How to avoid saving a newer version of a form with each modification in InfoPath

Question

I have a form that goes round in an approval flow. Every member of the process (around 4-5 per form) has to open it, do some modification and submit again.

I have used concat formula in the Submit data connection and added 3 fields together (one is to show if the request has been approved or declined - copied from a field in the form).

Whenever I open the form and do some changes on existing entries (it is true mainly for those elements that I have used for naming the form) it saves it under a new name.

Ex:

_123456_MyName - I open the file and I realize that I have to decline this request. I open the form, do the changes (set to decline) and submit. I got Declined_123456_MyName saved next to the one that has the short name (_123456_MyName) so 2 files with the same content.

See screenshot for Submit settings.

Answer 1

Based on your comments, this is one possible solution:

• Add the "status" column to the default list view so you can display it next to the form's title.
• Create a new view that will be used for alerts only, and use a CAML query in the view filter to only display "Declined" forms.
• Create alerts for the necessary people that have an appropriate title (like "Item was declined") and set it to trigger only on items that show up in the custom view you just created.

The only tricky part is that creating the view requires a little .NET code (as shown in the link), but it's easy to do even if you're not a hardcore developer.

Answer 2

As suggested by somebody else, you should be using meta data columns rather than updating the form name.

Create a hidden status field that has relevant string - maybe "first submission", "submitted" (whatever makes sense for your business process)

And then when the submit button is clicked check to see whether the form has been submitted using the Action rules(e.g. if status = "submitted") if it hasn't, set another field 'formName' using your concat forumula.

see here: https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Add-rules-for-performing-other-actions-5322d726-b787-4e5f-8d37-ba6db68b451d?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US&fromAR=1

Then use 'formName' in the submit criteria to name the file rather than your concat formula.

This would certainly mean that you'd only ever have one file name unless you decided that you did want multiple names.

If you need to alert people, then you can build a very simple workflow in SharePoint Designer that triggers when the form is modified,checks your status column and sends appropriate emails to the people within the team.