InfoPath Dev

Hi,

I have a  web-enabled Infopath form with a multiple selection list box that is populated from an external data source (another list) . The MSLB also requires  "allow user to enter custom values".   The datasource is set up to "automatically retrieve on form load". It works fine, but my users are now saying it is slowing their performance.   Now, I am trying to revise the form. I removed the automatic retrieval on the datasource, and added a checkbox to the form so they could populate the MSLB only when needed.  That works fine.  My problem  when they make selections, save,  then go back into the form, all the saved selections are now displayed in updateable text boxes  (next to the checkbox), and I  don't want that. For example, aaa, bbb are selected from the external  list, and they add abc as their custom entry.  When they save and re-open the form, there are 3 entries selected, but aaa, bbb, and abc are all in texboxes (vs abc only). 

 It displays correctly in the following cases: 1) I select the checkbox to refresh the entire list  OR 2) if I remove the "allow users to enter custom values" from the control.  I have been playing with the rules, etc., but cannot find a solution or any similar posts.  Another note, once they select the checkbox to refresh, performance seems to slow, so it is not practical that the checkbox should be selected every time they go into the form.     Thank you for your assistance.

 My guess is that all three entries are displayed as text boxes because when you close and reopen the form you lose the connection to your secondary datasource.  Secondary data sources are not persisted when a form is closed, which means that if you're not re-querying the data source when the form is reopened you will lose the connection to it, and the form will treat aaa and bbb as exactly the same as abc, because the reopened form will have no way of knowing that aaa and bbb are connected to that data source.

Is there some way to filter the results your data source returns? Or do you really need to display all of the information in that data source every time the user needs to make a selection?

Your response makes sense, and was helpful.   Thank you!  Based on that,  I tested a query to return  1 result and set the rule  on the form load.  It did display as desired, but the performance issue returned (which was the original issue).  My interim solution is to set the field as "read-only" until they select the checkbox to refresh the list.  (If I left it as editable, it would allow the users to update any of the previous entries and the behavior was erratic).