Distinct Merge

[Jason Sutterfield]

Shameless Disclaimer: I am fairly new to Infopath, so detailed help
would be greatly appreciated.

Quick View at my Data Source:

RESOURCE:
Resource Name (Drop-Down / Repeating Table)
JOB: (Repeating Subtable of Resource)
Job Notes
Job Type
Job Client
Job Project

I have saved the above template into Sharepoint for Project Managers to
fill out. They fill these out with the resources they are going use.
Any certain resource has the ability to work on multiple jobs.
Additionally PM's are able to use the same bucket of resources. Here is
a sample of what the data looks like when I open one of the PM's files:

Project Manager 1
Resource A
Job 1
Job 2

Resource B
Job 3
Job 4


My goal is to use the Merge functionality to merge all of the forms
into one report. However when I try to merge more than one form I get
the following result:

Resource A
Job 1
Job 2

Resource B
Job 3
Job 4

Resource A (from Second PM's form)
Job 5

Resource B (from Second PM's form)
Job 6

What I would like to happen is the select of Resource A then review
both PM 1 and PM 2 jobs for Resource A and display the appropriate
corresponding jobs. Such as:

Resource A
Job 1 (from PM 1)
Job 2 (from PM 1)
Job 5 (from PM 2)

Resource B
Job 3 (from PM 1)
Job 6 (from PM 2)

What is the easiest and best way of accomplishing this? One would think
this would be pretty straight-forward, however I see a "custom merge"
template in my near future. I have not seen any decent how-to's for
dummies on that.

Any and all help would be greatly appreciated!

 

[Scott L. Heim [MSFT]]

Hi Jason,

You are correct - you will need to implement a custom merge to get the data
into the merged form the way you desire. Have you seen this information:

Using the Merge Forms Developer Sample Form
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/ipsdk/html/
inconUsingMFFormSample_HV01083840.asp

However, since you folks have SQL Server I wonder if it would simply be
easier (and possibly better) in the long run to design your table structure
in SQL and then base your InfoPath form directly on SQL Server? In this
manner, you could still "submit" the form to Sharepoint (as well as the
data to SQL Server) but you have greater flexibility now to create, say, a
"reporting view" where you can query the data on PM or Resource or Job or
all three!

I hope all this helps!

Best regards,

Scott L. Heim
Microsoft Developer Support

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.

 

[Scott L. Heim [MSFT]]

Hi Jason,

Here is one other link I neglected to include:

Lab 11: Customizing Merge Forms in InfoPath 2003
http://msdn.microsoft.com/office/understanding/infopath/training/default.asp
x?pull=/library/en-us/odc_ip2003_tr/html/odc_inf_lab11.asp

Best regards,

Scott L. Heim
Microsoft Developer Support

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.