[msdn]Submitting Data from InfoPath 2007 to a SharePoint List

<Batch OnError="Continue">    <Method ID="1" Cmd="New">        <Field Name='Title'></Field>        <Field Name="FirstName"></Field>        <Field Name="LastName"></Field>        <Field Name="Phone"></Field>        <Field Name="Email"></Field>        <Field Name="Delete">false</Field>        <Field Name="Changed">false</Field>        <Field Name="ID"></Field>    </Method></Batch>

Save this file as Add List Item Template.xml

The next section shows you how to add the CAML XML file to the form template as a secondary data connection.

Creating the Form Template and Adding Data Connections to the List

In this step, you create the form template and add data connections to the Add List Item Template.xml file and the MyContacts list.

To create the InfoPath form template and add data connections to the list

Start Office InfoPath 2007.
In the Getting Started dialog box, click Design a Form Template.

(If the Getting Started dialog box is not visible, click Design a Form Template on the File menu.)
In the Based on list, click Blank, clear the Enable browser-compatible features only check box, and then click OK.
On the Tools menu, click Data Connections, and then click Add.
In the Data Connection Wizard dialog box, click Create a new connection to, click Receive data, and then click Next.
Click XML document, and then click Next.
Click Browse, locate and select the Add List Item Template.xml file that you created in the "To create the CAML XML fragment" procedure, and then click Next.
Click the Include the data as a resource file in the form template or template part, and then click Next.
Ensure that the Automatically retrieve data when the form is opened check box is selected, and then click Finish.
In the Data Connections dialog box, click Add.
Click Create a new connection to, click Receive data, and then click Next.
Click SharePoint library or list, and then click Next.
Type the URL to the MyContacts list that you created in the "To create the SharePoint list" procedure, and then click Next.
In the Select a list or library list, select MyContacts, and then click Next.
Select the Title and ID fields along with the six custom fields that you created (FirstName, LastName, Phone, Email, Changed, and Delete), and then click Next twice.
Make sure that the Automatically retrieve data when the form is opened check box is selected, and then click Finish.
Click Close to close the Data Connections dialog box.

Identifying the List GUID

Each SharePoint list is identified by a GUID. To submit items to a SharePoint list, you must know the GUID for that list. These next steps show you how to identify the GUID for your MyContacts list.

To identify the list GUID

Open a browser and navigate to the MyContacts list.
On the Settings menu, click List Settings.
In the browser’s address bar, you will see the URL appended with List=

Copy everything after the equal sign and paste this into a text editor because you will need this value later.

Important:
The list GUID must be formatted as: `{xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}`. If the list GUID has the hyphens and braces escaped (with `%7B` for the opening brace, `%2D` for the hyphens, and `%7D` for the closing brace), you must replace the escaped characters with actual braces and hyphens. When you use this GUID later, it must appear as follows: `{1E76517B-2C36-4473-A420-A737D98589BC}`

Adding Controls to Display the Current Items in the List

In this step, you add a Repeating Table control to display the current items in the MyContacts list.

To add controls to display items in the list

Open the Data Source task pane.
In the Data Source drop-down list, click the MyContacts (Secondary) connection.
Expand the dataFields folder, right-click the MyContacts folder, and then click Repeating Table.

This adds a Repeating Table control bound to the fields from that connection to your view.

You do not need the ID and Changed fields bound to the repeating table, so the next step describes how to delete them.
In the Repeating Table control, right-click the ID column, point to Delete, and then click Columns. Repeat this step to delete the Changed column.
At run time, a user can select the Check Box control bound to the Delete field to indicate whether to delete the item, so change the Delete field's column heading to read Delete?
Select the Delete? column heading, and then click the Center button on the Formatting tool bar.
Delete the label next to the check box bound to the Delete field, select the check box, and then click the Center button on the Formatting tool bar.

Adding Fields and Controls for Submitting New Items to the List

In this step, you add a group and fields to the form's main data source to temporarily contain the new items a user adds to the list. Then you add a Repeating Table control, which is bound to this group, to the form's view. You also add an AddContacts field to the main data source and bind that to a Check Box control that the user selects to add new contact items to the list. Finally, you add a ListName field to the main data source that is used by form code to specify the GUID of the list when a user submits items to the list.

To add fields and controls for submitting new items to the list

In the Data Source drop-down list, click Main.
In the Data Source pane, right-click the myFields folder, and then click Add.
Add a True/False field named AddContacts, set the Default Value to FALSE, and then click OK.
Drag AddContacts from the Data Source and drop it below the repeating table you added to the form in the previous procedure.

