Enabling InfoPath for SharePoint Online

Brass Contributor

We were thinking about enabling InfoPath on our SharePoint Online platform.

The attached message appears which caused some concern.

It states that O365 will support InfoPath forms through 2015.

InfoPathMessage.png

 When you go to the web site that is suggested, it takes you to the original InfoPath announcement. Which includes that for O365 - InfoPath will be support until further notice.
So was this 2015... or is this a typo?

Has anyone enabled InfoPath on SharePoint Online? If so can you share your experiences?

36 Replies

I agree with a lot of things said here. InfoPath has been incredibly valuable for years. It's value is now diminishing the longer it goes without new development. PowerApps is awesome - but it's not a feature by feature replacement. The window doesn't have to be all the way up or all the way down.

 

PowerApps can be frustrating for people like me with a long-standing InfoPath habit. Many times I find it helpful to re-focus on the required outcome rather than on a required feature. Frequently, if I stop drawing up the InfoPath solution in my head, I can more creatively use the new things PowerApps offers and solve the problem a different way.

 

One strategy I've seen work well with organizations that are going with a hybrid environment is to allow InfoPath on-prem, but not allow it online. InfoPath is not evil, it's not dangerous to use, and it's not redundant. Nothing bad happens if you start building InfoPath forms in your online environment - but you're creating work for yourself down the line. I do believe MS will eventually stop extending the date. This kind of split strategy isn't possible if your online-only, but it is helpful if you're going hybrid. It creates kind of a gate where you can still use InfoPath on-prem, but a trigger that forces you to consider PowerApps or something more modern for things that you want to put online.

We have used InfoPath since its beginning and built very excellent business apps with it and SharePoint.  We have also implemented PowerApss for some new applications and they seem to work fine (Not as many features and capabilities as InfoPath!)

 

But the biggest issue no one has raised is that PowerApps cannot be used by a guest user!!  Most of our apps have the need for outside individuals to use them (Like a consultant or client).  We are not going to give those people an office 365 account with our company just to use a form.  We have NO such issues when using InfoPath.

 

Why did Microsoft do this?  If they wanted us to move from InfoPath to PowerApps then let us provide for guest users also.

 

I am more of a PowerApps develloper than infoPath developer. I have to say I am helping a company move from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 365 cloud. I opted to modify their forms using PowerApps and was very disappointed to see PowerApps does not support some basic SharePoint controls such as radio buttons, checkboxes and even large text areas. The radio and checkbox controls were forced into drop-down menues. The multiline boxes were collapsed into one line. With these limitations in PowerApps, I can see what SharePoint users want to continue with InfoPath as sad as that is. Microsoft needs to fix these PowerApps limitations ASAP. In fact, I would say PowerApps is not ready to replace InfoPath at this point. I wish it was...

@Deleted Multiline text fields do exist in PowerApps and can be used with Multiline (plain text) text fields in SharePoint, and show as a multi-line control in the form. As for the radio buttons/checkboxes, yes the default is a drop down for those SharePoint choice fields... but this doesn't mean you can't use Radio Buttons and Checkboxes in your form, that get data or update data from a SharePoint choice field. You can update the default and update property on the controls to map to the SP Choice FIeld Dropdown Card values.

This is great news. Why when users click on "Open with PowerApps" does it wipe out the existing radio controls? It also shrunk the multi line fields to a single line...

So one other big problem with PowerApps vs InfoPath.  How do you save a great powerapp form as part of a site or list template?  You could do this with InfoPath and a form Library... but PowerApps are still weak in support of building real enterprise type apps.

@Deleted
You can enable InfoPath on SPO from the SharePoint Admin Center | Infopath | Browser-enabled Form Templates | "Allow users to browser-enable form templates" and "Render form templates that are browser-enabled by users" are your choices.

@Deleted 

PowerApps and Microsoft Flow, coming nativaly in Office 365,

So I need pay the license only for this. or my account office 365. coming included

@Bruce McGraw 

...and external users cannot view/use powerapps forms. Not a big deal for some, but we work on major projects with multiple partners and organizations. Until MS figures this out powerapps is dead to us. If/when they permanently retire InfoPath we would have to jump to Nintex or other.

@Chad WoodwardMicrosoft Forms can be used with anyone and could be a good replacement for some InfoPath forms.

MS Forms as in the simple survey / quiz maker? lol, we need databound controls at minimum, with some basic capacity for logic and code; a business tool. Not sure why they named it Forms, should have been called MS Poll Maker.
I agree that MS Forms is can be another option in various cases - if you need the database control, you could create a flow that populates a SharePoint list whenever an MS form is filled out.

@Dean Gross Hello!

We need to create complex forms with entries displayed from multiple lists.

At the same time, some portion of the form in edit mode while some in new item mode.

Our list also has more than 2000 entries.

Can you suggest something for this?

Current forms are on-prem, we need to build this functionality on SP Online

 

Thanks,

 

Open SharePoint Admin Center > Classic features > More classic features > InfoPath (open).

It is now 2020 and I can guarantee you this is not the case.

@Dean Gross Reason for using InfoPath still is because PowerApps licenses are expensive. For a company that has warehouse workers and do not need an E3 license but need access to a form, IP still works for free. 

not exactly an answer but we have tried many alternatives to infpath, nintex, nfowise, powerapps, but so far the best was nintex forms.