Better integration with existing business processes
The act of filling out a form is often one step in a larger business process that involves other tools, processes, or people. The Microsoft Office InfoPath 2003 Service Pack improves support for forms that are part of a business process by including or improving the following features:
Digital signatures Users can now sign specific sets of data in a form, insert and see a digital signature in a form, and view a form as it looked when it was signed. In addition, users can add comments to their digital signature.
User roles When designing a form, you can create categories, called user roles, and then assign users to those roles. This is helpful when you want to change the view of a form or the behavior of certain controls based on a particular user role. For example, in an expense report form, managers and employees might see different versions of the same form.
Human Workflow Services Human Workflow Services (HWS) is an information worker service that comes with Microsoft BizTalk Server 2004. HWS lets companies create business processes that users can interact with in programs like InfoPath. When filling out a form in InfoPath, the Workflow task pane lets users activate an HWS action and respond to HWS tasks. For example, a user can assign a form to his or her manager for review by clicking a button on the Workflow task pane.