Product Description

InfoPath enables users to design forms and publish them for use by other users. It combines the ease of use of Access forms with the enterprise scalability of a network-based platform. Microsofts goal with InfoPath is to get form design and maintenance out of the IT shop and onto the desktop, while maintaining the power of connecting to web services or a SQL Server. Since InfoPath is wholly XML-based, it is easy to introduce it into a heterogeneous enterprise environment &emdash; via web services InfoPath can act as the interface for any back end system. InfoPath 2007, coupled with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server, adds the ability to deploy InfoPath forms in a web browser with no client side application. SharePoint and Office 2007 have leveraged InfoPath in many other ways &emdash; making InfoPath forms part of the workflow engine embedded in SharePoint, and using InfoPath forms to capture and maintain arbitrary metadata in Office documents.

Pro InfoPath 2007 was written so that developers can read it as an introduction to InfoPath 2007, as well as use it as a reference for common tasks. Targeted at developers, power users should also find a lot of value in this book to learn how to design and use forms in InfoPath.

This book will show form designers how to:

• Use InfoPath to fill in electronic forms
• Design and publish forms
• Connect to data sources to read and publish data
• Design and leverage the power of InfoPath views
• Work with SharePoint form libraries to get the most out of InfoPath form data
• Import existing Word and Excel forms into InfoPath
• Create workflows with SharePoint Designer
• Work with digital signatures

In addition, developers will learn how to:

• Create an InfoPath form template based on a data connection or web service
• Publish InfoPath form templates as content types
• Create custom task panes for InfoPath forms
• Understand SharePoint information management policies
• Write .Net code behind InfoPath forms and browser forms
• Create an add-in to extend the capabilities of InfoPath
• Create a custom workflow for SharePoint, embedding InfoPath forms for gathering information
• Build a .Net web service that InfoPath can connect to
• Use Altovas XMLSpy to work with InfoPath form templates

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7650 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-21
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 278 pages

About the Author

Philo Janus is a senior technology specialist with Microsoft. Over the years he has presented InfoPath to thousands of users and developers, and assisted with enterprise implementations of InfoPath solutions. With that background, he is particularly sensitive to the difficulties users and developers have had with InfoPath.

He graduated from the US Naval Academy with a BSEE in 1989 to face a challenging career in the US Navy. After driving an aircraft carrier around the Pacific Ocean and a guided missile frigate through both the Suez and Panama Canals, and serving in the US Embassy in Cairo, a small altercation between his bicycle and an auto indicated a change of career (some would say that landing on his head in that accident would explain many things).

Philo's software development career started with building a training and budgeting application in Access 2.0 in 1995. Since then he's worked with Oracle, Visual Basic, SQL Server, and .NET building applications for federal agencies, commercial firms, and conglomerates. In 2003 he joined Microsoft as a technology specialist evangelizing Office as a development platform.

Customer Reviews

Whoa!
I wanted to learn InfoPath, I am having to learn alot about computer languages and formats. I thought this would help, yeah, no so much.

"Pro InfoPath 2007" useful for technical and business people alike
There are all too many technical books that are heavy on theory and light on "how to", or start out in an introductory fashion and then suddenly venture into highly technical territory without including the necessary background information needed to understand the content.

In "Pro InfoPath 2007", Philo Janus neatly avoids these pitfalls. Since he's writing about a product with whom most readers may not be familiar, he first answers the vital question, "What IS InfoPath?" with a comprehensive introduction to the product. Then Janus carefully outlines the capabilities of InfoPath and walks the reader through the steps necessary to create InfoPath forms in all kinds of environments; how to meet business needs in a myriad of situations; and most importantly, includes possible issues and limitations that one might encounter when using InfoPath and provides the necessary workarounds.

My own company has InfoPath installed but despite an enterprise-wide need for exactly what InfoPath does, is resistant to its use because of a fundamental lack of understanding of the software and how to best deploy it. A read of this book would convince them that they have a good product sitting on the shelf that would meet their needs and interface neatly with Sharepoint and other applications already in use.

Thumbs up to Philo Janus for a job well done.

Again a lot of sales hype
Microsoft writes a lot of sales hype about how terrific a product is but rarely explains what a product can and cant do. After days of asking I have yet to find out what Infopath exactly does and what it is capable of. We have documents in our office. It would be a blessing if people could go to our website fill out a form and then email the data to us so that we could then merge that data into a word document. Simply recieve an email in outlook after a client has input data on our website and then merge the data into word.

It looks as if Infopath might do that function but most people have never even heard of the product although it has existed since 2003.

After days on the internet I have yet to discover if this product can do that or exactly what product could do that. Infopath is not a popular product because of just that reason it is a mystery full of mis-information. Why is it we have to buy a book or buy a product to determine whether or not we need it??? I wish that the author (and Micro soft) would explain exactly what Infopath does and what we would be taught. I wont buy the product or read the book if you cant determine what I am about to learn, what it offers or why I need it.