | If you are an expert with SharePoint
and form libraries, you will now have
| | 06:14 | access to that data to do whatever you
please with the data that comes in from
| | 06:18 | this point forward.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Importing forms from Word| 00:00 | In this lesson we are going to explore
a very common scenario for organizations
| | 00:04 | who have decided to move to InfoPath
2007 for designing their form templates.
| | 00:10 | What were they doing in the past?
Well, if they weren't using a previous
| | 00:14 | version of InfoPath, they were
likely using some common applications like
| | 00:18 | Microsoft Word or Excel to create the
look of a form that could be filled out
| | 00:23 | on an end user's computer, or printed
out and filled out that way, and then
| | 00:27 | submit it by hand or via email.
| | 00:30 | Well, with InfoPath 2007 we know that
we can now take advantage of XML data.
| | 00:35 | Data that is submitted through the
form is in the XML format that can be
| | 00:40 | manipulated in so many ways.
| | 00:42 | So for the organizations moving to
InfoPath, do they have to redesign all of
| | 00:46 | their forms? Not necessarily. Thanks
to this latest version of InfoPath we do
| | 00:51 | have the ability to import forms now;
you can see here from my Getting Started
| | 00:56 | window, Import a Form is a link that
will allow me to choose Word documents or
| | 01:00 | Microsoft Excel workbooks, and in
this lesson we are going to import a
| | 01:05 | Microsoft Word document to design our form.
| | 01:08 | If you don't have the Getting Started
window open, that's okay. From the File
| | 01:12 | menu, you will also find Import Form
here as well. So I am going to click on
| | 01:17 | Import Form. It launches the Import
Wizard. There are my two options. I can use
| | 01:23 | the importer for Excel workbooks or
the importer built into InfoPath for Word
| | 01:28 | documents, which is where
I am going to go right now.
| | 01:30 | When I click Next, all I have to do is
locate that Word document now. As the
| | 01:36 | designer of the form I have it on my
computer. So I click the Browse button,
| | 01:40 | vacation_req.doc right there. We will
give it a click, it's a Word 97 to 2003
| | 01:45 | document, and I will click
the Open button down below.
| | 01:49 | Now, I could click Finish and see what
happens, hope for the best, or if I want
| | 01:54 | full control over the options during
the import I can click the Options button.
| | 01:58 | There are a few choices, starting with
Layout only at the top. In that case I
| | 02:03 | will get the layout for the form and
then I will be responsible in InfoPath for
| | 02:07 | getting the fields in there and the labels.
| | 02:09 | If I want to bring in the Layout and
the form fields, you can see this is the
| | 02:13 | default conversion. I would select the
middle radio button. This way I am going
| | 02:18 | to get the layout and InfoPath will do
a pretty good job at recognizing which
| | 02:22 | fields should come over and
where they should go in my new form.
| | 02:25 | I can also be very customized in my
selection by going to this last option.
| | 02:31 | Layout and form fields (custom version
), and this opens up all of these check
| | 02:35 | boxes down below.
| | 02:36 | So you would have to know your form
pretty well and mine is quite simple. I
| | 02:41 | have an option right here to Convert
Word form fields into InfoPath controls.
| | 02:46 | Well yeah, I want to do that.
| | 02:48 | I want it to detect a repeating table,
in other words, a table where I may need
| | 02:51 | to add additional rows, so
I could add additional data.
| | 02:56 | I want it to Detect rich text areas,
areas where I would type in text that
| | 03:00 | could be formatted.
| | 03:02 | Also, I have the Convert to text box
section down below. Empty, underlined
| | 03:06 | areas will be converted to text boxes
if this is checked off. Same thing for
| | 03:10 | spaces after colons. Empty table cells
could also be converted into text boxes,
| | 03:16 | but if I have got many cells that
don't have anything in them, I don't
| | 03:19 | necessarily want them to be text
boxes. So you have to know your form.
| | 03:23 | Table cells containing label text will
be converted to text boxes if you want
| | 03:28 | them to. I am not leaving this selected.
| | 03:30 | Any time there is brackets around
multiple spaces, like you see here, they too
| | 03:34 | could be converted into text boxes.
| | 03:36 | Convert to check boxes any brackets
around a single space. That's a good
| | 03:40 | option. So in this case if it was a
yes or no or a place where I place a
| | 03:44 | checkmark using these square brackets, it
actually becomes a check box. So I like that.
