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Online Conference
June 17th and 18th 2015
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10 tips for building great SharePoint Forms
June 17th 2015, 5PM
Sébastien LevertNegotium Technologies
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Sébastien Levert
Email : [email protected]
Twitter : slevert.me/leverttwFacebook : slevert.me/levertfbLinkedIn : slevert.me/levertin
Montreal, Canada Office 365 MVP
Web Developer @sebastienlevert pimpthecloud.com
PimpTheCloud
negotium.com
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Agenda
Back to the future OOTB Tips & Tricks Hacks Tips & Tricks
Framework Tips & Tricks
Futuristic Tips & Tricks Wrap-up
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Back to the future
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January 31st, 2014
InfoPath is dead !Last version of client
software will be InfoPath 2013
InfoPath Forms Services on
SharePoint 2013 is the last version ever
shipped
No clear story about support in Office365
New “product” annouced called
FoSL, or Forms on SharePoint Lists
Developers were excited, End Users were scared and IT Pros were happy
Forms Services was gone
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March 6th, 2014
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March 7th, 2014
First preview of future FoSL framework,
announced to be RTM around end of 2014
Very rough demo, but gives a good insight on what could be the
final product
Access Forms based browser-enabled
editor
The story behind forms starts to be
clearer
We still recommend InfoPath for simple
forms even if its support is time
bombed
Developers were still excited, End Users
were still scared and IT Pros were still
happy Forms Services was gone
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March 7th, 2014
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March 7th, 2014
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February 8th, 2015
No news since a year or so…
FoSL is being cancelled in the
Office 365 Roadmap
Developers were disapointed
End Users were happy
IT Pros were angry because…
InfoPath is back from the deads and Forms
Services will be shipped with
SharePoint 2016
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February 8th, 2015
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February 8th, 2015
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So… What’s the story today ?
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Today
InfoPath is still in the game
New and old OOTB editing experiences
can help you
People tend to use more and more HTML
and JavaScript
We now have patterns to “Hack”
our SharePoint forms
The market is there to help you with
plenty of products that integrates with
Office365
Let’s dive right in…
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OOTB Tips & Tricks
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#1 – Use InfoPath
It will be supported for a very long time
Power Users find it easy to customize
End Users find it easy to edit
You can leverage all the skills you built during the 10 last
years
Keep it simpleNo code
No complex validationsNo hacks
If you are strict in your usage, it just
works.
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#2 – Use Structured Documents
You know Word ? Then this is for you !
Use the QuickParts in Word to design
“pixel-perfect” forms
Use them to replace traditional paper
forms
Can be linked to promote columns the
InfoPath-Way”
Can live with your Content Type
Can be filled from within the Word client
application
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#3 – Use Excel Surveys
Hidden-gem of SharePoint 2013 and
Office 365
Very clever in replacing OOTB survey form of
SharePoint
Excel-based data entry and data
repository
You can leverage the data like any other
Excel table
Can be filled in anonymously
Very simple customizing experience
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#4 – Build an Access App
Almost complete power on your form
Data is stored in SQL Azure
Built-in reporting and spreadsheet mode
Rich customizing experience
Available in Office 365 and SharePoint Server Enterprise
edition
Probably the best form experience available OOTB
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Hacks Tips & Tricks { }
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#5 – Hide a field from your formThe Hidden option is
too strict (all or nothing)
Be creative in showing the fields in
the editing experiences you
really need
Automatically populate fields from Workflows and leave
the user edit it
Introduce yourself to a bit of PowerShell
Develop your forms in SharePoint 2013 or
Office 365
Simple way to work with OOTB SharePoint
List Forms with an enhanced fashion
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#6 – Easily validate a form
Using SharePoint List validations ? …
Have complete control over the
validation of fields in your form
Integrate external libraries to your
forms and enable masking
Requires JavaScript and JSLink
Can be reuse in multiple forms
Easy to deploy
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#7 – Structure your forms
Group your forms in multiple tabs
Build wizard-style forms
Hide parts of the form based on the current value of
columns
Requires JavaScript and JSLink
Can be reuse in multiple forms
Easy to deploy
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#8 – Build an app
Complete control over all your forms
experience
Can leverage any web technology you
master
Can store the data to SharePoint or any
other data repository
Requires advanced “hacking” skills
You will not be bound to any limits
Can leverage your Office 365 data easily (Mail, Files, Calendar, Contact, Videos, …)
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Framework Tips & Tricks
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#9 – Use Forms7
Simple alternative to InfoPath
All the good stuff from InfoPath (repeatable
elements, promoted columns)
None of the downside of InfoPath (hard to
migrate, code-behind)
Requires advanced HTML and light
JavaScript
Full control over the rendering of your
forms
Easily available at forms7.codeplex.com
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Futuristic Tips & Tricks
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#10 – Sway, Office 365 Blogs, …A new era of editing
experiences is coming
All the new “railed” experiences will promote modern
editing
Not a lot of customization
available
Built with the End User in mind
HTML5, mobile-driven forms
Uses API to enable mobile apps
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Wrap-up
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Wrap-up
The forms story is still live and we can’t wait for next chapter!
You have plenty of options
The experience of editing is becoming
more intuitive
The web is the future of SharePoint forms
Are we still only talking about SharePoint ?
The Office 365 ecosystem will change how we interact with our
data…
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Please fill in my session feedback form available from the ‘Session Resources’ tab
on my session window.
Thanks for watching !
