Sean Wallbridge
In case this serves you in the future…
A customer asked the following today…
Sean,
I am looking to create a new hire IT form on our Moss SharePoint site. Currently, we have a library on our SharePoint 2003 site for the US. We are trying to push out our new hire computer setup process globally.
I am looking to make the current process easy for the hiring manager where the new hire name and start date is mandatory then all other information is shown/asked based on what their answers are to certain questions. Is it best to create this in Infopath?
To which I replied…
Based on your requirements:
- Mandatory fields (SharePoint List, InfoPath, etc. all will be fine)
- Present form fields, based on criteria (InfoPath only really)
I would agree that you want to look at Infopath. Note that InfoPath forms can be:
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Client Based
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Pro’s:
- Fully functional/flexible – can handle all of your needs for presentation
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Con’s:
- Anyone that fills it out needs to have InfoPath installed
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Web Based
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Pro’s:
- No software dependency
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Con’s:
- Some functionality that works in the client, doesn’t work in the web form
- Requires Enterprise edition of SharePoint, which includes InfoPath forms services
- Some tweaking will be required
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If you can live without having the form present certain sections, I would just create a custom SharePoint list as you can certainly handle mandatory/required fields in there and it is the most ‘lightweight’ in that it is browser based and doesn’t require all of the InfoPath management. Perhaps a couple of different ‘content types’ for a custom list and people simply choose a form based on their criteria