| | 03:49 | Let's click OK. We have setup our
options, now it's time to bring it in. When
| | 03:54 | we click Finish, you can see the
document is imported. In this case the form
| | 03:58 | template was imported successfully,
but one or more potential issues were
| | 04:02 | identified and to review these we will
use our Design Checker. In fact, when we
| | 04:07 | click OK to go into Design View for
our brand new form here, you can see the
| | 04:11 | Design Checker is already open for us.
| | 04:13 | Now, it's not going to be perfect every
time, there will be some tweaking, but
| | 04:17 | we have got a huge head
start here with our form.
| | 04:20 | So up at the top I have definitely
got more room than I need. There is an
| | 04:24 | image, a logo, that could be adjusted,
or I could just delete it by clicking on
| | 04:29 | it. I am going to take out some of
these extra spaces using my Delete key on
| | 04:33 | the keyboard. I don't need
all that room at the top.
| | 04:37 | Same thing down here. Clicking in this
field up at the top. I am going to hit
| | 04:41 | Delete and center it.
| | 04:43 | If I have got extra spaces I don't want,
I can take those out using Delete and
| | 04:49 | Backspace. I can go to the Border
and just bring that up as well.
| | 04:54 | That's looking better.
| | 04:55 | So a little bit of tiding up to do.
Looks like I have got something that
| | 04:59 | couldn't be imported here, so I will
just click on it and Delete it. I would
| | 05:03 | have to go back to my Word form to see
if there is anything missing that needs
| | 05:07 | to be added.
| | 05:07 | But you can see I have got some text
fields or text boxes here for Date,
| | 05:11 | Employee, Department. As I
scroll down, room for Signatures.
| | 05:18 | I might want to create some digital
signatures for this form. One or more
| | 05:22 | drawings were discarded. That's the
only thing that happened here in my Design
| | 05:25 | Checker. So a drawing that was
brought in didn't make it. Big deal. I could
| | 05:30 | probably bring it in using my Insert
menu and that might mean going back to a
| | 05:34 | previous lesson for a review.
| | 05:37 | But once you have got things tweaked
and looking good it's just a matter of
| | 05:40 | saving it and then publishing it to the
location of your choice. That's a Word document.
| | 05:45 | In the next lesson we will check
out a Microsoft Excel workbook.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Importing forms from Excel| 00:00 | In my travels over the years working
for different organizations the most
| | 00:04 | popular way to gather information has
always been the spreadsheet. So in this
| | 00:09 | lesson we are going to show you how to
import a Microsoft Excel workbook here
| | 00:13 | into InfoPath so you can take
advantage of the power of InfoPath 2007.
| | 00:18 | Let's say you have been using a
Microsoft Excel workbook to fill out Expense
| | 00:23 | Reports. Well, typically you would
fill them out, hopefully made no errors,
| | 00:26 | maybe email them off to finance, or
print them out and get them signed and hand
| | 00:31 | them off manually; hopefully they
don't get lost. While they would have to go
| | 00:35 | through each of those files and
manipulate that data manually.
| | 00:39 | With InfoPath, we can fill out a form,
send it directly to finance, where they
| | 00:44 | receive the XML data, and then there
is so much they can do with XML data. It
| | 00:48 | is reusable data so they can
manipulate that data however they like: create
| | 00:52 | reports and do analysis. So we are
going to take an existing Microsoft Excel
| | 00:56 | workbook here and turn it into an InfoPath
form template, thanks to the Import feature.
| | 01:02 | Here in the Getting Started window, for
example, we do see Import a Form right
| | 01:06 | here. So when we click on it, the
Import Wizard shows up and there is our two
| | 01:11 | options: Excel workbooks or Word documents.
| | 01:14 | Now, this is the importer that's built
into InfoPath and we want the one for
| | 01:19 | Excel workbooks. So with that
selected we will click Next.
| | 01:22 | Now all we have to do is locate the
Microsoft Excel workbook. If you know where
| | 01:26 | it is you could type in the path and
the name or use your Browse button. With
| | 01:30 | that selected, when I click Open,
it's inserted into the field.
| | 01:33 | Now, you can't have the file open,
which I do, I just wanted you to take a peek
| | 01:38 | at it. So I am going to Alt+Tab over
to that file, and here's my Expense
| | 01:43 | Report. I want you to see
what it looks like here in Excel.
| | 01:45 | I have got my logo, over here a couple
of fields for Pay Periods: From and To.
| | 01:51 | Some fields here for Employee
information. Looks like I have got several rows
| | 01:55 | dedicated to entries, so these would
be the actual reimbursement entries: the
| | 02:00 | Dates, the Description, and the type
of entry that's going into this Expense
| | 02:05 | Report. Should total things up for me,
and down at the bottom I have got an
| | 02:08 | area for my Manager Signature and Date.
