Importing data from other forms

[Lisa]

I have a form library that stores Employee appraisals. Now that we are on the
second round of appraisals, we would like to import the goals (a repeating
table) set in the last quarter into the new forms so the managers can
reference them when filling out the new forms. The new forms will reside in
a different form library. I would like to add a data source that finds the
correct employee's previous form using the employee id and import the table
into the new form.
Does anyone have any ideas about how to do this?
We are using Sharpepoint with InfoPath 2007 and our users are running the
web version of the form. They do not have Infopath on their systems.
I appreciate any help. TIA.

 

[Clay Fox]

If the data you want is promoted then you could possibly query the library
from last year and find the data you are looking for by name, etc. This might
have some confidentiality issues if it is not fool proof.

Best practice would be to use a database for storing the information. This
would also give you reporting abilities, etc.

Check out www.qdabra.com.

 

[BobCh]

You have options, in addition to Clay's suggestion for buying their
product.

First, you can query the SharePoint content database tables via a
view, and then write a web service with parameters to provide the rows
of interest back via a data connection. This is a common approach for
our environment. Limitations include a 255 character limit on text
fields, and the inability to report on repeating section details.

To get beyond the limitations mentioned above, and if you have SQL
2005, you can write the appraisals (any form for that matter) to a new
table in SQL 2005 using the XML column to home your form ( Each row
represents a form.). Then you can use SQL 2005's xquery on the new
table to report rows back, again via a web service.
--Helpful links:
-- http://www.15seconds.com/issue/050803.htm

My approaches are more home-grown, but work well for our environment.

 

[Lisa]

Thanks for the suggestions. What we have decided to do is to create a flag
called IsNew and default it to false. Add a button to the form with a
unconditional rule that sets flag to true, then submits the form with a new
name and closes without saving the original form.
When the new form is opened, if isNew is true, it moves the values to
"Previous" values and clears out the data. This way, the appraisals can
contain the old information and allow entry of new information.
Thanks again.