Forcing a Form to open in the Browser

[Ben Mc]

Hi all,

I am having a problem with forcing a Form to open in the Browser
irrespective if the user has the InfoPath client available.

I know what i am going to say next is a "classic", but...
It works as expected on my machine but not on other users, in that:

a) When i click "New" in the form library, it opens form in browser.
b) When i open form via a link embedded in email (via Sharepoint Designer
Workflow), it opens in Browser
c) When others click link in email, it opens in their Infopath Client
(WinForms), then prompting them with "Open | Save | Cancel" dialog.

Any ideas? (I have done the obvious re configuration)

Configuration
=============

I have enabled the settings in:

- Central Adminstration (User Browser-enabled Form Templates >
[x] Allow users to browser-enable form templates
[x] Render form templates that are browser-enabled by users

- SharePoint Form Library: {List Name} > Settings > Advanced Settings
(o) Opening browser-enabled documents Display as a Web page

- InfoPath form Design > Form Options > Compatibility >
[x] Design a form that can be opened in a Browser or Infopath (Client)


Thanks in advance!
Ben

 

[Kalyan G Reddy MVP (GGK Tech)]

Did you check the version of the Infopath Client that other users have on
their machine?

 

[Ben Mc]

Hi Kalyan,

Sorry didnt mention in the original post:
All using Office 2007 + SharePoint 2007 (WSS 3.0)

Did you check the version of the Infopath Client that other users have on
their machine?
--
Kalyan G Reddy
INFOPATH MVP 2007 and 2008
http://www.ggktech.com

Hi all,

I am having a problem with forcing a Form to open in the Browser
irrespective if the user has the InfoPath client available.

I know what i am going to say next is a "classic", but...
It works as expected on my machine but not on other users, in that:

a) When i click "New" in the form library, it opens form in browser.
b) When i open form via a link embedded in email (via Sharepoint Designer
Workflow), it opens in Browser
c) When others click link in email, it opens in their Infopath Client
(WinForms), then prompting them with "Open | Save | Cancel" dialog.

Any ideas? (I have done the obvious re configuration)

Configuration
=============

I have enabled the settings in:

- Central Adminstration (User Browser-enabled Form Templates >
[x] Allow users to browser-enable form templates
[x] Render form templates that are browser-enabled by users

- SharePoint Form Library: {List Name} > Settings > Advanced Settings
(o) Opening browser-enabled documents Display as a Web page

- InfoPath form Design > Form Options > Compatibility >
[x] Design a form that can be opened in a Browser or Infopath (Client)


Thanks in advance!
Ben

 

[Don Reamey \(MSFT\)]

There is a difference in how a form is opened depending upon where you click
the link from.

1. Document library - If you click the new button or click a link in a
document library the form will respect the settings of the document library.
Meaning if you have gone into lib. settings\advanced and selected open as
web page. Doing this will cause the form to open in the browser. If the
setting is set to open in client application the form will open in InfoPath.

2. Link in embedded in another application (Word, Excel, Outlook). Since
these applications do not have the knowledge that a document library has the
link will be sent to InfoPath forms server as is. Meaning the link may look
like this: http://server/doclib/forms/template.xsn?openin=browser.

Query Parameters - If a link does not have query parameters on it, such as
openin=browser. InfoPath server will do several things to determine where to
open the form.

InfoPath Server will look for the following things.
-The user agent sent by the browser and see if "InfoPath" is sent as part of
the user agent.
-The type of browser sending the expression.
-If there is business logic

Based on all of these things plus some others the server will send a
response back that will be interperted by the client to open either in the
browser or the server.

Can you copy the link and send it to the group? Then we can take a look and
see what the problem is.

--
Don Reamey
Software Development Engineer
InfoPath Forms Server
Microsoft Corporation
http://blogs.officezealot.com/dreamey

Hi all,

I am having a problem with forcing a Form to open in the Browser
irrespective if the user has the InfoPath client available.

