Help creating a series of forms within InfoPath

[Claire Daniell]

InfoPath is pretty new to me, and although I have a big encyclopaedia of a
book about Microsoft Office, it doesn't really help with doing specific
things.

I'm trying to create a kind of proposal form for the company I work for so
that when we visit customers who want new equipment, we can:
a) record it on the computer rather than on paper.
b) have different pages which can be accessed from the main page by buttons,
something similar to macros assigned to buttons in Excel worksheets.

Although I've created several forms for the various options for different
types of equipment customers will require, I have no idea how to link them
all together so that rather than having to open up lots of different single
forms and save them individually, I have one main form which is opened up at
the beginning of a meeting, where the other forms can be opened and the
information that is collected in those forms is saved, and also imported to
the main form.

The problem is I don't have a clue how to connect the forms together so
that information can be submitted from one to another, if this is even
possible?! Also I don't know how to create custom rules for button controls
such as saving and closing one form when another form needs to be opened.

Is there anyone out there who can give me a rough idea of what I need to do?

 

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

Hi,

Have you already looked into using more than 1 view in 1 form, instead of
using multiple forms? You could create several views in one form and use
rules with actions on buttons to switch between the views (show/hide them).

Hope this helps.

Regards,
S.Y.M. Wong-A-Ton

 

[Claire Daniell]

You were right, this is a better, less wasteful way of creating an Infopath
Program!

Please could you tell me what rules I would use so that we can switch views
when filling out the form?

 

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

Hi,

For each button you can create a rule through the button's properties dialog
box: Double-click on the button and then click on "Rules...". Click on
"Add..." in the Rules dialog box. Click on "Add Action..." in the Rule dialog
box. Choose the "Switch views" action in the Action dialog box. Then select
the view that you would like to switch to when the button is clicked in the
"View:" dropdown list. Close all dialog boxes by clicking on "OK" and that
should do it.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
S.Y.M. Wong-A-Ton