In one of my customer's MOSS implementations we're using SharePoint's resident permission management to control who has access to what InfoPath forms. The issue we came across is that if a user has read-only access to a form and opens it, they can see the Update button. Clicking it does error and denies the change, and after the error the user gets the typical form closed message.

We wanted to hide the button from the view of a user who has read-only permissions to deny the error all together and minimize user complaints.

Using the code behind in the InfoPath form, we can check the current user against the current item then set a field in InfoPath to flag whether or not the user is read-only or not. From there, we can base the conditional formatting of buttons, text boxes, etc. on this value.

try
{
 if (e.InputParameters.ContainsKey("XmlLocation") && !SPContext.Current.Web.CurrentUser.IsSiteAdmin)  //Regardless of resident permissions, give SiteAdmins access
 {
  SPUser curUser = SPContext.Current.Web.CurrentUser;
  string path = e.InputParameters["XmlLocation"].ToString(); //get the location of the XML file and parse
  string lib = path.Substring(0, path.LastIndexOf("/"));
  string formName = path.Substring(path.LastIndexOf("/") + 1);
  using (SPSite site = new SPSite(SPContext.Current.Site.ID))
  {
   SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb(SPContext.Current.Web.ID); //grab the current web
   SPListItem li = web.GetListItem(path.Replace(web.Url, "")); //grab the current list item using the

   if (li.DoesUserHavePermissions(SPBasePermissions.EditListItems)) //check for permissions
    SetNodeValue("/my:mySAR/my:IsReadOnly", "0"); //if it exists, set field to false
   else
    SetNodeValue("/my:mySAR/my:IsReadOnly", "1"); //if it doesn't, set it to true
  }

 }
 else
  SetNodeValue("/my:mySAR/my:IsReadOnly", "0"); //if the XmlLocation doesn't exist, it's a new form so it's not Read Only
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
 WriteErrorToLog("FormEvents_Loading", "Problem setting user permissions", ex);
 SetNodeValue("/my:mySAR/my:IsReadOnly", "1"); //on error stop the user from writing
}

From here I based the buttons' conditional formatting on the field IsReadOnly.

A while back I ran into this issue: I had two web parts in the same project but I wanted them to share settings. As my experience as an ASP.Net developer was pointing me to use the web.config file, instead I thought SharePoint must have something similar to this without me having to mess with the web.config file. After searching and posting on MSDN, I did finally find a solution that uses the properties of SharePoint Sites and Webs.

Below is a sample code that stores the Employee Profile Group in the web so two web parts and an InfoPath form can access the values.

The GetWebProperty function creates the property if it doesn't exist, and if it does it'll return the string value. It's important to call this function before setting a web property, especially the first time it's run so the property is created. I suppose you could technically put the same creation functionality in the SetWebProperty as well, but I was using Get (getting values into my webpart) before my Set (using edit pane to view it).

string employeeProfile = GetWebProperty("EmployeeProfileUserGroup");

SetWebProperty("EmployeeProfileUserGroup", pe.DisplayText);

static string GetWebProperty(string Name)
{
 using (SPSite site = new SPSite(SPContext.Current.Site.ID))
 {
  SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb(SPContext.Current.Web.ID);
  if (web.Properties[Name] == null)
  {
   web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;
   web.Properties.Add(Name, "");
   web.Properties.Update();
   web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = false;
   return "";
  }
  else
  {
   return web.Properties[Name].ToString();
  }
 }
}
void SetWebProperty(string Name, string Value)
{
 using (SPSite site = new SPSite(SPContext.Current.Site.ID))
 {
  SPWeb web = site.OpenWeb(SPContext.Current.Web.ID);
  GetWebProperty(Name); //ensure the property exists
  web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = true;
  web.Properties[Name] = Value;
  web.Properties.Update();
  web.AllowUnsafeUpdates = false;
 }
}

If you would like to share the same properties across multiple webs, use the Site.RootWeb object and store all properties there!

Enjoy!

One great feature of SharePoint and versioning is the ability to have versioned comments. This can allow a small discussion to occur on almost any item. It also allows someone to keep a running log of notes on certain items.

