Sharepoint form outside the firewall

[rkrause]

Hi,

Quick question. I have a form that is going to be hosted internally on our
sharepoint server - it sits behind a firewall that is only accessible in
house. What i'd like to do is provide our agents with an online form they
could submit data to and then that would set off a series of workflows.

Can the problem of form residing outside the firewall but then being
submitted to a database inside the firewall be accomplished?

I'm not really tech-savvy on the database side, so looking for some expert
opinions on how to best handle this.

Thanks,
Ryan.

 

[darkstar]

Hi,

You have several options. When you say 'online' I assume you mean
browser-based - this would require you to have InfoPath services
enabled for your outside-the-firewall SharePoint site (extra cost for
enterprise CAL required). Browser-enabled InfoPath forms cannot
submit data directly to databases, but this can be done through web
services via ADO.NET.

If all your agents have the standalone InfoPath program, they can
submit forms via e-mail to SharePoint form libraries and trigger
workflows for committing data updates to a database, etc. Of course,
these forms would be limited in the sense that the will not have
access to secondary data sources inside your firewall for populating
dynamic list boxes, drop-downs, etc.