Jacqueline van der Holst

In an infopath form you can create a control, a dropdownlist for example, and you can bind it to a Sharepoint list. When you do this you have to inform the infopath control at what location your site is and the name of the list. This is all nice, but if you want to deploy the Infopath form to multiple Sharepoint sites then you constantly have to change this binding.

To solve this problem you van create a Universal Data Connection. In this post I will tell you how that is done. 

First you create a Data Connection Library on your Sharepoint. You can find this option when you click on documents and then create.

Secondly you van put a dropdownlist on your Infopath Form and bind it to a Sharepoint list you created. Then in your Datasources of the Infopath you can choose “Manage Data Connections” and then select the datasource to the list. Then press “Convert”. Here you can save your datasource as a Universal Data Connection File on your Sharepoint Site. You only have to tell infopath where your Data Connection Library is at. After this is done the file is on your Sharepoint Site.

Now in Infopath you can delete the datasource to the Sharepoint list and add a datasource to your Universal Data Connection File. When you deploy the infopath to another site you only have to make a Data Connection Library and change the file. (You can change the GUID of the list and the URL to the Sharepoint site).

I think it is a pitty that you can only create one Universal Data Connection File per list.