I had the wonderful task of figuring out how to get this to work the same in InfoPath. Below is a function that will append the notes into a repeating group. On submit of the form, I call this function and it works great, everytime!

public void AddAnalystNotes()
{
 try
 { //this is the text box the user enters their notes into.
  if (GetNodeValue(GetRootNodeName() + "/my:DetailsSection/my:AddAnalystNotes/my:AddNotes") != "")
  { //this is the group in the datasource just above the repeating group
   XPathNavigator selReqs = MainDataSource.CreateNavigator().SelectSingleNode(
   GetRootNodeName() + "/my:DetailsSection/my:AnalystNotesGroup", NamespaceManager);
   
   string nsPrefix = selReqs.Prefix;
   string nsURI = selReqs.NamespaceURI;
   
   //this is the repeating group of notes
   XPathNodeIterator selAnalyst = MainDataSource.CreateNavigator().Select(
   GetRootNodeName() + "/my:DetailsSection/my:AnalystNotesGroup/my:AnalystNotes", NamespaceManager);
   
   XmlWriter writer;
   //if there are already items in the list, pop this new note at the top
   if(selAnalyst.Count > 0){
    selReqs.MoveToChild("AnalystNotes",nsURI);
    writer = selReqs.InsertBefore();
   }else{
    writer = selReqs.AppendChild();
   }
   
   //now write the values
   writer.WriteStartElement(nsPrefix, "AnalystNotes", nsURI);
   writer.WriteElementString(nsPrefix, "CreatedDate", nsURI, DateTime.Now.ToString());
   writer.WriteElementString(nsPrefix, "CreatedBy", nsURI, SPContext.Current.Web.CurrentUser.Name);
   writer.WriteElementString(nsPrefix, "Notes", nsURI, ""); //have to create a blank entry then add the value later down the line
   writer.WriteEndElement();
   writer.Close();
   
   //gets the text box with the new notes in it
   XPathNavigator xnotes = MainDataSource.CreateNavigator().SelectSingleNode(
   GetRootNodeName() + "/my:DetailsSection/my:AddAnalystNotes/my:AddNotes",NamespaceManager);
   
   selAnalyst.MoveNext(); //grab the first element, the default is root
   
   //had to use InnerXml, the value to value loses HTML formatting
   selAnalyst.Current.SelectSingleNode("my:Notes",NamespaceManager).InnerXml = xnotes.InnerXml;

   //clears the text box
   SetNodeValue(GetRootNodeName() + "/my:DetailsSection/my:AddAnalystNotes/my:AddNotes", "");
  }
 }
 catch (Exception ex)
 {
  WriteErrorToLog("addRequestor_Click", "Adding analyst noteserrored", ex);
 }
}

Then in the view, format the repeating group to be read-only and blamo, versioned comments.

I wrote a web service that queries the users in certain groups and I bound a dropdown in my InfoPath form to it. The web service requires two values, the site name and the group name. In using the InfoPath Data Connection wizard I specified the values.

We now are looking to move this form to another server (from dev to staging to prod) and this form is going to become the base for about a dozen other forms, so changing this value manually every time will become a hassel at best.

I figured out how to update the webservice from the code behind, and send it the values I want to send it. Very effective and useful.

IMPORTANT First thing though, you need to stop the web service data connection from getting values on start up. That option is in the last screen of the data connection wizard.

Then, in the Form_Load use the similar code as below and blamo, you're off and running.

WebServiceConnection webservConn = (WebServiceConnection)DataConnections["ListGroupUsers"];

XmlDocument inputDoc = new XmlDocument();

inputDoc.LoadXml("<ListGroupUsers xmlns=\"http://site/\"><SiteURL>" + SPContext.Current.Web.Url + "</SiteURL><GroupName>Site Members</GroupName></ListGroupUsers>");

XPathNavigator inputNav = inputDoc.CreateNavigator();

XmlDocument outputDoc = new XmlDocument();

XPathNavigator outputNav = outputDoc.CreateNavigator();

XmlDocument errorDoc = new XmlDocument();

XPathNavigator errorNav = errorDoc.CreateNavigator();

//Need to specify the XPath to dump the results into, so grab the Web Service repsonse

XPathNavigator root = MainDataSource.CreateNavigator();

XPathNavigator node = root.SelectSingleNode("/dfs:myFields/dfs:dataFields/tns:ListGroupUsersResponse/tns:ListGroupUsersResult", NamespaceManager);

webservConn.Execute(inputNav,node,errorNav);

Hope this helps!