SharePoint lists provide three different types of forms to interact with items within the list – view item, edit item and new item. InfoPath by default only lets you customize the edit item form. However, there is an easy way to customize each type of form seaparately. Watch this video to see how it’s done.

Microsoft Excel is often used to create forms. Now you can use the investment made into creating these forms by transferring them directly to InfoPath. InfoPath 2010 allows you to import a Excel workbook directly as a form template. Once imported, you can make the modifications to the form as needed.

Microsoft Word is often used to create forms. Now you can use the investment made into creating these forms by transferring them directly to InfoPath. InfoPath 2010 allows you to import a Word document directly as a form template. Once imported, you can make the modifications to the form as needed.

One of the options of InfoPath form template deployment, in SharePoint Server Enterprise, is by making it an Administrator approved form template. This can be done with any InfoPath form template, but is the required deployment option for form templates that have code behind them or are enabled for mobile devices. Deploying a form template in this way will make it available as a site collection feature throughout the SharePoint farm.

InfoPath form templates can be encompassed within a content type. The benefit of doing this is so you can reuse this content type within multiple libraries. If you later need to update the form template, you can update it in InfoPath and republish it to the content type and all libraries that are using this content type will get updated.

This video starts out with an InfoPath form with cascading drop-downs already enabled showing information from database tables. The data connections are converted to UDCX connection files and stored in a data connection library within a SharePoint site. Then InfoPath forms services settings are adjusted to allow the use of these connections. Lastly, the form is published to a form library where it can be filled out by an end user.

Showing parent-child information in an InfoPath form is very beneficial to a variety of scenarios. This video shows how you can setup the form to fetch data from database tables related to product information (Category, Subscategory, Product). Drop-down lists are used to show this related information such that when a category is selected, the related subcategories appear in the next drop-down. Subsequently, when a subcategory is selected, the related product information is populated in the next drop-down.

An InfoPath form template is capable of making connections to a variety of external data sources such as databases, SharePoint Lists and Libraries, XML files, and web services. This video shows how you can make connections and fetch data from a database table and a SharePoint list into your form.

SharePoint Server Enterprise ships with a web part called InfoPath Form web part. This web part has the capability to show any InfoPath form – list form or library form. This video shows how you can place an InfoPath Form web part below a list and make a connection between the two. The end result is to show the details of the list item, when it’s clicked, in the InfoPath Form web part.

If you are running SharePoint Server 2010 Enterprise, you can use InfoPath 2010 to modify SharePoint list forms. You can take advantage of all that InfoPath has to offer (conditional formatting, validation, etc.) when customizing the list form. This video shows how you can modify the out of the box Tasks list in SharePoint using InfoPath.