Migrating InfoPath forms from SharePoint 2010 to Online

Introduction
InfoPath was never built for SharePoint to begin with - that's the fact that many people miss. It was retrofitted to support SharePoint so that forms solutions could be used on SharePoint
There are limitations inside InfoPath that could not have grown with the SharePoint trajectory. Because of that, Microsoft turned to researching a Web-based solution for the design and creation of forms in SharePoint or somewhere online instead of doing it on a desktop, which InfoPath does
How InfoPath forms are used in SharePoint 2010?
When you customize the SharePoint List/Library with InfoPath form then one of the following solutions is implemented:

1. Customizing the default SharePoint List template(customizing the new, edit & display forms/views) - forms connected with "Item Content Type". This can be connected with SharePoint Designer to automate business process with workflows - example: Send emails

2. Customizing the SharePoint Form Library where "Form Content Type" is used to store the forms. User will fill the form and submits the form back to the form library

3. Advanced solutions involves two types of implementations
i) Using data connections - data from Database, Web Service (.asmx / WCF services), XML, etc.
ii) Using custom code/sandbox solutions - writing custom codes for custom events using C#/VB scripts https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office/ee526362.aspx

Problems/Issues/Known facts

1. There will be no InfoPath 2016, but InfoPath 2013 is filling that role.
SharePoint 2016 works with InfoPath 2013, which will be supported until 2026 as if it were part of Office 2016.
2. InfoPath 2013 is now available in the Microsoft Download Center.
3. Microsoft has provided guidance that the successor to InfoPath will be PowerApps, but with caveats: feature parity with InfoPath is not a goal, and InfoPath will still be preferred for some scenarios involving offline work and rich XML documents, for example.

4. Office 365 will support InfoPath browser forms in SharePoint Online ‘until further notice‘. There were indications that support might end one year after the release of Office 2016, but that date has now passed.
5. InfoPath browser forms with code do not work with the Managed Solutions Gallery (2013, 2016)6. InfoPath browser forms with code do not work on SharePoint Online. Reference: Removing Code-Based Sandbox Solutions in SharePoint Online
7. InfoPath browser forms do not work on mobile devices when SharePoint Online mobile view is enabled.
8. There are reports of problems using InfoPath 2013 with Outlook 2016 email.
9. Microsoft's Forms Preview is determined not to be InfoPath replacement
Reference: https://blog.formotus.com/enterprise-mobility/microsoft-announces-future-infopath
10. InfoPath form in SharePoint Online doesn’t support some web service data connection which are supported in SP 2010
This issue occurs because loopback protection is enabled in the SharePoint Online environment. Loopback protection must be disabled for InfoPath forms to be able to connect to a SharePoint Online web service. This works only when loopback protection is disabled. For security reasons, loopback protection is always enabled in SharePoint Online. This is a known limitation of InfoPath forms in the Office 365 SharePoint Online. But as confirmed by Microsoft. it is not possible to disable it due to security issue.
Error message when you connect an InfoPath form to a SharePoint Online web service: "An error occurred while connecting to a Web Service"
Only the following web services are supported:
 lists.asmx
  CheckOutFile
  CheckInFile
 usergroup.asmx   GetUserCollectionFromGroup
  GetUserCollectionFromSite
  GetGroupCollectionFromWeb
 UserProfileService.asmx  GetUserProfileByName  (If you are using User Profile Service connections and classic authentication?  You might have to update rules/formatting to handle the claims usernames now that are standard in 2013/Online)
  GetUserPropertyByAccountName
  GetCommonManager
  GetUserMemberships
  GetCommonMemberships
References: Microsoft on the Future of InfoPath
InfoPath 2010 features unavailable in Web browser forms
Microsoft's next steps/strategy

