I have a user who insists on using Infopath for a piece of their business process. Are there any freelance individuals willing to take on a very small piece of work?
Tell your user he's an idiot... as Microsoft has discontinued InfoPath. http://blogs.office.com/2014/01/31/update-on-infopath-and-sharepoint-forms/ Microsoft stopped using InfoPath internally nearly a year ago. SharePoint forms is the future. SOURCE: I used to work there and used InfoPath daily.
^ this See the topic summary table on the right of this Wikipedia entry for "Development Status" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_InfoPath They could still have reasons for maintaining legacy software, but you might not be able to find someone interested in working on that project.
And for this reason, hiring a developer will be extremely expensive as the only people who will continue to develop in abandoned technologies are those looking to bilk money from companies too lazy to change. Of course, they have to take this tactic as their number of potential customers will dwindle exponentially over time. All of the best programmers will have moved onto SharePoint, which is clearly the future for Microsoft... or .NET MVC.
I am 100% on board with you, but they insist that the form used to update information in a SharePoint list must be prettier than the default Sharepoint forms. I'm great at making s*** work, but not nearly as good at making it pretty. If you have a suggestion for how to accomplish this without Infopath and without purchasing something like Nintex, I'd love to hear about it.
I completely understand what Microsoft means by "deprecated," but it has proven extremely difficult to talk this user out of their desire for something prettier than the default SharePoint form.
You'll have an easier time finding a SharePoint developer/designer to make your SharePoint form look pretty than an InfoPath developer.
InfoPath, eh?! I specialize in developing for legacy MS software. PM me if you need anything for MS Works, especially if it runs on ME.
You guys don't know what you are talking about. Infopath will be alive and well till further notice. Read: http://www.formotus.com/16643/blog-infopath/microsoft-announces-future-infopath Ya'll got erroneous information from wiki.
They aren't going to replace it, they are pushing people to SharePoint and custom forms either via HTML, JavaScript, C# or VisualBasic. This guy demo's the process pretty well - <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Mywu3Ll6KLA" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Microsoft showed with SharePoint 2013 (which I just rolled out for my company) that they want it to encompass nearly everything for a company. They also have some pretty exciting stuff that they are announcing at Build Conference (in two weeks) and Ignite Conference (in three weeks). I'll be at Ignite Conference and will be at a lot of the SharePoint sessions, so I'd have more info then. As an FYI - Clutch Fan's very own Harrisment is a SharePoint PFE for that big company from Redmond, so he may be able to shed some light on it too. I've only been a SharePoint admin for about 8 months or so.
Erroneous information? I think I pretty much hit the nail on the head when I said SharePoint was the future. Also, do NOT confuse the Office 365 road map with the SharePoint road map. Office 365's SharePoint Online diverges greatly from on-premise SharePoint in may ways. We'll know more at Ignite when they officially announce the new SharePoint... but the Infopath client is indeed dead, and all future uses will flow through SharePoint directly.