Converted a (currently) paper inspection form to digital with infopath for use with a tablet, for digital data collection purposes via submission to Access. Currently we can fill out the Infopath form and the submit button submits the database & a XML
copy to our sharepoint library. Thought we were 90% of the way there but now running into some serious issues, even though data submission works fine.
First, the forms must be signed with either e-sigs or drawn on the form with tablet pen. E-sigs lock the form and prevent submission to the Access Database, and drawn ink picture sigs are stored as OLE and Infopath cannot submit OLE or large objects directly
to Access. So neither type of signature is working on our form when we hit the submit button.
So we thought about just printing the forms out from Sharepoint and signing them. However, we tried opening some few-day-old submitted forms (stored as .xml) from sharepoint and they will not open stating "Schema Validation Errors", a field from
the template it expected was missing or something, I am not an expert. These are regulated documents and need to be robust so this type of unexpected issue is unacceptable.
I am now considering submitting the data to Access and then exporting the filled form as a .pdf, but there is no Infopath rule to export that I see and this whole thing is getting hokey now.
I just want to fill out a form, sign it with a tablet pen, and press one button that submits the data as an access record and stores a printable copy (pdf preferred). Disappointed that there seems to be no straightforward, out-of-the-box solution to do this