This adds a Check Box control that is used at run time to display the repeating table for adding new items.
Change the label of the AddContacts check box to read Add New Contacts?
Right-click the myFields folder, and then click Add.
Add a Group named gpContacts.
Right-click the gpContacts folder, and then click Add.
Add a Group named gpContact, select the Repeating check box, and then click OK.
Right-click the gpContact folder, and then click Add.
Add five Text fields named Title, FirstName, LastName, Email, and Phone.
Right-click the gpContacts folder, and then click Section with Controls.

This adds a Section control that contains a Repeating Table control bound to the gpContact group and the fields it contains.
Right-click the Section control that you added in step 12, and then click Conditional Formatting.
In the Conditional Formatting dialog box, click Add.
Under If this condition is true, set the condition to AddContacts is equal to FALSE.
Under Then apply this formatting, click Hide this control.
Click OK twice.
Right-click the Repeating Table control that you added in step 12, and then click Repeating Table Properties.
On the Data tab, select the Show insert button and hint text check box, type Add New Contact in the text box, and then click OK.
Right-click the myFields folder, click Add, and then add a Text field named ListName.
Set the Default Value property of the ListName field to the value of the GUID of your list (which you determined by using the procedure in the "Identifying the List GUID" section).

Form code uses this field to specify the identifier of the list when a user performs the submit operation.

Cleaning Up the Layout of the Form

You should now have the controls that are required for viewing and entering data in the form. But before you continue, clean up the layout using a Layout Table, and add some text to identify what each repeating table is used for.

To add a layout table and labels

Click above the two Repeating Table controls that you added in the earlier procedures.
On the Table menu, point to Insert, and then click Layout Table.
Set the Number of columns to 1 and set the Number of rows to 2, and then click OK.
Right-click the topmost Repeating Table control, click Cut, and then paste it into the first row of the layout table.
Select the Check Box bound to the AddContacts field and the Add New Contacts? label, right-click the selected items, click Cut, and then paste them below the first repeating table.
Right-click the Section control that contains the second Repeating Table control, click Cut, and then paste it into the second row of the layout table.
Right-click the title row of the topmost Repeating Table control, point to Insert, and then click Rows Above.
Select all of the cells in the new row, right-click the selected cells, and then click Merge Cells.
Type Current contacts in the list: in the new row.
Repeat steps 7 and 8 for the second repeating table, and then type New contacts to be added: in the new row.

When you are finished, your form should look like Figure 1:

Figure 1. Final design of the form

Adding a Connection to the Lists Web Service and Specifying the Parameters of the UpdateListItems Method

To add items to the SharePoint list, a client application uses the UpdateListItems method of the SharePoint Lists Web service.

The UpdateListItems Web service method requires two parameters: the listName parameter that specifies the name of the list, and the updates parameter that accepts a Batch element XML fragment. The Batch element XML fragment specifies the items to post to the list and whether to perform an add, update, or delete operation.

Now that you have the ListName field that contains the GUID for the list, and the Add List Item Template data connection that describes the data structure of the item to add, you have all the necessary information to define the connection for submitting items to the list.

Important:
For the data connection to the Lists Web service to work correctly, the URL you enter in step 4 of this procedure must correspond to the location of your MyContacts list. If the list is located directly off the root Web of your SharePoint server, the URL will be in this form: `http://`servername`/_vti_bin/lists.asmx` If the list is located in a site on your SharePoint server, the URL will be in this form: `http://`servername`/`sitename`/_vti_bin/lists.asmx`

Important:

For the data connection to the Lists Web service to work correctly, the URL you enter in step 4 of this procedure must correspond to the location of your MyContacts list. If the list is located directly off the root Web of your SharePoint server, the URL will be in this form: http://servername/_vti_bin/lists.asmx If the list is located in a site on your SharePoint server, the URL will be in this form: http://servername/sitename/_vti_bin/lists.asmx

To connect to the Lists Web Service and specify the parameters of the UpdateListItems method

On the Tools menu, click Data Connections, and then click Add.
In the Data Connection Wizard dialog box, click Create a new connection to, click Submit data, and then click Next.
Click To a Web service, and then click Next.
Type the URL to the Lists Web service (see previous note), and then click Next.
In the Select an operation list, select the UpdateListItems operation, and then click Next.
In the Parameters list, double-click the tns:listName parameter name, and then assign the ListName field as the value to pass for this parameter.
Double-click the tns:updates parameter name, select the Add List Item Template (Secondary) data source, select the Batch folder, and then click OK.
In the Include drop-down list, select XML subtree, including selected element, and then click Next.
Click Finish, and then click Close.

Adding Submit Functionality

Now that your form template has all the data connections and controls that are required for displaying data in the list, you need to add event handler code for submitting the items to add, update, or delete from the list.