| | 02:11 | I am going to close this up because it
can't be open. I can't be using it while
| | 02:14 | I import it. Takes me back to
Microsoft Office InfoPath, I have got it
| | 02:19 | selected. I could click Finish and
hope for the best, or click the Options
| | 02:23 | button, and here I get to see three
different options. To import just the
| | 02:27 | layout. Then I would be responsible for
all of the fields, and I would have to
| | 02:31 | put those in myself in InfoPath. You
are probably pretty good at it, but if you
| | 02:35 | can save some time and let the importer
do it for you, you might be interested
| | 02:39 | in the second option, to import the
Layout and the form fields. You can see
| | 02:43 | this is the default conversion.
| | 02:45 | Or if you want to customize your
import, you can choose now with the third
| | 02:50 | option, some custom conversion settings,
like Detect repeating tables. When it
| | 02:56 | sees that list of expenses on multiple
rows, it may create just one table as a
| | 03:01 | repeating table, where the end user
would choose how many rows they need.
| | 03:05 | Convert to text box. What can be
converted? Cells containing formulas. In that
| | 03:10 | case you will want to set up those
cells yourself to be formulas that will add
| | 03:14 | up the contents of other fields.
| | 03:17 | We can convert cells containing
numeric data into text boxes, so if there was
| | 03:21 | already data in our form, that's perfect.
| | 03:24 | Cells that are referenced by formulas.
I know there are at least a couple in
| | 03:29 | this particular template. I want those
converted to text boxes as well. Empty
| | 03:33 | cells that have borders around them
would probably be text fields, something
| | 03:37 | that the end user would fill in, and
that's recognizable by the formatting.
| | 03:41 | So this is what the importer is
going to pick up. I have got everything
| | 03:45 | selected here; I am going to click OK.
With my option selected it's time now to
| | 03:50 | finish the entire operation. I click
the Finish button, and I will see a
| | 03:54 | message: The form template was imported
successfully. Interesting! I don't see
| | 03:58 | any error messages or any issues, so I
am going to click OK and see what this
| | 04:02 | looks like.
| | 04:03 | I have got my Expense Report. Now, I
don't see my logo up here. As I scroll
| | 04:08 | over, okay, I am not seeing everything,
but it looks pretty darn close as I
| | 04:14 | scroll down. You can see an area for the
Manager's Signature. The Date needs to be adjusted.
| | 04:21 | So there are a few tweaks, and it may
never come out just perfect, but you can
| | 04:25 | see I have saved a lot of time and a
lot of effort in having to redesign this
| | 04:29 | form from scratch by simply
importing an existing form.
| | 04:33 | So I might think okay, I don't need
two repeating tables. I am just going to
| | 04:37 | click here, anywhere in the table, and
click on Selection handle up here in the
| | 04:41 | top left, hit my Delete key. That was easy.
| | 04:45 | Now, I have got up here some space for
my logo, so I might use my Insert menu
| | 04:50 | to go find my logo and insert it over there.
| | 04:53 | So I scroll over a couple of other
things, Total Due to the Employee. Well,
| | 04:58 | this is just a text box. I probably
want to right click on it, go to my Text
| | 05:02 | Box Properties, and turn this into an
actual formula that's going to total up
| | 05:08 | everything from this total column here
in my repeating table; you know how to
| | 05:12 | do that from previous lessons, so we
will click Cancel. I scroll back over here
| | 05:17 | to the side and back to the
top to see the end result.
| | 05:21 | So I have just saved myself a load of
effort by being able to import existing
| | 05:27 | forms I currently use in my organization,
now I am going to have full advantage
| | 05:30 | of InfoPath 2007, thanks to the importer.
| | Collapse this transcript |
|
|
9. Customizing InfoPathMoving, showing, and hiding toolbars| 00:00 | Over time as you continue to work with
InfoPath 2007 both to design and maybe
| | 00:05 | even fill out forms, you are
probably going to realize there are certain
| | 00:08 | commands, certain menu items and
toolbar buttons that you use more often than
| | 00:12 | others. So to be more efficient, you
might be thinking about customizing your
| | 00:17 | work environment to suit your needs and
there is a lot of different things you can do.
| | 00:21 | In this lesson, we are going to focus
in on the toolbars. You can see I've
| | 00:25 | opened up a file to work with here, but
really any form open in Design view at
| | 00:30 | this time will do. You could be even
starting a new one, because what I want
| | 00:33 | you to see is the user interface
that shows up by default in Design mode.
