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See The PointLeveraging the power of InfoPath and SharePoint August 17 See the Point Has MovedThe See the Point blog has moved. All archived posts will remain on this site, but are also duplicated on the new site. The reason for the delay in posting anything on this site has been the development and branding of the new site… Wait for it….
Http://www.pointgowin.com/seethepoint.
Please update your bookmarks. The See the Point blog can be subscribed using an RSS feed here: or These feeds include the older posts on this site that have also been replicated on the new site! May 03 Shameless plugs for SharePoint InfoSo yes, this is totally an advertisement for the best information I have been able to put my hands on recently about SharePoint. First up, Dux Raymond Sy has a book SharePoint for Project Management that I have recently begun reading. I am not by any means a project manager, but this is definitely some good stuff. It should be on the required reading list for all Project Managers! I was able to meet Dux at SharePoint Saturday in Atlanta, and he was nice enough to sign my copy. You can learn more about Dux through his blog: http://meetdux.com and on twitter: http://twitter.com/meetdux. Next, Tiffany Songvilay’s book So That’s How! 2007 Microsoft Office System: Timesavers, Breakthroughs, & Everyday Genius is a treasure trove of tips and tricks! I have referred several friends to this book, just to help them wade through the thousands of emails that we receive on a daily basis. Tiffany has a fun writing style that may have you singing 80’s tunes while reading! All of her tips and tricks can be implemented easily and with only a little effort from the end user. It really will make their lives easier! Tiffany’s blog is: http://volitionservices.com/ooe/default.aspx and follow her on twitter: http://twitter.com/tsongvilay1. The next two books I have just received and are next on my reading list. I am very excited about both of them. I WON them! Yes, total excitement upon winning books about technology! I won Professional Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 by Woodrow W. Windischman, Bryan Phillips, and Asif Rehmani at SharePoint Saturday. I have read a few blogs from Woody Windischman and have gotten to know him on twitter and am definitely looking forward to reading this book. I have been using SharePoint Designer for a couple of years (all self-taught) so I know that this will probably open up some more cool ideas for me. Read Woody’s blog: http://thesanitypoint.com/default.aspx and follow on twitter: http://twitter.com/woodywindy. My most recent win was from watching Todd Klindt’s netcast. Todd held a little contest and I was lucky enough to win a copy of SharePoint 2007 Disaster Recovery Guide by John Ferringer and Sean McDonough. I haven’t been anywhere that seemed to think DR for SharePoint was a priority and although I knew it was and screamed for a plan, I wasn’t the squeakiest wheel. However, I think that this will help me make my case, and ensure that DR plans are sound. I am looking forward to reading it! John Ferringer’s blog: http://sharepointblogs.com/ForTheUser/default.aspx and on twitter: http://twitter.com/ferringer. Sean McDonough on twitter: http://twitter.com/spmcdonough. Oh, and you can also follow Todd Klindt on twitter: http://twitter.com/toddklindt. There are so many other great books out there, I know, I have MANY of them. These are just the most recent additions to my collection and I thought I would share my thoughts. Now if only I could talk them into giving me some sort of commission... April 24 SharePoint on the GoMy friend Laura, who is completely to blame for my SharePoint addiction and I have all of these conversations all of the time about the cool things we are doing with SharePoint and InfoPath. On our recent trip to SharePoint Saturday in Atlanta, we decided to video a few of these conversations. You can see those conversations here: http://spinsiders.com/laurar/webcasts/. You may also view them on http://www.endusersharepoint.com. Hope you watch and enjoy! April 20 SharePoint Saturday AtlantaI had the privilege of attending SharePoint Saturday Atlanta on April 18th and live blogging the event. There was a little competition. The St. Louis MOSS Camp was also live blogging the event as well, and a little friendly rivalry broke out between the blogging. It was a fun event and there are some great notes from both events. If you want to view them both, you can do so here: EndUserSharePoint.com. If that is too much, you can view just the SharePoint Saturday Atlanta blogging below. April 11 The Rank and File"Hierarchy works well in a stable environment." - Mary Douglas
I haven't met a business process yet that doesn't involve some sort of hierarchy. Most of the ones I am friendly with involve some sort of approval hierarchy. Chances are your organization (like mine) has a different one for each process, department, or location. Some are maintained and integrated with Active Directory, some are so specialized, they can't be integrated and therefore maintenance is not automatic. Since employees come and go, get promoted, demoted, transferred, the hierarchy must be maintained easily, and unless your human resources department designates an FTE to monitor and maintain the changes, you have to figure out a solution. Enter the SharePoint list and an InfoPath form.
For this example, we will create a simple list, but you can create more complex ones as needed.
Create a list with the following columns and types:
Location - Single Line of Text
Approver 1 - Person or group (Person only, do not allow multiple selections)
Approver 2 - Person or group (Person only, do not allow multiple selections)
Create a few items.
 Restrict all users to read only access and only have a specific group of people with contribute or full control permissions. Set these users up in a SharePoint group, you will use this group later.
In order to allow all users the ability to update the hierarchy, create a form in InfoPath. Ensure you put in a data connection in the form to the approval hierarchy list.
At minimum, include the following fields:
Location being updated (Drop-Down List Box using the data connection to look up the locations from your list)
Approver being updated (Drop-Down List Box using Approver 1 or Approver 2 as your choices)
Contact Selector (You can see how to add and configure the contact selector here)
 I also added fields for contact information and a reason for the hierarchy change, to ensure that the changes were legitimate changes. Add a submit button to allow users to submit the form to a form library. Publish your form to the form library in the same site as your SharePoint List; ensure you promote all of the field properties into the library so that you can create a workflow using this data. Set the form library to require content approval, set the group you designated earlier as approvers for this library and allow all others to contribute forms. Customizing permission levels is your option, as is setting the library to open the form in the browser only.
Open SharePoint Designer and create a workflow to start when a new item is created in the form library.
For the first step, notify the group designated as approvers of the new submission and provide a link to the form as well as a link to approve or reject the form.
Pause until the value of the Approval Status changes.
Second step, set condition that if the form is approved to change the item in the approval list that matches the location selected in the form and the approver column.
Here is the catch, you have to use the AccountId field from the Contact Selector as the new value to update a column of the Person or Group type otherwise, the data will not update.
Now your approval heirarchy list can be maintained by users who do not have direct access to the approval heirarchy. You also have all of the data about why a change was made as well as who requested it and the approval process for audit purposes.
Tips:
* Be sure you have completed the steps to allow you to run a declarative workflow. You can find those steps here: http://blogs.technet.com/victorbutuza/default.aspx. If this is not done, you will get an error updating the list with Access Denied.
* Log to history regularly during your workflow for troubleshooting.
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