Auto Generate Unique Name For InfoPath Form

Question

Hi all! Iv'e searched quite a it and have seen this topic come up with several kinds of solutions but unfortunately none that worked for me.  I have several Form Libraries for submitting requests where I use Submit Buttons to generate a file name appended with a unique sequence number.  I've used several variants such as appending timestamp etc... which work but doesnt look very nice.   

Once the Form is submitted a workflow generates a Task, that once completed and the Task is updated, the form is converted to PDF and archived to a different library.  I have set up a Sequence Number List that has a single row  in it with 2 columns, Seq Number and Record ID both unique numbers. Record ID is fixed at 1, which I use in the filter and Sequence Number will get incremented after each use.  Now in my submit button I cannot seem to retrieve the sequence number at all. I can in a test workflow, and increment it as well, but I need the value for the file name so that doesnt work.   I've tried a bunch of things but here it is in it's basic form.  I defined a column on the form called seq num, defined a receive data connection from SP library list, then I try to Set the form column using Set a Fields value, to the external sequence number.... ultimately I want to update it to plus 1, but I can't even see it yet.... 

Am I going about this right or missing something? Is there a better way, one that works?  Any help would be greatly appreciated.... Hope I gave enought detail.

Thanks,

Guy

Answer 1

OK, I was able to figure this out and it works great!  The reason I couldnt see the Sequence Number from the external List was that in my data connection i intentionaly do not retriev data when the form is open as i want the sequence generation/update to happen as quickly as possible, for obvious reasons. What I didnt realize (kinda new with infopath) is that when you uncheck that option you also need to retrieve the data explicitly via query data. I did that and now have the sequence number, add 1 to it and append it to my File Name and Request ID.  The other problem is updating the value on the external list to value + 1.  It appears this is not possible from with infopath with a Submit Button.  Please advise if wrong, would be nice to do it here. 

Anyway, I got around this by adding the update sequence number to the workflow and execute it when workflow context is start on item creation.  This updates almost instantly... I also added Specific Sequence number columns for different Form Libraries all in the same row and it work perfectly and can scale very easily....

-Guy

 

Answer 2

 

You can use the number() function to increment the number from the list, then +1.

If your file_name was say: FILE_1234, you can do

concat("FILE_", number(substring( file_name, 6) ) + 1)

 

 

Also, you should probably query data when you click the button, that way it checks for the latest number and increment accordingly, and reduces chance of collision.

 

 

 

 

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jliu - johnliu.net - sharepointgurus.net