| | 00:38 | We've got our menu bar, Standard
toolbar, very first button, Design a Form
| | 00:42 | Template, Formatting toolbar, Tables
toolbar, and Task Pane over here on the
| | 00:47 | right-hand side. Of course, the more
toolbars and task panes and so on that is
| | 00:52 | open. The smaller my work area gets,
because space is required by each of these.
| | 00:58 | Well, we can rearrange our toolbars, we
can hide toolbars and show the ones we
| | 01:02 | want. We can even customize the
individual toolbars. We are going to get into
| | 01:06 | all of that now. But just before we do,
I want to show you something different.
| | 01:10 | Let's go up to File and down to Fill
Out a Form. Now, you should see over here,
| | 01:16 | Open a form, SampleForm1, because
it's the one we are designing if you are
| | 01:20 | following along with me. But you can
open up any form here to be filled out.
| | 01:24 | I am going to choose SampleForm1. And
now I have got a different look on my
| | 01:29 | user interface. There is no task pane
open at this time. I do see the menu bar
| | 01:34 | down below, a Standard toolbar, but
look at this. The very first button is
| | 01:38 | Submit, then I've got Fill Out a Form,
there is no Design a Form Template here.
| | 01:43 | I've got my formatting toolbar down
here, and that it's. If I go up to Tools,
| | 01:48 | and down to Customize, and click
on Toolbars, check it out. Standard,
| | 01:55 | Formatting, Menu Bar. I've also got
Ink and Tables here. They could also be
| | 02:02 | shown when I am Filling Out a Form.
| | 02:05 | So to hide a toolbar, we just
deselect it. To show a toolbar, we select the
| | 02:09 | empty checkbox. I am going back to the
default here, and close this up. I am
| | 02:15 | also going to go up to File and choose
Close, to return to the Design view of
| | 02:20 | my form. And now, I am going to go
back to Tools, and down to Customize, and
| | 02:25 | check out the toolbars available here.
There is a task pane there. There is no
| | 02:29 | Ink toolbar, because we wouldn't use that in
the Design mode, but we would when filling out.
| | 02:33 | Now, the Standard toolbar is the same
Standard toolbar. So keep that in mind,
| | 02:39 | it's just that we see different
options on the Standard toolbar when we are
| | 02:43 | filling out versus designing a form.
That's important, because when we go to
| | 02:47 | customize our Standard toolbar for
example, it could get a little tricky.
| | 02:51 | Customizing could be as simple as
hiding, or showing toolbars. You'll notice
| | 02:58 | the menu bar here has a checkmark. But
if I click on it, I am not able to hide
| | 03:02 | that one. We need our menu bar across
the top here, because that's where all
| | 03:05 | the commands are. So if we had no
toolbars, we wouldn't be able to do the
| | 03:08 | basics like close the forms, save it and so on.
| | 03:12 | So that one we can't hide, but the
others we can. And if we want to move them
| | 03:16 | around, we can also do that too. So
for example, if I want to try and put my
| | 03:20 | Tables toolbar up next to my
Formatting toolbar to save some vertical space.
| | 03:26 | When you move to the left, the docked
toolbar and currently our toolbars are
| | 03:30 | docked up here at the top.
| | 03:32 | I can click-and-drag a toolbar and you
can say I can drag it across. And if I
| | 03:36 | move up, well it doesn't let me right
there, but if I move all the way over
| | 03:40 | here. Now, I've moved it up but it
doesn't actually fit next to my Formatting
| | 03:44 | toolbar. So I've actually traded spaces
now. I am going to bring it back down.
| | 03:49 | What about down the left-hand side?
Well, when I move down pass the docking
| | 03:53 | area, it's now floating. So I can put
it anywhere. And if I move to the left
| | 03:57 | side, you can see it's now docked on
the left side of my screen. And I've got
| | 04:01 | all of those buttons available to me
down the side. I am going to bring it back
| | 04:05 | up to the top, dock it right there.
| | 04:09 | So another option might be to remove
the buttons you never use and then try to
| | 04:13 | combine the toolbars on the same line
for example. So on that case, we need to
| | 04:18 | have the Customize window open, or
you won't be able to do any of these. If
| | 04:22 | there are buttons you never use,
remove them. For example, the border right
| | 04:26 | here, I don't use that dropdown. So I
am going to click-and-drag it down into
| | 04:30 | my work area.
| | 04:31 | Next to my mouse pointer is an X. There,
I've just removed it. I don't need to
| | 04:35 | adjust the width or thickness if my
borders from there either. And maybe up
| | 04:40 | here on my Formatting toolbar. I don't
use these Alignment buttons. I am going
| | 04:44 | to drag them down one-by-one. And
as I do this, the toolbar itself is
| | 04:49 | shrinking. You can see it's getting
smaller and smaller. Maybe I don't use
| | 04:53 | these. I never use a Highlighter.
| | 04:55 | Now, I might have enough room to move
this toolbar up next to and sure enough,
| | 05:00 | now they both fit on the same line.
