Multiple value control

Thanks to Ranjit Batra who chalenged me to create a control similar to what is exist in Lotus Notes.

This control emulates multiple choice control that is not available in InfoPath. Enjoy!

How to promote InfoPath field to the SharePoint link type field

Special thanks: Karl D. Swartzendruber: cruelest boss of all

From time to time I’m getting into situations where InfoPath and/or SharePoint limitations don’t allow me to implement what I’ve been tasked to do. Like in that case when my cruel bosses were mercilessly cracking whip on me disregarding my whining about damn limitations preventing me to promote InfoPath field to the SharePoint link type field. As I was told, “Without beautiful icon (link type field can be represented as an icon, neat eh?) my users might fail to distinguish one type of announcement from another”.

That means it’s a hack time!

1. In InfoPath create richtext type field “MyIcon”. The value of the “MyIcon” field should look like:

http://yourlink , Description
Note these spaces from both sides of the comma.

2. Promote it to the new library column of the same name.

3. Delete the column you’ve just created.

4. Create link type column with “MyIcon” name.

Accessing rows in repeating group for browser enabled forms

There are not so many differences in versions of XPath between regular forms and web enabled ones. But inability to reference rows in web enabled forms by the index is one of the most annoying. Here are several XPath formulas useful when interacting with repeating tables:

1. The current row index expression:
count(preceding-sibling::*[local-name() = "MyRepeatingGroup"])
As you can see that formula successfully substitutes the position() function not available in web forms.

2. Accesing value of the previous row:
preceding-sibling::my:MyRepeatingGroup[count(preceding-sibling::my:MyRepeatingGroup) = count(current()/preceding-sibling::my:MyRepeatingGroup) - 1]/my:FieldToAccess

3. Implementation of the last() function:
my:MyRepeatingGroup[count(following-sibling::*[local-name() = "MyRepeatingGroup"]) = 0]/my:FieldToAccess

4. Count all rows that have duplicates:
count(my:MyRepeatingGroup[following-sibling::*/my:FieldToAccess = my:FieldToAccess])

Form to try.

5. The other technique demonstrates idea of how to wright into repeating group by providing index of the row and a value:
Form to try.

Happy codeless programming!

Work (business) days calculations with C#

If you think it’s a decent solution vote for it! :)

Work days between 2 dates:

public static double GetBusinessDays(DateTime startD, DateTime endD)

{

double calcBusinessDays =

1 + ((endD-startD).TotalDays * 5 -

(startD.DayOfWeek-endD.DayOfWeek) * 2) / 7;

if ((int)endD.DayOfWeek == 6) calcBusinessDays --;

if ((int)startD.DayOfWeek == 0) calcBusinessDays --;

return calcBusinessDays;

}

Add work days to a start date:

DateTime startD = new DateTime(2000, 5, 28);

double businessDays = 2300;

int DoW = (int)startD.DayOfWeek;

double temp = businessDays + DoW + 1;

if (DoW != 0) temp --;

DateTime calcendD = startD.AddDays(

Math.Floor(temp / 5)*2-DoW + temp

- 2* Convert.ToInt32(temp % 5 == 0)) ;

How to remove initial row in repeating tables (or delete all rows) with rules only

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Special thanks: Karl D. Swartzendruber

First of all you have to place your repeating group into the non repeating one. So your field structure should be looking like that:

Field structure

Then as you can see the simple rule f=cleaningGroup will delete all rows. Now we are getting to the point why it never been implemented before. As soon as you will try to assign any value to a group InfoPath will yell at you with the message: “You must select a field. Groups do not have values and therefore cannot be assigned to by this action.” Let’s prove that at least “cannot be assigned” part of that statement is false.

It’s time for some rule breaking.

Now we will screw up the group (“f” in our case) by giving it a temporary name. Create a field at the same level as your group formerly named “f”. Name that field … guess what? Right, with the name “f”. Now InfoPath UI won’t be objecting when you’ll try to create button rule f=cleaningGroup. Delete field “f”. Rename your group back to its original name: “f”.
The Form to test. Web browser forms OK.

