Can This Complex Form Built in InfoPath?

Question

Hello all,

I am a sharepoint expert who is not very experienced in InfoPath. Now i have a requirement to move a paper-form into sharepoint.

So these audit forms will be managed on sharepoint environment. I have had some infopath forms experience, but they were flat forms, that are 1-to-1 with the associated sharepoint list.

Now i have a challenge, and dont know how to do this infopath.

Shortly, i try to explain the form:

• Every month a monthly food menu will be entered in another sharepoint list. Which contains a number of food for each day of month.

• There is a audit form (can be seen above) which should be filled daily with data of each food of that specific day.

• So when the audit form is opened, form should populate the Foods of that specific day initially, then user enters data for each food.

• And in the belowof form there is another section that have values of some predefined places.And also i think this should map to another sharepoint list in behind.

So how should my sharepoint list/column/data architecture should be, and how can i do this with infopath.

Answer 1

Yes, and InfoPath is the right choice for such kind of forms!

Entities:
Food, Control Criteria, Menu

For the form
AuditForm: Unit, CreateDate
AuditFormMenu: AuditFormId, FoodId, Number, Weight, Heat, Feel, Extra, Comment
AuditFormGeneral: AuditFormId, ControlCriteriaId, Feel, Comment

So architecture will have 3 Entities Lists and 3 Lists for saving Form data!
UPDATE:
You can make SQL Server tables for the entities and make external content types and external lists for views!

Now since there is no OOB available to submit form to multiple lists, few options you can have are: How to submit InfoPath form data to multiple SharePoint lists at one time?
5 Ways to submit an InfoPath form to a SharePoint list

For your complex form, I would recommend you to go for a Web Service... Write a web service that make inserts/updates on the Lists on behalf of the form! And from the InfoPath form call the Service, you can easily map your fields to Web Service Method inputs, and where you have repeating table you can simply send in XML format...

UPDATE:
If you choose to go for SQL Server and External Content Types, you can use Entity Framework in your Web Service for easy handling on database operations!

Let me know if you want more information, I hope this helps!