That does give me a little bit of extra
| | 05:04 | space. I am going to bring it back down,
because you might be getting worried
| | 05:07 | now. I forget which ones I've removed,
and I want to get some of them back. To
| | 05:13 | do that we go to our Commands tab.
| | 05:16 | Now under Commands, we are going to
see the categories, File, Edit, View,
| | 05:19 | Insert look familiar. File, Edit,
View, Insert. So all of the commands
| | 05:23 | available to us are under the
Commands tab. So for example, if I go down to
| | 05:27 | Table, I am going to see things in
here that I might want to put on my Tables
| | 05:31 | toolbar. So as I scroll down, look at
them all. Lots to choose from here. If I
| | 05:38 | wanted to, for example, draw a table.
Well, that's already up there. But maybe
| | 05:44 | just table, drag that up. And you'll
see the Separator, and let go. And why
| | 05:50 | does it not show up there? Well, the
Table button here will show up on the
| | 05:55 | Tables toolbar. When I am filling
out a form, it's a different command.
| | 06:00 | So keep that in mind. I am going to go
down to my File category over here, for
| | 06:04 | example. And right here, the Form
preview. I am going to trying to drag that up
| | 06:09 | on to my Standard toolbar. I am going
to go right here next to Preview, and let
| | 06:16 | go. So now I've got the Form Preview
button. You can see it appears here. And,
| | 06:20 | all of sudden I don't have enough room.
| | 06:22 | So I might want to go to my toolbar
here, just move it over a little bit so
| | 06:26 | that everything fits on one line. Now,
let's go down to Fill Out a Form, drag
| | 06:33 | that up here next to Design. So
those might be buttons I use on a regular
| | 06:37 | basis. And let's say there is a bunch
I don't, just drag them off. Again, to
| | 06:42 | get them back, go to that category. So
if I want to insert a picture and image,
| | 06:49 | go to my Insert menu, and look for that,
there it is From File, and just put it
| | 06:53 | back. If I am not sure where it went,
that's okay. I can move them around. Move
| | 06:57 | your buttons around until you get
them to the spot where they belong.
| | 07:00 | You can see they are kind of grouped
there by those little separators. What
| | 07:04 | happens if you get out of hand, you
can't find certain commands that you
| | 07:08 | removed, you want to get them back?
Wouldn't it be nice to be able to start
| | 07:11 | over? If we go back to Toolbars, and
select the Toolbar that we've been editing
| | 07:16 | like the Standard toolbar, you'll
notice we can reset. I am going to click
| | 07:20 | Reset. I get the warning, 'Are you
sure?' Changes I made will be erased. I
| | 07:24 | click OK.
| | 07:25 | Everything is back where it started.
Same thing for the Formatting toolbar.
| | 07:29 | I'll reset that one and OK, that. Did
I make changes to the Tables toolbar?
| | 07:34 | You bet. Reset that one too.
And of course, there is the Formatting
| | 07:40 | toolbar, let's Reset them all
sort of back where we started.
| | 07:44 | I am going to go back to Commands here
for a second, because another option is
| | 07:49 | to rearrange commands not just on the
toolbars, but what about the menu bar
| | 07:53 | itself. If I click on menu here, you
are going to see the default items that
| | 07:57 | show up on the actual menu itself. Now,
I can remove things from here as well
| | 08:02 | just like I did with the toolbar, and
they are gone. And I can put commands
| | 08:07 | back. Just by finding them here, I am
going to go back to File, and if there
| | 08:12 | was something I removed, I can put it
back just by finding it here. Choose this
| | 08:19 | one, put this one up here under Save.
| | 08:22 | Now, it may not show up here, because
it's not something I would do from Design
| | 08:25 | view, but this is kind of cool. I am
going to click Close, and I am going to go
| | 08:31 | to Fill Out a Form. File > Fill Out a
Form and any old form will do, I am going
| | 08:36 | to use my SampleForm1. And now, I am
going to see if I go up to the File menu
| | 08:40 | for example, Import Form Data.
| | 08:42 | Now, it didn't look like I was allowed
to put that on the menu bar, but I was.
| | 08:47 | It just didn't show up in Design view.
