InfoPath and Web Service data connection

re: InfoPath and Web Service data connection

Rodrigo — Sun, 11 Mar 2007 23:51:13 GMT

Thanks a lot for this post. Quite useful. I'm attending bootcamp MOSS2007 in short. Got an example for sending a form (xml) right from InfoPath to a web service?

re: InfoPath and Web Service data connection

jannemattila — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 05:43:09 GMT

Hi Rodrigo!

Well you can create the mapping exactly the otherway round as well. So just create method like this:

[WebMethod]

public void SetEmployee(Employee employee)

{

// TODO: handle incoming employee

}

And then set field values from InfoPath and then submit it to the web service.

Or if you really want to send xml form as a string you can do that too. Just add Submit data datasource with parameter "Entire form" and "Submit data as string". With those settings you should be fine. And of course to your web service something like this:

[WebMethod]

public void SetEmployeeAsString(String employee)

{

// TODO: handle incoming employee

}

I hope that this answered your question.

Anyways... happy hacking!

re: InfoPath and Web Service data connection

John — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 22:51:38 GMT

Thank you so much. This was so helpful

re: InfoPath and Web Service data connection

jannemattila — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 20:48:45 GMT

Hi John!

I'm glad you like... I hope I can create some posts in the future that will be helpful as well.

Anyways... happy hacking!

re: InfoPath and Web Service data connection

floppylo — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 18:15:38 GMT

Hi Janne,

I want to create a web service to insert infopath data into a SQL db. Is there any VB example rather than C you can point me to?

Thanks in advance!

re: InfoPath and Web Service data connection

jannemattila — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 18:25:03 GMT

Hi floppylo!

I don't have VB example since I'm not so good at it :-) But I think that there are some websites that actually transform code from C# to VB. Just search for it "convert c# to VB".. I found this one but I haven't tested it: http://www.developerfusion.co.uk/utilities/convertcsharptovb.aspx

Anyways... happy hacking!

re: InfoPath and Web Service data connection

floppylo — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 20:09:41 GMT

Thanks for the link. I will def try it :)

re: InfoPath and Web Service data connection

Alexandra — Wed, 04 Jul 2007 17:09:49 GMT

Thanks a lot!! It really works, solved me a big problem! :)

re: InfoPath and Web Service data connection

Nuntius — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 21:01:00 GMT

Okay, first of all thanks, this is the best explanation I have found of how to do this.

Second, I am just wondering if InfoPath is supposed to be user friendly enough for the average office user, why the heck isn't a web service creation tool not built into InfoPath?

Also, why can't I just connect directly to the db? I get pretty frustrated with it since I can write a simple form pretty quickly in php or asp/AJAX without having to go through all the hassle. So can someone explain, "Why the complexity?"

I built a nice form in InfoPath and then tried to submit it and it gave me all of these compatibility issues with Sharepoint. I am trying to give it a chance but so far it just sucks!

re: InfoPath and Web Service data connection

anne — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 06:11:05 GMT

can we connect from infopath to SQL?

thnx!

re: InfoPath and Web Service data connection

Thu, 13 Sep 2007 22:28:34 GMT

Great Blog Post. I am in the process of needing to do some SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS) and the current forms post to SharePoint. Trying to read that data using WebServices from SharePoint is a nightmare. I am going to attempt to post the InfoPath using WebSevices to a SQL Backend so the reporting will be really easy to develop.

If you have any suggestions please contact me.

http://www.mmwebs.com/cgi-bin/contact.asp

re: InfoPath and Web Service data connection

jannemattila — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 11:21:09 GMT

Hi moojjoo!

Did you mean that you tried to use SharePoint web services (can't remember but was it List.asmx) to get your data? I'm justing thinking out loud, but if you think that's too difficult (or something) you can always create proxy web service to actually handle all the internal data gathering logic from SharePoint.. if you wish. That would be easy to do.

Anyways... Happy hacking!

re: InfoPath and Web Service data connection

Robert Dannelly — Tue, 25 Sep 2007 19:18:13 GMT

Can you provide more details on the proxy Web service? First time I have heard of that.

Adding own custom web service to SharePoint

Janne Mattila's blog — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 22:10:35 GMT

I posted awhile back about InfoPath and Web Service data connection and I got question about using own

re: InfoPath and Web Service data connection

jannemattila — Wed, 26 Sep 2007 22:13:37 GMT

Hi Robert!