Deleting single row from the repeating field.

Here is form that is doing exactly this. The way it was created (renaiming hack) is similar to the previous form. There are several limitations assosioated with this approach. First is it supports single repeating field not repeating group. Another “feature” you have to consider before you decide to use this form is unchecking checkbox at single row will delete all rows with the same value (might be useful in certain scenarios). Also because of Multiple selection check box this form can be made browser enabled in SP2010 only.

A mutually exclusive check box (radio button) in a repeating table/section

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Clean XPath only solution. Browser forms OK.
The FORM to try.

Create following field/group structure:

Assign 0 as initial value to rStarter field. Assign following XPath expression as inital value to the ChBx field:

(xdMath:Max(../../my:CheckG/my:rStarter) = ../my:rStarter) and (../my:rStarter != 0)

Create rule at ChBx field.
This rule has 2 actions:

• Assign rStarter to 2 * (. != “false”)
• Assign rStarter to 1 * (. != “false”)

Place control you like (check box or radio button) on the layout. For check box default “Value when cleared” to false and “Value when checked” to true. For radio button limit amount of choices to 1 and set “Value when selected” to true.

Form with more complex behaivior (excludes rows of the same category only, also not tested in SP2010)

Thats it. Happy codeless programming!

P.S. Actually that form looks as potentially a good example to demonstrate field updating concepts like “push” and “pull” and how they are interrelate with each other. In particulary it would be interesting to explain why the sequence of operators like i=2; i=1; which have no sense in any language can be useful thing in Infopath. (Kind of a statement, eh? But that’s fine, hopefully people familiar with volatile variables concept and multithreading are not reading posts about InfoPath :) )

How to check if your InfoPath form is “dirty”? (Tracking changes)

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1) Create field called InitialState
2) At open event assign InitialState field to the following Xpath expression:

.. Yes, it’s two dots :)

3) At the submit rule compare InitialState field with the following expression assuming it’s a rule condition at a button:
starts-with(., my:InitialState)
Make sure the InitialState field is a very last node in the myFields group fields list.
I also believe some people might find interesting the way I used conditional expression to parameterize output message.

Here is form to test

Form with more advanced XPath (InitialState can be at any position)

Infopath codeless programming (walkthrough) 3

Other parts: 1, 2.
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I hope this will be the last publication about codeless programming in InfoPath. In the first two parts I demonstrated few examples where we can see implementations of ‘while’ and ‘if’ like operators. The only area remained uncovered is block of code reusable by multiple controls (analog of procedure/function). Hopefully that approach will be able to address quite frequent complains about absence of ability to copy set of actions/rules across similar controls in InfoPath UI. The essential element of that approach is hidden field with shared set of actions/rules. Form to download

Happy codeless programming!

Most underused/unknown SharePoint feature

You can tag any element on your portal with the comment. The comment becomes visible for everybody who are at the same page and have Discussion tollbar open. It works as instant messaging too.

When you are at any page of your portal go to the IE explorer menu bar Vew->Explorer Bars->Discuss.

Use the button “Insert Discussion in the Document”. The server will highligt all places on the page you could tag with a comment.

Type in your comment.

That feature is available because Office Server Extentions are part of Sharepoint installation.

Link about Office Server Extentions and thier relation to SharePoint.

Multiple merge views in InfoPath form library

There is no out of the box way how to create custom view which supports merge functionality. But such minor obstacles shouldn’t stop you from creating as many merge views in your library as you want.

1) Click “Create new view” link in your form library
2) Navigate to the “Start from an existing view” section (and we going to do so not to just one more time to ensure that merge view are not presented among proposed choices)
3) Right click on any of the choices and copy shortcut to clipboard
4) Open NotePad (or any other editor) and paste
5) Open existing merge view and click “Modify this view” link
6) Copy part of the hyperlink in your browser which is in between ‘View=%7B’ and ‘%7D&Source’
7) In NotePad replace part from ‘View=’ to the end with information from your clipboard
8) Copy resulting link into addres bar of the new browser window and press “go to” button.
9) Enjoy your new and shiny merge supporting view :)