I know what i am going to say next is a "classic", but...
It works as expected on my machine but not on other users, in that:

a) When i click "New" in the form library, it opens form in browser.
b) When i open form via a link embedded in email (via Sharepoint Designer
Workflow), it opens in Browser
c) When others click link in email, it opens in their Infopath Client
(WinForms), then prompting them with "Open | Save | Cancel" dialog.

Any ideas? (I have done the obvious re configuration)

Configuration
=============

I have enabled the settings in:

- Central Adminstration (User Browser-enabled Form Templates >
[x] Allow users to browser-enable form templates
[x] Render form templates that are browser-enabled by users

- SharePoint Form Library: {List Name} > Settings > Advanced Settings
(o) Opening browser-enabled documents Display as a Web page

- InfoPath form Design > Form Options > Compatibility >
[x] Design a form that can be opened in a Browser or Infopath (Client)


Thanks in advance!
Ben

 

[Ben Mc]

Hi Don,

Thankyou for the comprehensive reply!

Here is notes re Link...

Code within SharePoint Designers Workflow "Define E-mail Message" dialog:

You can review the form <a href="[%ListName:Encoded Absolute URL%]">here.</a>

In Outlook 2007, hyperlink resolves to:

http://{server}/Forms/Absence Forms/Absence - 2008-07-14T16_35_32.xml


I have even tried explicitly prepending the FormServer.aspx to the href, ala

You can review the form <a href="http://{server}/Forms/_layouts/FormServer.aspx?XmlLocation=[%ListName:Encoded Absolute URL%]">here.</a>

This also failed.


I just had an idea that this could be related to security (as so often is
the case)...
I will check this out sometime today and report back the results

Cheers,
Ben

There is a difference in how a form is opened depending upon where you click
the link from.

1. Document library - If you click the new button or click a link in a
document library the form will respect the settings of the document library.
Meaning if you have gone into lib. settings\advanced and selected open as
web page. Doing this will cause the form to open in the browser. If the
setting is set to open in client application the form will open in InfoPath.

2. Link in embedded in another application (Word, Excel, Outlook). Since
these applications do not have the knowledge that a document library has the
link will be sent to InfoPath forms server as is. Meaning the link may look
like this: http://server/doclib/forms/template.xsn?openin=browser.

Query Parameters - If a link does not have query parameters on it, such as
openin=browser. InfoPath server will do several things to determine where to
open the form.

InfoPath Server will look for the following things.
-The user agent sent by the browser and see if "InfoPath" is sent as part of
the user agent.
-The type of browser sending the expression.
-If there is business logic

Based on all of these things plus some others the server will send a
response back that will be interperted by the client to open either in the
browser or the server.

Can you copy the link and send it to the group? Then we can take a look and
see what the problem is.

--
Don Reamey
Software Development Engineer
InfoPath Forms Server
Microsoft Corporation
http://blogs.officezealot.com/dreamey

Hi all,

I am having a problem with forcing a Form to open in the Browser
irrespective if the user has the InfoPath client available.

I know what i am going to say next is a "classic", but...
It works as expected on my machine but not on other users, in that:

a) When i click "New" in the form library, it opens form in browser.
b) When i open form via a link embedded in email (via Sharepoint Designer
Workflow), it opens in Browser
c) When others click link in email, it opens in their Infopath Client
(WinForms), then prompting them with "Open | Save | Cancel" dialog.

Any ideas? (I have done the obvious re configuration)

Configuration
=============

I have enabled the settings in:

- Central Adminstration (User Browser-enabled Form Templates >
[x] Allow users to browser-enable form templates
[x] Render form templates that are browser-enabled by users

- SharePoint Form Library: {List Name} > Settings > Advanced Settings
(o) Opening browser-enabled documents Display as a Web page

- InfoPath form Design > Form Options > Compatibility >
[x] Design a form that can be opened in a Browser or Infopath (Client)


Thanks in advance!
Ben