It does when we are Filling Out a Form.
| | 08:51 | The same goes for our Standard toolbar.
There are commands that you have added
| | 08:56 | that should not appear in Design view.
They will appear when you go into Fill
| | 08:59 | Out a Form. So just keep that in mind.
| | 09:02 | We can go to Tools and Customize from
here, back to Toolbars. I am going to go
| | 09:07 | back to my Standard toolbar and
Reset that one. Same thing for Formatting
| | 09:13 | toolbar, just to make sure that they
are all the same. And the menu bar can
| | 09:17 | also be reset. So if you remove things
and you can't find them, you want to get
| | 09:20 | them back, Reset is always a good option.
| | 09:23 | Now, let's go back to Commands, because
rearranging commands also allows you to
| | 09:28 | rearrange your menu bar. So we can
choose Toolbars or Menu. The menu bar has
| | 09:34 | the different menu headings. File. You
can see there are certain menu headings
| | 09:38 | that do not appear by default like File,
Export To, Permission. But then I've
| | 09:42 | got Edit, View, Insert, there is Format,
Tools. Lots of different headings that I can add.
| | 09:48 | But here under File, for example, I am
going to see all of the controls that
| | 09:52 | appear on my File menu. So if I want to
switch Save and Save As for example, I
| | 09:57 | can do that by selecting Save As. I
want to move it up one, I click Move Up.
| | 10:01 | Move it down, Move it Down. Want to
add one, I click Add. Want to delete one,
| | 10:06 | like Merge Forms, I never do that, I
can delete it. Of course, I can reset if I
| | 10:12 | want to get everything back. When I
click OK, it's back to the default setting
| | 10:16 | and close it up.
| | 10:19 | I am going to click Close, again for
the Customize. And this gives you a good
| | 10:22 | start in customizing your work
environment to suit your needs.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Creating custom toolbars| 00:00 | If you really want to customize your
work environment in InfoPath to suit your
| | 00:04 | needs, but you find it tedious working
with the existing toolbars and menus,
| | 00:08 | adding and removing buttons and
moving things around. You might want to
| | 00:12 | consider another option, which is to
create your own toolbars. That's what we
| | 00:15 | are going to do right now. So really
doesn't matter what you have in front of
| | 00:19 | you at this time, I am still working
with the same form, from the previous
| | 00:22 | lesson SampleForm1. I am going to
go up to Tools and down to Customize.
| | 00:28 | Now this time from the Toolbars tab,
I am going to turn all of these off, I
| | 00:34 | can't turn off the menu bar, but turn
off all the toolbars and create my own
| | 00:37 | Toolbar by clicking the New button.
And I am going to call it something
| | 00:41 | interesting, Dave's Faves. And you can
call it whatever you like. And when you
| | 00:47 | click OK, you've got a brand New Toolbar.
| | 00:50 | Now you may need to move the
Customize Window out of the way to see the New
| | 00:53 | Toolbar which is floating down there
and it has nothing on it. So if I wanted
| | 00:58 | to start adding some commands to this
now, I go to my Commands tab. Now let's
| | 01:03 | say designing and filling out forms,
two things I do on a regular basis. I am
| | 01:07 | going to click and drag that down.
Same thing for filling out a form.
| | 01:11 | Now keep in mind I am in Design Mode
here, so I might be adding buttons that
| | 01:16 | don't apply to Design Mode, but they
will appear when I go to fill out a form.
| | 01:21 | So for example, right here for
previewing a form if I move that down and let
| | 01:25 | go, it does show up here, but there
maybe others that don't. So just keep that
| | 01:29 | in mind and that maybe one that doesn't
show up when I go to fill out the form.
| | 01:34 | Preview Settings, drop that in there,
realize no, it's not something I use,
| | 01:39 | drag it back out. So you can totally
customize your toolbar to suit your needs.
| | 01:44 | Go to other categories, under Edit, I
definitely need my Undo button and my
| | 01:51 | Redo button. I prefer to use the
keyboard for Cut, Copy and Paste, so I am not
| | 01:56 | going to add those, but you can see I have
got lots of commands to choose from here.
| | 02:01 | Select All is something I definitely
like to use; I am going to do that. And
| | 02:06 | maybe let's just go to the View menu
here and try Manage Views and Design
| | 02:15 | Task. So if that's all I need and I
am ready to go, I can start working with
| | 02:21 | this toolbar, I going to go back to
Toolbars here, mine is showing up, none of
| | 02:25 | the others are, but I can come in here
to move that, and if I want it docked up
| | 02:28 | at the top, I can move in there, I
can do that down the left side, or just
| | 02:33 | anywhere on my screen.
