2 view form-1st view ok to be blank; 2nd view needs to filled in

[MARK_S]

I am working on a shipping request form, where I have one filed that it is
okay to be blank for the user to do the initial submittal, but cannot be
blank when the trade compliance person approves it with a license number (in
a second view). The field is not visible to the initial user in the first
view, only to the trade compliance person in the second view. Right now I
have it set to “cannot be blank†and have defaulting in text (just so it is
not blank and can be submitted). Then under rules in the Submit button, I
want to reset it to be blank (this is post submittal). View 2 now becomes
the default view and I want to have the red asterisk appear and require the
field to be filled in. I thought I could do this be somehow resetting the
field to be BLANK. This may not be the best way, but it is all I can come up
with and would be transparent to the users. Ideas?

 

[S.Y.M. Wong-A-Ton]

What you could do is create a hidden field (see
http://www.bizsupportonline.net/blog/2008/11/how-to-create-a-hidden-field-in-infopath/
) that is not to be displayed to any of the users. This hidden field should
be filled with something when the form is submitted. You can then add a Data
Validation rule (see
http://www.bizsupportonline.net/infopath2007/infopath-basics-3-ways-validate-data-infopath.htm
) on the field that is to become a required field with a condition that
checks whether the hidden field contains the value when the form was
submitted or that it is not blank ('hidden field' is not blank). This will
make a red asterisk appear on the required field.

 

[MARK_S]

That is exactly the way I have it set up. To make it work I needed to change
is the order of actions in the Submit button… but I still have an issue. The
red asterisk will only show up in that field when in the preview mode. Upon
successfully submitting, it is sent to a SharePoint server where I expected
the approver to add info the missing information and approve it. But, the
asterisk no longer shows up (not grasping why though). I suspect you know
exactly what I need to do, it may not be an Infopath issue at all but rather
how the Workflow is set up, I am still getting up to speed on that.

Mark

 

[S.Y.M. Wong-A-Ton]

Other than "forcing" the field to react to validation by using a rule to
first fill it and then empty it again if it was empty, I've got no idea why
it is not working for you. If you do find out, though, let us know.