1. InfoPath 2013 will remain the latest version and no more new versions will be released
2. The guidance (from Microsoft) is that InfoPath will still be supported through 2026, which is a long time in terms of software technology.
Support
Reference: https://blogs.office.com/en-us/2016/01/20/sharepoint-server-2016-and-project-server-2016-release-candidate-available/
3. Microsoft is going to deprecate SharePoint Designer, too, which I understand is used to build sites, workflows, create themes, page layouts and many other uses.
4. Microsoft's answer is that SharePoint Designer 2013 will work with SharePoint Server 2016, just like InfoPath 2013 will work with SharePoint Server 2016. This is good for SharePoint On-Premise users
5. For SharePoint Online (Office 365), Microsoft's answers are:
Microsoft Power Apps in place of InfoPath forms (Power Apps not a complete replacement/alternative to InfoPath forms but still this is an option available now)
Microsoft Flow in place of SharePoint Designer for workflows
The above features/additions are made keeping Cloud first and Mobile first strategy in the mind
Other Considerations
There are a couple things to think about when you’re complete. 
1. You’ve changed the version of SharePoint. If you’re upgrading say from Office 2010 to Office 2013 and InfoPath 2013 has some changes from 2010 to think about
2. Check all your data connections and ensure they work
Hopefully this allowed you to migrate a complex InfoPath list form from SharePoint 2010 to SharePoint 2013/Online with relative ease.
Happy Share(ing)Point! 

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Update on InfoPath and SharePoint forms

As part of the update shared around the Evolution of SharePoint and the next SharePoint Server on-premises release, we are also updating the timelines for removal of InfoPath Forms Services components of SharePoint and SharePoint Online. Specifically, InfoPath Forms Services will be included in the next on-premises release of SharePoint Server 2016, as well as being fully supported in Office 365 until further notice. Customers will be able to confidently migrate to SharePoint Server 2016 knowing that their InfoPath forms will continue to work in their on-premises environments, as well as in Office 365. 

The InfoPath 2013 application remains the last version to be released and will work with SharePoint Server 2016.

Ref : http://blogs.office.com/2014/01/31/update-on-infopath-and-sharepoint-forms/ 

This gives answer for many migration questions with regard to InfoPath forms in SharePoint lower versions.

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Recommendations for maintaining Infopath performance

I'm creating an InfoPath form that is a bit large and starting to lag so I decided to look up better practices for developing InfoPath forms to maintain performance. Here is what I found online:

- Keep views from being too large or complex. Split large views into several smaller ones with buttons to switch between them.

- Avoid lots of tables (data or layout) in any single view.

- Use Master/Detail to reduce the number of controls in one page, whenever possible.

- Try to use filter to filter the table rows (instead of conditional

formatting).

- Avoid large repeating data structures that can grow to many pages.

-Avoid complex nesting of optional and repeatable sections. These are quite complicated to layout and also can quickly cause a single view to become very large.

- Avoid using Percentage width for your controls if your view contains lots of nested controls. We have seen over 50% improvements by using Fixed Width. You can apply specify a fixed width in the control's properties dialog.

- Be aware of exactly what your business logic does. For example, onAfterChange can fire multiple times for a single edit.

- Rather than querying for all the data then having InfoPath just show a small amount, refine your query and only bring the data you plan on displaying into InfoPath.

- Only get the data you need to load the form. Don't pre-populate data sources that aren't necessary on load.

- Merge static xml data sources into one if you have multiple xml data connections.

- Use Expression Box to display calculated value if you don't need to store the value. If you have business logic to trigger all the calculation, only trigger necessary calculation. Triggering large amount of calculations is costly.

- When using digital signatures, only digitally sign the information you need to. Signing takes a screenshot of the data signed and encodes it in the form. The larger the screenshot, the larger the xml will become with the encoded image.

- Avoid attaching large files to the form. These files are encoded in the xml and can cause issues if they become too large. Provide links over embedding large files if possible.

- Avoid embedding images in a form. For the same reasons as above.

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How to convert Infopath form to word document

Sometimes you may need to convert an InfoPath form into a Word document so you can send it to users that either don’t have InfoPath or can’t access your  SharePoint form library. Luckily there is an easy process to do so.

Steps to convert InfoPath form to Word:

1) Open your .xsn InfoPath project file

2) Go to File -> Export To -> Web

3) Enter a name for the file and make sure “Single File Web Page (*.mht;*.mhtml)” for Save as type is selected. Click Export

4) Locate your new .mht file and open it with Word.

5) You should see your InfoPath form in Word. You may have to adjust any checkboxes or radio buttons that may be on the form. Make sure to save the file as a .doc or .docx file type when you’re done

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