By: Rahul Mehta | Updated: 2010-10-05 | Comments (1) | Related: > SharePoint
Problem
InfoPath forms are used to perform business processes. Usually we publish our InfoPath Forms to a Form Library in SharePoint. There may be times when you need to edit SharePoint form fields that are published to a SharePoint document library with InfoPath. By default, you will not be able to. Read more to learn how to enable editing for these fields.
Solution
As an example, consider a site where there are two libraries which maintain data about two different schools. Among school libraries, they mostly share the same metadata structure like student name, class, etc. But there are some fields like 'rollno' which could be numeric or alphanumeric. In this case you may need to allow users to change the data type.
By default, InfoPath published fields do not allow editing of data types. One can allow users to edit and update the metadata structure from the form library, only if it is allowed when the form gets published to the library.
In this article, we will discuss how to enable field editing from the form library.
I have created a sample basic student form with information like name, rollno and age.
When published with the normal publishing wizard, you can see in the below image that one cannot edit the form fields. (Notice the highlighted column names are black. There is no link that would enable any modifications.)
In order to allow the field to be editable, we need to start the form publishing wizard. Go to Form's File Menu>Publish. Follow the wizard until it allows you to add properties.
Select the field you want to be editable and click on "Modify".
By default the "Allow users to edit data in this field by using a datasheet or properties page" checkbox will be not be checked. Select it. On selection, you will be prompted with an information box.
Assuming various functions indicated in the message are not needed, click OK and finish the publishing wizard.
Go back to the document library settings and you will see you can now edit the field.
This is the process to allow editing form fields from the publishing wizard.
Next Steps
- Use this process to permit users to change the metadata in form structure.
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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Article Last Updated: 2010-10-05
