I need users to confirm they've read a document attached to an infopath form.

Question

Hi there,

(MOSS 2007 Enterprise)

In the process of becoming ISO Certified, a need has arisen for us to track certains documents/forms/work instructions that need to be disseminated to our employees. I had the idea of creating an infopath form and attaching to that form the document/work instruction in question. From there, we could select a drop-down that would have groups (active directory or sharepoint permission groups), and the workflow would send the form/email to each member of that group. From there, they would need to acknowledge that they've read the attached document, and make a change to the form.

The problem I'm running in to, is that I can only assign 1 form to a group of people or 1 person. If 1 person in that group edits the task and completes the form (i.e., selected the "I have read" clause) then it completes it for the entire group.

How can I do this?  I just need the infopath document with the doc-to-be-read to be sent to everyone in the group, and everyone be held accountable to read it. Also, we need to be able to see the status of each person's requirement, much like in a workflow you can see at which step the workflow is being held up on.

Thanks in advance!

p.s. I'm open to other methods to do this as well!

Answer 1

There may be better methods, but here's an idea:
  - don't attach the document, but supply a link to a document in a library
  - modify the library's (or Content Type's) Information Management Policy to enable Auditing of views
  - then you can review the audit logs to see who has read (at least opened) the document.
  - also, the document can have it's own workflow if you need special follow up from the view.

 

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Mike Smith TechTrainingNotes.blogspot.com

Answer 2

That sounds like a good idea, I'm trying it now. How do I view the audit report?

Answer 3

It's in Site Actions, Site Settings, Site Collection Administration column, Audit Log Reports

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Mike Smith TechTrainingNotes.blogspot.com

Answer 4

Thanks for the idea, I went ahead and ran the report and it is very helpful. I spoke with my Quality team, and the only problem is, while it does a good job of designating who opened a document, it doesn't help us figure out who has not opened it.

I'll most likely use that feature elsewhere, but as for the requirement, I'm wondering if it's possible to create a custom parallel workflow, that allows the group to be used to be selected at time of submission. Is that even possible? Maybe the drop down box in the infopath form has sharepoint groups listed, and whichever one is listed, will have them stamped as the approvers for the parallel workflow, all required to approve, and all trackable.

Any other thoughts?

Thanks again for the ideas and help!

Answer 5

Hello there!

I am not sure if you are after a very cool 3rd party add-on to SharePoint ? If so, why not have a look at DocRead which does this (and more). http://www.collaboris.com/products/docread

More than happy to give you a demo if needed.

Thanks

Mark

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