Since I couldn't give you simple answer I created a small post about my idea:

http://blogs.msdn.com/jannemattila/archive/2007/09/26/adding-own-custom-web-service-to-sharepoint.aspx

I hope it gives you starting point to continue.

Anyways... Happy hacking!

From InfoPath to Database via Web Service

Janne Mattila's blog — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 15:09:18 GMT

I have been asked to build this kind of example sooooo many times that now I really need to write this

re: InfoPath and Web Service data connection

Chaman — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 15:39:47 GMT

Hi, I am trying to submit the form to a webservice from InfoPath2007 form. In Webservice I am accepting data as an object. I am facing an issue like the all data are comming as null. But when I tried to did it with InfoPath2003 I worked.

I am wondering if there is any serialization issue or is there any other problem.

Can anyone please help me out with this.

re: InfoPath and Web Service data connection

jannemattila — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 15:45:52 GMT

Hi Chaman!

Checkout my new post:

http://blogs.msdn.com/jannemattila/archive/2007/10/25/from-infopath-to-database-via-web-service.aspx

I think that will answer your question... I certainly hope so because that was the reason why I wrote it :-)

re: InfoPath and Web Service data connection

Fcode — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 03:15:08 GMT

Hi Mattila,

Thanks for nice blog. Its really helpfult but you forgot to mention about the Trust level of the form. So

The above example will not work until and unless you go to Tools-> Form Options-> Security and Trust and select Full Trust or Domain Trust level.

Thanks

FCode

re: InfoPath and Web Service data connection

Arun Arya — Thu, 20 Dec 2007 07:37:30 GMT

Excellent! Just what I needed. More tutorial like this please. Thank you very much

re: InfoPath and Web Service data connection

Nilesh B — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 13:29:41 GMT

will you explain hos to get data from database, insteaed of Hard coded value.

re: InfoPath and Web Service data connection

JOSETELLAN — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 16:07:41 GMT

Hi Mattila, this post is brilliant to understand how to connect sharepoint, webservices and infopath. great great job!!!

But i´ve a question for you. doing all steps you describe i have a successfully retrieve data from my web service by pressing previus view button but when i publish my form template in a sharepoint site, infopath says there is a problem connecting to data source and in the same dialog box also says somo rules could´t be applied.

i don´t understand why the process run ok with previus view and not with sharepoint?

any sugestions please?

many thanks for doing the post. congrats.

re: InfoPath and Web Service data connection

Wed, 23 Apr 2008 21:19:31 GMT

Hi,

I am new to Infopath and web services... but I tried following ur steps and got lost around the point of getting WSDL url...

Can you explain how to reach that point?

Thanks

re: InfoPath and Web Service data connection

Ryan — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 03:51:26 GMT

Not sure if you're still responding to posts on this, but... I tried to follow this and another tutorial on writing a web service to receive an InfoPath submission. It seems to work, but when the form is submitted, all the fields within the web service are null. No data comes across. If I submit the entire XML document as a string and set up the web service to receive a string, I can see that the data is included in the submission. But it doesn't come across when I have an object (the class from Visual Studio's xsd.exe). I think this may be the same issue Chaman had (and I reviewed your newer post to see if that fixed it. Do you know why the fields would all be null? I tried: adding the web service location to my trusted sites; modifying IE settings to allow cross-domain data; and publishing the form with Full trust.

Thanks!

re: InfoPath and Web Service data connection

AmberCF — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 02:55:23 GMT

This was such a great example! I'm mostly a VB programmer and I've never written a Web service until today. You made it so easy, not to mention the integration with InfoPath.

Thanks!

re: InfoPath and Web Service data connection

Tito — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 13:23:10 GMT

Thanks to the information, its very useful your tutorial, but I've a problem with my SharePoint enviroment, and I think If you could help me. I have a webService in other machine that I have SharePoint, and when I publish my infopath form the data conection between infopath and the other webservice machine it is imposible, the error is "Unknown Server". And If I try to conect with this webservice, in the same server with asp.net application, without sharepoint It will connect succesfully. What Should I change in my sharepoint to conect my Infopath to a external webservice?, thanks a lot.

re: InfoPath and Web Service data connection

JamesLiang — Thu, 14 May 2009 20:32:57 GMT

although today is 2009, but your article still useful.

thanks a lot.

re: InfoPath and Web Service data connection

Sarayu — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 12:19:23 GMT

Amazing!!! Thank you very very very very very veryyyyyy much . I am quite new to webservices and was reading the tutorial. I am required to do the same job, u demonstrated above. Love u.