Converting business forms created with Microsoft® Excel is well within the reach of most users of InfoPath 2010. Once converted to InfoPath 2010 forms, these business tools can be uploaded to a SharePoint 2010 Intranet or Extranet for organizational-wide usage, as required. The ability to distribute IT assets, such as custom business forms, with SharePoint 2010, provides a useful method of reducing costs that would otherwise be incurred by an organization to duplicate work as additional requirements for the same type of forms arise.
We offer a video tutorial on this topic, Converting Microsoft Excel workbooks to InfoPath 2010. We retraced the steps outlined in this tutorial with our own InfoPath 2010 instance and an Excel form that we use with complete success. We need to note that a large number of fields will still need to be correctly labeled once the Excel form has been successfully converted to an InfoPath form.
Of course this type of point and click ease of conversion also makes data collection accessible to a wider group of users within an organization than would be the case with Excel forms. Further, collecting the unstructured data produced by InfoPath forms into useful business intelligence is a more realistic objective and deliverable. In sum, bringing Excel forms into InfoPath 2010 makes a lot of sense.
It is worth noting that applications like this one for InfoPath 2010 should be understood and evaluated as migrations to SharePoint 2010 enterprise are planned for organizations. We think that it is particularly valuable to understand the capabilities of tools like InfoPath 2010 as implementations are planned so the right steps are taken during the implementation phase to ensure that the maximum value represented by a tool like InfoPath 2010 to contribute substantially to a reduction in overall cost of IT systems development for an organization is realized. Naturally, training ought to play a role within the implementation plan to ensure that the skill set of current technical staff members are expanded to include the procedures required to use this tool on a daily basis. We think it makes a lot of sense to provision video tutorials within the user training component of these implementation plans. We welcome an opportunity to discuss implementation planning; therefore, if you agree with our view of the need to build a tool like InfoPath 2010 into an overall implementation plan for SharePoint 2010 Enterprise, then please do reach out to us. Please contact us by telephone at +1 (630) 786-7026. Alternatively, you can contact us by email with any questions you may have about this video, the InfoPath 2010 set, and possible applications for individual as well as organizational-level viewing and use.
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