Federated Forms
Demonstration and Training Site

Federated Forms

InfoPath Forms Services is a server technology that makes it possible for users to fill out InfoPath forms in a Web browser. Users don't have to have InfoPath installed on their computer to fill out this type of form, nor are they required to download anything extra from the Web. All they need is access to a browser, such as Windows Internet Explorer, Apple Safari, or Mozilla Firefox.InfoPath Forms Services also enables you to store and manage forms and form templates in a centralized location. InfoPath Forms Services is built on and requires Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services 3.0, which enables you to publish form templates that you design to a common location across an organization. Additionally, users can submit forms to SharePoint libraries, which are folders where a collection of files is stored and where the files often use the same template. It is also possible to integrate forms into document management and life-cycle tasks such as workflow and rights management.You can store your form templates and their associated forms in a centralized repository on a server running InfoPath Forms Services. This makes it easy to find, share, and manage forms and form templates.

Key benefits include the ability to:

• Store forms and form templates in a centralized location  You can associate a form template with a library, which is a location on a SharePoint site where you can create, collect, update, and manage files with other people in your organization. When users fill out forms based on the form template in that library, the completed forms appear in the library along with key information from the forms themselves. Depending on how the SharePoint library is designed, users can fill out forms that are based on your form template, export the data from completed forms to Microsoft Office Excel, or merge the data from several forms into one form. The following example shows expense reports stored in a library.
• Use content types to manage form templates  You can use the InfoPath Publishing Wizard to publish a form template as a site content type. A content type defines a form template, a set of columns, and document management settings on the server, such as workflow or policy settings. By creating content types, you can reuse form templates and settings across a site collection.
• Manage forms and form templates  Server farm administrators can control how form templates are accessed by users and deployed throughout the organization. For example, they can control who can publish form templates throughout the site or decide how to upgrade form templates on the server with minimal impact to form users.
• Manage data connections in a central location  If multiple form templates will use the same data connections you can store the settings for that data connection in a data connection file (data connection file: A file that stores information about a connection to a data source, such as an Access database, a spreadsheet, or a text file, and that facilitates data source administration.) in a data connection library (data connection library: A document library, located on a site running Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007, that contains a collection of universal data connection (.udcx) and Office data connection (.odc) files.). When a user opens a form that connects to a data connection file, InfoPath uses the settings in that file to connect to the external data source. In this way, multiple form templates can use the same data connection file, so there is no need to manually create the same data connection for each form template. Moreover, if the location or connection settings for an external data source change, you don't need to update each form template that uses the data connection. Instead, you simply update the data connection file once, and all form templates continue to work as expected.

For more informantion about Federated Forms, please visit: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/infopath/