Turn InfoPath data into an attachment to add to another site?

Question

I would like to know if information entered on a custom list can be transferred from one site to another list item on another site. Ideally the information from the original request would be able to be attached to the new list item so the new owner will have a history. Please let me know what you recommend on how to handle the following scenario:

1 - Customer submits a request on Site B (it is a subsite of Site A)

2 - Researcher does some research to determine which team will handle the request. Researcher will change the content type from Request to Research and adding search progress and history.

3 - Researcher makes a decision and needs to pass on the request to users of Sites C, D, E, F, or G (also subsites of Site A) on their site (they will not have access to Site B)

4 - Fields from original request must be able to be pulled into a global report that pulls data from sites A, B, C, D, E, F, G, etc.

So basically I need a way to get the original request information from Site B to a custom list on another site that currently use content types that were created in the browser (no InfoPath or SPD) and I'd like the Researcher to NOT have to create a form on the site it's getting transferred to and manually re-type the basic information submitted by the requester.

I thought InfoPath would be a possibility to save as an attachment and somehow import the base fields into the new site and attach the research history as an attachment, but I don't know if it this is possible (I have limited experience with InfoPath up to this point).

I welcome any suggestions that you have. I am currently on 2007 (hopefully upgrading in the next 6 months) and I have access to InfoPath and SharePoint Designer, but not to VB for custom code. I do not have access to the server admin functions and my company will not use any add-ons.

Answer 1

Crossing sites like that, your options are pretty limited unless you could write an event receiver or workflow in Visual Studio (or use an add-on).

The only thing that I can think of that might work for you is a custom "send to" location. Check it out and see if it meets your requirements: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-foundation-help/copy-a-file-to-another-library-or-send-to-location-HA101782473.aspx (Note: The documentation is for 2010, but applicable to 2007 also)

Answer 2

I hope I have understood your question.

Copying existing items from a custom list to another list in a different sub site can be done through SharePoint Designer workflow. You can create a workflow which will trigger when new items are added or items are updated in an original list. There is an action item in SPD which says - 'Copy list item' which inturn copies item from one list to another list.

Now I didnt quite understand if you have attachments to be stored, in which case you mentioned about infopath forms.

If you have lot of fields and attachments to be stored as in a form, then an Infopath library can be created in SharePoint, each individual form storing all values and attachments required for your research. In this case also, the infopath forms can be copied from 1 list to another in different subsites with the attachments.

Hope this helps. :)

Answer 3

You should be able to do this by adding a connection to the "Lists Web Service" and Specifying the Parameters for UpdateListItems method. You should connect to the web service of the second SharePoint site with the target list as you mentioned in your question. You don't need admin access or anything other than InfoPath.

Refer the MSDN Article here that explains who to accomplish this. All you know need is to make sure the users filling out the form have access to the 2nd (target) site as well.

Answer 4

InfoPath stores file attachments as a Base64 encoded string in the InfoPath Xml document file. Try attaching a 10MB file to an InfoPath form, save it, then look at the size/content of the Xml :)

You can (with custom code) open the InfoPath Xml document with the XmlDom, find the attachment node and decode the string back to the file bytes, then store the file somewhere else (like a Document Library). This can be done with a custom web service, a Library event handler, or a custom Workflow action, but there is nothing out of box in SharePoint that extracts InfoPath attachments and stores them somewhere else - you have to write some code.

Extract InfoPath File Attachments