Update:  I Love SharePoint

A lot of people seem to think that Sharepoint and MOSS are wonderful things - a joy to behold!  As of today, I am not one of them.

I've been handed two jobs that require the use of InfoPath forms.  The first is to create a Leave Application form for our intranet.  The other is a bigger project of about 30 forms for a local government site.

As these seemed relatively straightforward things to do I thought it would be a good opportunity to learn and dispel my bad impressions.

So, this is a dynamic post of the issues I have with InfoPath, WSS, MOSS & Forms Services.  As I find solutions or overcome my frustrations I will update (and apologise where necessary).  I'll also include a summary at the end and my current mood.

InfoPath Issues

Contact Selector. 

This is an ActiveX control that is used on InfoPath forms to allow users to select a user from ActiveDirectory.  It requires inclusion of a custom data source (xml file) and creation of fields with very specific names. 

1. To use more than 1 contact selector on the page requires you to create reference fields - which currently confuse the hell out of me.
2. Because you can only have a single Context data source in the form, all contact selectors will work against the same domain.
3. There is no way to filter what the user can select.  I want a contact selector to only allow groups to be selected.  This is not possible.
4. Contact selector does work on browser enabled forms.  It is the only ActiveX control that does this and it appears as though it's hard wired to work.  According to the InfoPath blog there is absolutely no way to create your own ActiveX control that will work in browser forms.
5. Setting a rule on drop down lists will get you 6 level deep in modal dialogs.  This is a very bad UX.

Lookups

I can attach a drop down list to Sharepoint list very easily but I can only set the display and value fields.  The list I'm displaying has 3 values - ID, Team Name and Manager Email.  I store the ID in the form, display the Team Name in the drop down and I need to find the Managers Email from the Workflow when the form is submitted.

Designer

1. Moving tables is impossible.  You can't drag and drop a table and cutting and pasting will trash the contents.

Sharepoint Designer Issues

Getting pretty picky now.

1. When editing a workflow, you can't right-click the Workflow item and select New workflow.  You have to go to the file/new menu option for that.
2. Cannot change the format of emails sent from the workflow.  The emails are pretty ugly really.
3. Workflow Lookups are very confusing. 

WSS Issues

1. All to often you fall off the edge of the Sharepoint world and are required to use command line tools - the horrendous STSAdm.exe mostly.  This has more options than a Linux command shell!  I understand the need for a command line tool but why-oh-why isn't here a GUI version?
2. Publishing an InfoPath form to Sharepoint is pretty easy until you want them browser enabled.  This requires an admin install of the template.  An admin install requires 1) access to the central admin site, 2) an upload of the file from a hard drive (not from a Sharepoint list), 3) activation of the template in a site and 4) configuration of a list to use the new content type created for the form, 5) local machine administrator group membership. This is bloody ridiculous when you consider that publishing a non-browser enabled form works from InfoPath with 3 or 4 clicks of the mouse.
3. The help is complete rubbish.  It's either far to simple or vague or blank.

Workflow Performance

You cannot have more than 10 workflow's active on a single list and submitting 3 forms with workflow concurrently to the same list kills the server. This was proven for another site we did recently.  If I was paying the (huge) bill for MOSS, this would be a show stopper.  Thankfully there is K2.

Update: I've been informed by someone much more informed than I (thanks Paul) that there is no 10 workflow limit.  In fact there is a WSS property that can be set to specify the event delivery throttle.  I wish we had know about this a lot sooner - it's too late for 1 customer :(.  Full details here:  http://technet2.microsoft.com/Office/en-us/library/93a3282e-00d2-4d03-9721-df42b5aa7cfb1033.mspx?mfr=true

Deployment

I have yet to do this but from what I have seen - don't go there.  Create your forms and content directly into your production environment. 

1. You can't package forms in a STP file.  You have to deploy these separately.  This will probably require hacking the raw XML files of the form.  You also need to generate a .JS script file or MSI using yet another command line tool.

Summary

There are sooo many holes in WSS & MOSS  & related tools that it's a wonder anyone is using it.  When you consider that this is the 3rd version of Sharepoint - albeit a massive re-write - it's woefully inadequate.  It's much more like a v1.0 product.

If you need to create InfoPath forms that require any custom code - DONT!  Just create a windows or web app that talks to Sharepoint lists.

If you have complex workflow requirements or require high performance - use K2 or host workflow's in your own service - DONT use Sharepoint for it.

Current Mood: Tony says I'm Indifferent but I feel reluctant. Not nearly as grumpy about SharePoint as when I wrote this but reticent to withdraw the post completelty.