InfoPath for Personal Use

[AJ]

Hi,

I'm looking to develop a repository of my extended family's jewelry
collection, and am wondering if InfoPath is my best option (and, if not, what
my alternatives are).

Here's what I'm thinking about doing: I'd like to develop a standard form
for obtaining information about each piece, get my family to fill them out
and publish online, and then develop some sort of browsing/search
capabilities based upon the data provided.

Is this an appropriate project for InfoPath? What's the best way to publish
online, given that this is a small project for personal use? Any input or
assistance you could provide would be greatly appreciated! Thanks.

 

[Alan Cossey]

Hello AJ,
I'm fairly new to Infopath, so I may be speaking out of turn. However,
Infopath would seem a very expensive way of doing this since your family
would need to have Infopath on all their computers. Even then you would need
a proper database to hold the information when you get it back.
Personally, I would use Access 2007 for this. With Access 2007 on your PC,
you can design the database (which Infopath can't do anyway) and use its new
e-mail data collection facility to send create an HTML format e-mail for your
family to fill in. The e-mails thus created do not look as good as Infopath
forms by any means, but this seems to me to be a much more practical method
for you. There are some details on how it works on the Access Team blog at
http://blogs.msdn.com/access/archive/2006/06/30/data-collection-through-email.aspx.

 

[Kalyan G Reddy MVP (GGK Tech)]

Hello

You can use the Infopath 2007 with forms services where everyone need not
have to have Infopath installed on their machines. They can open the form in
IE and fill it.

 

[Alan Cossey]

Kaylan,
You need Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server for this though don't you, which
costs more than a couple shekels.

 

[Kalyan G Reddy MVP (GGK Tech)]

You can use Forms Server together with WSS 3.0; there is no need to
purchase the full-blown MOSS Enterprise just to be able to have browser
forms. you need WSS 3.0 + Forms Server Also see
http://enterprise-solutions.swits.net/infopath2007/infopath-2007-frequently-asked-questions-faq.htm