The subject line basically says it all. I have a custom list that has several columns, including a Person one for Employee and another Person one for Manager. The requirement for my project is that when a user selects an employee name in the People Picker, the Manager column is automaticaly populated *at runtime* with the selected employee's manager...based on whatever is in our user profiles (which we source from AD daily).
I've search the web extensively. Most of the answers point to the SPServices jQuery project on CodePlex, but this API does not return the manager. Other people have resorted to developing custom web parts or InfoPath forms. I could do either easily, but the users want to use an out of the box list interface instead.
Using MOSS 2007, is there anyone that has done this successfully? In my company, we actually have a web service that has nothing to do with SharePoint that allows me to pass in an account ID and get the manager name. Is it possible to call a non-SharePoint web service from inside my NewForm.aspx form and set a People Picker control at runtime?
I'm totally open to suggestions on how to accomplish this, given the parameters described above (no custom web parts, no InfoPath...just customizing the NewForm.aspx page). Any code samples or implementation links would also be helpful; instead of the "you should be able to make x work theoretically" type of responses please. I've scoured the web, but I may have missed that gold nugget.
Thanks