how to understand where infopath fits in

[TBA]

Hi there- I am currently developing electronic and physical resources that
will help researchers in my University dept. I am trying to see how and if
Infopath fits in. for example- I want a form for students or academics to
fill in that provides basic contact info. Can I make on and then email to it
them, they send it back and an excel database gets automatically or easily
updated?
I guess what I would like to start with is good websites or resources that
show the 'fit' of Infopath into the whole picture-
any/all comments gratefully accepted! cheers Theo

 

[KenJones]

Theo,

Infopath can help solve your problem. You need to be aware that if you plan
for a large number of users to open your form, they either need to have
Infopath installed on their PCs (a single license for each and potentally
infeasible as you do not manage those machines) OR you need to go the
Infopath Form Server route that allows for thin-client browser (read as no
client infopath requirement) based forms execution.

Regardless of how the form is deployed, the form can be used in a
disconnected mode to capture XML data that can then be submitted via e-mail
by the user and subsequency the XML can be harvested and imported into a
database.

We have implemented a similar model for our time and expense capture
application in our company.

Hope this helps.

Cheers,
Ken Jones