Deploy Administrator Approved Forms - InfoPath 2010

Administrator-approved form templates

Administrator-approved form templates are available to any site collection on the SharePoint site and can contain code that requires full trust. They are individually verified, uploaded, and activated by a SharePoint site administrator. Administrator-approved form templates are maintained in a special document library that can be accessed only by administrators.

Deploy administrator-approved form templates

To deploy an administrator-approved form template, you must complete three actions after the form template has been designed: verify, upload, and activate. These steps can either be performed through the command-line interface or through the Central Administration site. You can upload a form template by using the Publishing Wizard in the InfoPath program, using the command line on a server running InfoPath Forms Services in the farm to which the form template will be deployed, or by using the Central Administration interface.

To deploy the form using central admin you can refer

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc262921.aspx

Using central admin method we can deploy one form at a time but if we need to deply many forms this process takes lot of time and effort. So I tried to automate this process using powershell. I have wrote a small powershell script to deploy these forms.

# Set the required variables

$siteURL = "

http://MySiteURL"

$publishingDirectory = "Source file location"

$settingsFile = "$publishingDirectory\InfoPathFormsList.txt"

$category = "My Category"

function Show-Progress([string]$activity, [string]$status, [int]$count)

{

if ($count % 4 -eq 1) {write-progress -activity $activity -status $status " _" ;}

if ($count % 4 -eq 2) {write-progress -activity $activity -status $status " \" }

if ($count % 4 -eq 3) {write-progress -activity $activity -status $status " |" }

if ($count % 4 -eq 0) {write-progress -activity $activity -status $status " /" }

}

foreach ($i in Get-Content -Path $settingsFile)

{

$formLocation = "$publishingDirectory\$i.xsn"

# Deactivate the InfoPath form

Write-Output "Deactivate " $i

Disable-SPInfoPathFormTemplate -Identity $i -Site $siteURL -ErrorAction:SilentlyContinue

# uninstall the InfoPath form

Write-Output "Uninstalling " $i

$formTemplate = Get-SPInfoPathFormTemplate -Identity $i -ErrorAction:SilentlyContinue

if ($formTemplate -ne $null)

{

Uninstall-SPInfoPathFormTemplate -Identity $i -ErrorAction:SilentlyContinue

}

$percent = 1

while ($formTemplate -ne $null -and $formTemplate.FormTemplateStatus -eq "Removing")

{

if ($count -eq 100) {$count = 0;}

write-progress -activity "Uninstalling $i" -status "Removing" -percentcomplete (++$count);

$formTemplate = Get-SPInfoPathFormTemplate -Identity $i -ErrorAction:SilentlyContinue;

}

write-progress -activity "Uninstalling $i" -status "Removing" -percentcomplete 100;

# Verify the InfoPath form

#Write-Output "Verifying " $i

#Test-SPInfoPathFormTemplate -Path $formLocation

# Upload the InfoPath form

Write-Output "Uploading " $i

Install-SPInfoPathFormTemplate -Path $formLocation -Confirm:$false

# Activate the InfoPath form

Write-Output "Activating " $i

Enable-SPInfoPathFormTemplate -Identity $i -Site $siteURL

# Modify the category of the form

Set-SPInfoPathFormTemplate -Identity $i -Category $category

}

To use this script

1. Copy this script in a notepad.
2. Change $siteURL =

http://MySiteURL
3. Create a folder sourcesFiles and paste your InfoPath form template (.xsn) files in it.
4. Enter your source folder path in $publishingDirectory = "Source folder path"
5. Save this notepad text as PowerShell script (myScript.ps1).
6. Create a InfoPathFormsList.txt file in the same folder and write all InfoPath form template names (i.e. myTemplate.xsn) in it.
7. Open SharePoint 2010 management shell and run this PowerShell script

Calling Javascript / Jquery / ECMA script from an UpdatePanel in SharePoint

You've probably used ClientScript.RegisterStartupScript in your SharePoint application page and it works just fine.

for example:-

Page.ClientScript.RegisterClientScriptBlock(this.GetType(), "Close", "<script type=\"text/javascript\">SP.UI.ModalDialog.commonModalDialogClose(0);</script>");

 However, if you try it within an UpdatePanel control, you would notice that it simply doesn't execute.

The solution to this problem is to use ScriptManager.RegisterStartupScript instead. You can call it like so:

ScriptManager.RegisterClientScriptBlock(UpdatePanelSites, UpdatePanelSites.GetType(), "Close", "SP.UI.ModalDialog.commonModalDialogClose(0);", true);

Select Distinct or Unique values from SharePoint List

I was looking around for the simple way of getting unique values from SharePoint list without affecting performance. I have seen several ways of doing it. For example, we can get all the items and then check if item exists in the array or some other collection. Another example, you can load your data into DataTable and then select unique values using DataTable method, following is snippet of code below on how to use it

GetUniqueColumnData("List Name", "ColumnName");


private void GetUniqueColumnData(string ListName, string ColumnName)
{
try
{
using (SPSite site = SPContext.Current.Site)
{
using (SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb())
{
DataTable dtList = new DataTable("TableName");
SPList list = web.Lists[ListName];
if (list != null)
{
SPQuery query = new SPQuery();
query.Query = "<OrderBy><FieldRef Name='" + ColumnName + "'/></Order By><FieldRef Name='" + ColumnName + "'/>";
dtList = list.GetItems(query).GetDataTable();
dtList = new DataView(dtList).ToTable(true, new string[] { ColumnName });
}
}
}
}
catch (System.Exception ex)
{
LoggingService.LogErrorInULS(ex.Message + "Stack Trace: "+ ex.StackTrace,TraceSeverity.High);
}
}

but I discovered one very simple method for selecting Distinct Values in SharePoint called GetDistinctFieldValues. Please see snippet of code below on how to use it


using (SPSite site = SPContext.Current.Site)
{
using (SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb())
{
SPList objList = web.Lists["List Name"];
SPField field = objList.Fields.GetField("Field Name");
Object[,] values;
uint numberValues = objList.GetDistinctFieldValues(field, out values);
for (int i = 0; i < numberValues; i++)
comboBox1.Items.Add(values.GetValue(0, i).ToString());

}

}