Improved support for data connections
By connecting your form to an external source of data, such as a database of employee information, you can include sophisticated functionality in your forms, including dynamic list boxes and offline data stores. The Microsoft Office InfoPath 2003 Service Pack offers the following new types of data connections and improvements to existing data connections:
Secondary data sources In addition to populating the choices for list boxes, you can now bind controls to secondary data sources. You can then use these controls to submit data to and query the secondary data source.
Web services The Web services data connection now allows you to easily connect to Web services that use ADO.NET DataSets to both receive and submit data.
Windows SharePoint Services libraries and lists The SharePoint library or list data connection allows you to receive data from a Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services form library or list in your InfoPath form. For example, the entries shown in a list box can come directly from items in a form library. In addition, you can create data connections that allow forms to be submitted to a Windows SharePoint Services form library.
Submit forms using an e-mail program Completed forms can now be submitted as an attachment in an e-mail message, with predefined recipients or recipients based on the content of the form.
Other submit options You can now submit a specific group or field in the form, just the contents of a group or field in the form, or the entire InfoPath form (including the processing instruction) to a Web service. In addition, you can submit the form's data as a string, which enables you to submit digitally signed data.