Reusing InfoPath forms as Content Types - Part 2

By: Rahul Mehta   |   Updated: 2010-09-22   |   Comments   |   Related: > SharePoint

Problem

In order to create different InfoPath forms, SharePoint generally needs different form libraries. This is true even if the form shares many common fields. The problem is that creating multiple libraries and developing multiple forms can be costly.

Solution

InfoPath 2007 allows you to publish forms as content types. Content types are a collection of different sets of data. The benefit of using content types is reusability. Rather than building everything from scratch, content types provide a generic set of data objects to start with.

This article is the second of a 2 part series. The first will discuss how to publish InfoPath forms as a content type. This article will show how to reuse content types in another library.

How to reuse content types in another library.

Open the form library settings on which the content type is to be implemented. Click on "Advanced Settings"

Select yes under "Allow management of content types?" and click OK.

Now you will be able to see a "Content Types" section which will list all the content types that are implemented in the library. For a Form Library, you will see the "Form" type listed by default. Click on "Add from existing site content types".

Add the custom type "EmpContentType" that we created previously from "Available Site Content Types" to "Content types to add." and click OK.

Now you will be able to see the custom type in the custom types list. Click on "Change new button order and default content type".

Change the custom type order to 1, to make it the default content type of the form library. Click OK.

Go back to library and Click on "New". You'll be able to find that our new content type has been added to the library with all the metadata/fields.

Next Steps

• Read Part 1 on how to publish an InfoPath form as a content type.

About the author

Rahul Mehta is a Project Architect/Lead working at Tata Consultancy Services focusing on ECM.

This author pledges the content of this article is based on professional experience and not AI generated.

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