| | 02:34 | But I am going to popup right up at
the top, I don't want it going vertically
| | 02:39 | but rather horizontally across the top,
and just like other toolbars you will
| | 02:43 | notice a little drop down here, so when
I close my Customize dialog box, I have
| | 02:47 | got access to it right from there,
to add or remove buttons, and there is
| | 02:51 | Customize, another way to get
to the Customize dialog box. I
| | 02:56 | If I want others turned on at any time,
you know how to do that. And if I don't
| | 03:02 | want mine to be visible, I can hide it
or if I really don't need this toolbar
| | 03:06 | at all, I can select it and choose Delete.
| | 03:10 | I'll have to confirm that by clicking
OK. I am going to be deleting Dave's
| | 03:14 | Faves. It's gone. I will click
Close and I am back where I started.
| | 03:19 | So if you do find your user interface
is a little bit cluttered and you have
| | 03:23 | got too many toolbars, or too many
buttons, one option, of course, is to
| | 03:27 | manipulate those toolbars, or if you
prefer create your own with just the
| | 03:31 | commands you like to use and of
course, you can always access those other
| | 03:35 | commands that you don't use
very often from the menus.
| | Collapse this transcript |
| Customizing menus| 00:00 | If you have decided to customize your
work environment to suit your needs by
| | 00:05 | changing up some of toolbars maybe
adding or removing buttons, creating your
| | 00:08 | own toolbars, changing menu commands,
there are some additional options that
| | 00:13 | will allow you to personalize those
choices. We are going to explore those now
| | 00:17 | in this lesson. You can see here I am
in Design view using a sample form. Any
| | 00:22 | form will do if you are following along
with me. From here though, we are going
| | 00:25 | directly to Tools and down to Customize.
| | 00:29 | So once you have got your toolbars and
commands set up the way you want, you
| | 00:32 | might want to go to the Options tab
here and check out some of these options.
| | 00:36 | Personalized menus and toolbars, for
example, will allow you to show Standard
| | 00:40 | and Formatting toolbars
on two rows if necessary.
| | 00:44 | If you've got so many commands that
they don't fit on a single row, you can
| | 00:49 | choose to have two rows. That's for
the Standard and the Formatting toolbars.
| | 00:53 | Now in my case, I have got buttons
that all fit on a single row, so if I
| | 00:58 | deselect this, I don't see any
difference. I can reselect it to keep that
| | 01:02 | turned on.
| | 01:03 | I do like the ability though, if I am
going to start adding lots of buttons to
| | 01:06 | my toolbars to have the ability to see
them altogether on two rows, as opposed
| | 01:12 | to get seeing them get cut off and
scroll over. Always show full menus is
| | 01:16 | turned on for me and it may be the
default for you as well. If it's not, you
| | 01:21 | could be getting frustrated by a
little thing that can happen when this is
| | 01:25 | turned off. Let's deselect it.
| | 01:27 | With it turned-off, you probably see
Show full menus, after a short delay, is
| | 01:31 | selected, meaning when you click on a
menu such as the File menu, you won't see
| | 01:37 | all of the commands at first. You can
either expand it yourself or wait for a
| | 01:41 | second to see all of the commands, but
when you do this, InfoPath is keeping
| | 01:46 | track of the commands you use most often.
| | 01:48 | So the next time you go back, the
command you used last time should appear on
| | 01:53 | the menu, whereas the ones you rarely
use will not. That might save you some
| | 01:57 | time but if you are looking for that
special command that's hidden you got to
| | 02:01 | wait for the delay or expand it
yourself; it's totally up to you. Let's close
| | 02:05 | our customize window and test this out.
| | 02:09 | If I go up to File, notice that I am
seeing a shorten menu but if I wait long
| | 02:13 | enough, there is the rest of the
commands. Let's try that again. I am going to
| | 02:18 | click off there, go up to File and see
the double arrows, I can move down there
| | 02:23 | to expand the menu as well.
| | 02:26 | But some people find this very annoying.
I am going to click out here and go up
| | 02:30 | to Tools. Customize does appear because
I have been using it, so I can click on
| | 02:35 | it right from there. It takes me back
to my Options tab where I am going to
| | 02:38 | turn this back on.
| | 02:40 | Now like I said, InfoPath remembers
the commands you use most often, so they
| | 02:44 | should appear on the menus over time.
