Using Sharepoint UserGroup Web Service with InfoPath Forms Service

When you create a data connection to the UserGroup Sharepoint Web Service and select the GetUserCollectionFromGroup method, Infopath doesn’t interpret the results correctly and you can’t use the data connection in a Drop Down List control. I’ve seen examples which use code to get around this problem, but I’m using the Forms Service so code is not an option. We need to modify Infopath’s xsd file of the web service data connection to fix the problem.

In the example below I will create a data connection to the http://moss/_vti_bin/usergroup.asmx web service to receive data to use in a Drop Down List to pick from the members of a Sharepoint Group.

1. Create the Data Connection

2. Select Web Service

3. Enter the URL to the UserGroup web service, don’t forget to include your site in the URL if appropriate.

4. For this example I’m using the GetUserCollectionFromGroup method

5. Provide InfoPath with an example Group Name

6. Provide InfoPath with the actual Group Name you want this Data Connection to query

7. Choose if you want to store a copy of the data in the form template for use in Offline mode. Since I’m using the Forms Service the form will never be used offline, so I’m leaving the box unchecked

8. Give your new Data Connection a name and Finish the wizard

Next we need to save the Form so we can manually edit the XSD for the Data Connection. From the File drop down manu choose Save as Source Files…
Open the folder where you saved the Form and you should see a Developers1.xsd file, edit this file with your favourite XML Editor (or notepad). Update the file so it looks like the snippet below, I’ve put in a comment at the start and end of the modification.



<schema elementformdefault="qualified" targetnamespace="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/soap/directory/" xmlns:http="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/http/" xmlns:mime="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/mime/" xmlns:s="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:soap12="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/soap12/" xmlns:soap="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/soap/" xmlns:soapenc="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/soap/encoding/" xmlns:tm="http://microsoft.com/wsdl/mime/textMatching/" xmlns:tns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/sharepoint/soap/directory/" xmlns:wsdl="http://schemas.xmlsoap.org/wsdl/">
 <complextype name="GetUserCollectionFromGroupType">
  <sequence>
   <element maxoccurs="1" minoccurs="0" name="Users">
    <complextype>
     <sequence>
      <element maxoccurs="unbounded" name="User">
       <complextype>
        <attribute name="Notes" type="s:string"></attribute>
        <attribute name="Name" type="s:string"></attribute>
        <attribute name="IsSiteAdmin" type="s:string"></attribute>
        <attribute name="Sid" type="s:string"></attribute>
        <attribute name="ID" type="s:string"></attribute>
        <attribute name="LoginName" type="s:string"></attribute>
        <attribute name="Email" type="s:string"></attribute>
        <attribute name="IsDomainGroup" type="s:string"></attribute>
       </complextype>
      </element>
     </sequence>
    </complextype>
   </element>
  </sequence>
 </complextype> 
 <element name="GetUserCollectionFromSite">
  <complextype></complextype>
 </element>
</schema>

We need to change another part of this file, replacing a s:element block.

<!--<s:element name="GetUserCollectionFromGroup">
  <s:complexType>
    <s:sequence>
      <s:element minOccurs="0" maxOccurs="1" name="groupName" type="s:string"></s:element>
    </s:sequence>
  </s:complexType>
</s:element>-->
<!-- Beginning of insert -->
<s:element name="GetUserCollectionFromGroup" type="tns:GetUserCollectionFromGroupType" />
<!-- End of insert -->

Now save the Developers1.xsd file, right click on the Manifest.xsf file and choose Design.

Add a Drop Down List Control and set its Data Source to Developers, you should now be able to select the correct attributes returned from the web service.

You can Save the Form as a standard XSN file, but DO NOT edit the Developers Data Source in InfoPath or you will overwrite the changes made to the Developers1.xsd file.