Adding Event Handler Code to the Add New Contacts Check Box

By default, conditional formatting set on the repeating table for adding new contacts hides the table. To display the repeating table, you must add an event handler to the check box that is bound to the addContacts field. The event handler code runs when the Changed event of the addContacts field is raised (which occurs when the user selects the check box). The code adds a new blank row to the repeating table, which displays the control and provides an empty row for entering a new contacts list item. The user can add rows by clicking Add New Contact below the first row in the table. If the user clears the check box, the event handler code removes the blank row (and any other rows in the control), which hides the repeating table. The code to remove the blank row depends on the ClearEnteredValues custom function, which is described in the following procedure.

To add event handler code to the Add New Contacts check box

Right-click the check box that is bound to the AddContacts field, point to Programming, and then click Changed Event.

Add the following code to the AddContacts_Changed event handler.

try{   // Get a reference to the form's XmlNamespaceManager object.   XmlNamespaceManager ns = this.NamespaceManager;   // Create an XPathNavigator object for the form's main data   // source.   XPathNavigator xnDoc = this.MainDataSource.CreateNavigator();   // If the check box is set to true, add a new row so the user    // can add a new contact.   if (e.Site.Value == "true")   {      XPathNavigator xnTable =          xnDoc.SelectSingleNode("/my:myFields/my:gpContacts", ns);      xnTable.AppendChild("<my:gpContact><my:Title /><my:FirstName /><my:LastName /><my:Email /><my:Phone /></my:gpContact>");   }   else   {      // If the user clears the check box, remove the added row.      ClearEnteredValues(xnDoc);   }}catch (Exception ex){   MessageBox.Show("The following error occurred: " + ex.Message);   throw;}

Add the following code for the custom ClearEnteredValues function.

private void ClearEnteredValues(XPathNavigator xnDoc){   try   {      // Get a reference to the form's XmlNamespaceManager object.      XmlNamespaceManager ns = this.NamespaceManager;      // Create an XPathNodeIterator object to get a count of the       // rows in the repeating table used to add new Contacts.      XPathNodeIterator xi = xnDoc.Select(         "/my:myFields/my:gpContacts/my:gpContact", ns);      int rowCount = xi.Count;      if (rowCount > 0)      {         // Get the first and last rows (nodes) in the          // repeating table.         XPathNavigator firstNode = xnDoc.SelectSingleNode(            "/my:myFields/my:gpContacts/my:gpContact[1]", ns);         XPathNavigator lastNode = xnDoc.SelectSingleNode(            "/my:myFields/my:gpContacts/my:gpContact[" +            rowCount + "]", ns);            // Delete the existing nodes using the DeleteRange method.         firstNode.DeleteRange(lastNode);      }     // Clear the check box.      xnDoc.SelectSingleNode(        "/my:myFields/my:AddContacts", ns).SetValue("false");   }   catch (Exception ex)   {      MessageBox.Show("The following error occurred: " +          ex.Message);      throw;   }}

Save your additions, and switch back to InfoPath form design view.

Adding Event Handler Code to Flag Updated Items

When the user changes items in the repeating table bound to the MyContacts group that displays current contacts in the list, code is required to set the Changed column to true to flag that the item was updated. The code for submitting data to the list uses the value of the Changed column to determine whether to submit that item. Additionally, the event handler code must check whether the user selected the Delete check box and not set the Changed column in this case.

To add event handler code to flag updated items

Right-click the header row of the repeating table bound to the MyContacts group, point to Programming, and then click Changed Event.

Add the following code to the MyContacts__MyContacts_Changed event handler.

try{   // Get a reference to the form's XmlNamespaceManager object.   XmlNamespaceManager ns = this.NamespaceManager;   // See if values have been changed.   if (e.Operation == XmlOperation.ValueChange)   {      // Set the Changed field to "true" only if the Delete      // check box is not selected.      if (e.Site.SelectSingleNode("@Delete", ns).Value != "true")      {         e.Site.SelectSingleNode("@Changed", ns).SetValue("true");      }   }}catch (Exception ex){   MessageBox.Show("The following error occurred: " + ex.Message);   throw;}

Save your additions, and switch back to InfoPath form design view.

Adding a Button for Submitting Items in the List

This section describes how to add a Button control and its event handler code to the form for submitting changes to the form. Note that the code for this button handles all operations the user can perform in the form: adding new items, updating existing items, and deleting existing items.

To add a button for updating items in the list

In the Design Tasks task pane, click Controls.
Drag a Button control below the second repeating table.
Double-click the button to display its properties dialog box.
On the General tab of the Button Properties dialog box, change the Label property to Submit Changes, and change the ID property to btnSendChanges.
Click Edit Form Code to open the code editor.

Add the following code to the btnSendChanges_Clicked event handler.