Secondary database choice question

[p_wills]

I am linking to a sharepoint list of 25000 rows (stock indices) in order to
display a dozen of the rows (at the user's choice of date) on the form.

Does Infopath handle Access data faster . Which is the fastest source? It
is a very simple data format - just name, date and value.

 

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

I don't think one will be faster than the other. The trick is to reduce the
amount of items that are loaded and shown in InfoPath. So if you can create a
web service to filter the SharePoint list down to 12 items before it reaches
InfoPath, and then use the web service as the source for your drop-down, the
form should load quicker.

 

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

An addendum: If you're on the InfoPath client and connecting locally to an
Access database, you might have some performance gains compared to connecting
to a SharePoint list, where network latency would play a role.

 

[p_wills]

OK, the web-service idea sounds promising. I'd like to know how to create a
web service in front of sharepoint so as do do the query BEFORE the data
reaches infopath. Please could you point me to where web services are
documented or explained?
Many thanks.

 

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

Either the WSS v3 SDK on MSDN or the SharePoint developer web site
(www.mssharepointdeveloper.com) should have articles to guide you through the
process of creating a web service that runs in your SharePoint environment.
Then within your web service, you can use the SharePoint object model to
access and query the list.

I don't do much SharePoint programming, but people in the SharePoint
Development and Programming forum
(http://forums.microsoft.com/msdn/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=1203&SiteID=1)
should be able to help you further with creating your SharePoint custom web
service and querying of the list. Tip: Don't mention InfoPath when you do ask
a question there, because they'll refer you to the InfoPath Forms Services
forum.

Your first goal is to create a web service that can run within SharePoint to
access and query the data of a SharePoint list. This is independent of
InfoPath.