Pitchblack

Connecting InfoPath 2007 to WCF services

WCF Security and InfoPath 2007 have pretty poor integration, which means that it basically doesn’t work and some hacks have been necessary to get the forms to talk to the services. Below is a list of the required steps to ensure future services can be consumed by InfoPath forms.

WCF endpoints must implement the following in order to be consumed from within an InfoPath form:

Binding

 <service name="CustomerResponse.IssueService" behaviorConfiguration="CustomerResponse.IssueServiceBehavior">
            <endpoint address="" binding="basicHttpBinding" bindingConfiguration="Binding1" contract="CustomerResponse.IIssueService" />
        </service>

Security

<security mode="TransportCredentialOnly">

<transport clientCredentialType="Windows" />

</security>

If the clientCredentialType is set to NTLM then forms services will work fine, but in InfoPath 2007 client you will be prompted continually to enter credentials. This is especially annoying when testing the form before publishing.

Within the InfoPath form, in order to consume this service, a Data Connection must be made to the service, and then converted to a .udcx file; storing the file in a Data Connection Library in the target SharePoint site. Once the udcx file has been created, the following security credentials must be inserted, otherwise the service will not authenticate and an error will occur.

<udc:Authentication>

                     <udc:UseExplicit CredentialType="NTLM">

                           <udc:UserId>a valid user</udc:UserId>

                           <udc:Password>password</udc:Password>

                     </udc:UseExplicit>

       </udc:Authentication>

Idiosyncrasies of WCF/Entity Framework