If at any time you want to reset back to
| | 02:49 | the default usage, you can go to this
button Reset menu in Toolbar Usage Data.
| | 02:54 | You will see a warning. It's going to
delete the record of the commands that
| | 02:56 | you have been using most often in this
application and restore it back to the
| | 03:00 | default.
| | 03:01 | It doesn't undo any explicit
customization you may have set. It's just keeping
| | 03:05 | track of what you use or don't use. So
I am going to click Yes and that resets
| | 03:09 | everything.
| | 03:11 | Other options include the icons on
the Toolbars. Now if you are having
| | 03:15 | difficulty seeing these buttons and
knowing exactly what they are supposed to
| | 03:19 | do, you can change it to the large
icons. When you do that keep in mind it's
| | 03:24 | going to take up a lot of extra space.
So not only are the buttons bigger, but
| | 03:28 | because of that the toolbars are bigger and
that cuts down on your workspace down below.
| | 03:33 | But it may be a lot easier for you
now to see these buttons and select the
| | 03:38 | commands you need. I am going to turn
this off. I don't quite need that yet and
| | 03:42 | go down to the next one, which is
List Font Names in their Font. You will
| | 03:46 | notice over here I have got the Font task
pane open. It doesn't apply to the task pane.
| | 03:51 | If I go to my Font dropdown and click
here, I am not going to see the font in
| | 03:56 | that Font. So if I close this up and
go over here to the dropdown, you will
| | 04:01 | notice all of my fonts here are listed
in the same font, which is a very plain
| | 04:07 | font. However, if I go up to my
Formatting toolbar and click the drop down, you
| | 04:12 | will notice that Verdana does
show up in the Verdana font.
| | 04:16 | If I go up to Times New Roman, it
appears in the Times New Roman font. It takes
| | 04:20 | up a little extra system resources to
do that, but it gives you a nice preview
| | 04:24 | of what you are about to select. So
unless you are really good about knowing
| | 04:28 | exactly what each font looks like
without seeing it, you can turn that off. I'd
| | 04:32 | like to have it turn on.
| | 04:33 | So let's go back to Tools and down to
Customize and you can see I am leaving
| | 04:38 | this one checked off. Show ScreenTips
on the Toolbars, you may have notice as
| | 04:43 | you hover over the buttons on your
toolbars it will give you a little screen
| | 04:46 | tip. You may also see shortcut keys in
those screen tips. I am going to click
| | 04:51 | Close one more time and just
hover over this little broom here.
| | 04:55 | You can see it's the format painter
and it does have a keyboard shortcut,
| | 04:58 | Ctrl+Shift+C. If I go over to Print,
for example, Ctrl+P. Now maybe you
| | 05:05 | wouldn't know what this one is without
hovering over it, it's Print Preview.
| | 05:08 | Again, it takes up a little bit of
your system resources but very useful,
| | 05:12 | especially as you are getting
comfortable with InfoPath. Over time you may not
| | 05:16 | need those, you could go back to Tools,
down to Customize and turn ScreenTips
| | 05:22 | and even shortcut keys off.
| | 05:24 | The last item here is Menu Animations
and system default is selected. So when
| | 05:29 | we click on File, we see a pulldown
menu, but if you want to add some fancy
| | 05:33 | animations you can do that. I have got
Random so it mixes it up for you. You
| | 05:37 | can unfold the menu, slide or fade.
| | 05:40 | I am going to go to Fade, give it a
click and click Close and let's go up to
| | 05:44 | the File menu. Probably you didn't see
it on my screen but you will see it on
| | 05:48 | your own screen. It's a very quick
fade but it just appears from out of
| | 05:53 | nowhere. If I go back to Tools and
down to Customize and try a different one;
| | 05:57 | let's change it from Fade to Slide,
click Close and I am going to go up to the
| | 06:04 | File.
| | 06:05 | Now it just slides straight down from
the top. Again, probably hard for you to
| | 06:09 | see on my screen but try it on your own.
Probably be a bit easier to see. I am
| | 06:13 | going to go back down to Customize
and I am going to go back to the System
| | 06:18 | Default, you can play around with
those until you find one that you like.
| | 06:21 | System Default is okay with me. I will
click Close, just test it out and it
| | 06:25 | just appears quickly right in front of me.
| | 06:27 | All right, so those were some of the
additional options you can use once you
| | 06:32 | have customized your work
environment to personalize your user interface.
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ConclusionGoodbye| 00:00 | Hey! Congratulations, you made it
to the end. You should now be feeling
| | 00:03 | like you have a pretty good handle on
the core features and the possibilities
| | 00:07 | of Microsoft InfoPath 2007. This is
David Rivers saying thanks for watching and
| | 00:12 | I certainly hope to see you again
very soon in another lynda.com title.
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