InfoPath Dev

A follow up to my other posted message. I posted this in the View forum as well.

My infopath 2003 form has 6 views and when the form is initially launched from Sharepoint 2003, it takes approx 45 seconds to load. I have a lot of things built into the form but I can't image that this is normal.

Any suggestions on improving performance is appreciated.
Thanks
Lou

Obviously the amount of data being loaded can have a big effect. I have had forms which query hundereds of rows in a database take minutes to load the data.
Another aspect is the way the data is displayed or laid out. If you have multiple repeating tables or sections these can also take time to populate the data depending on how it is displayed.

Possibly pictures or attached files can impact this as well.

From an optimization stand point you may have some data connections that are loading that do not need to. By default all secondary connections want to load when the form loads. Sometimes not all users need this data or you may want to get the form loaded and then manually load the data when it is needed through the process.

I would suggest auditing your data connections first and making sure they are essential and when you want them queried. SQL connections can be modified to limit the amount of data by either only selecting the fields needed or modifying the SQL statement to remove extra data that is not necessary.

Then I would look at each view and analyze exactly what is in each. Sometimes you could have a view that is no longer used that can be removed.

Lastly I always create a datadump view for testing and have it display all the data. It will not perform well but it gives you visibility to exactly what is getting loaded. Sometimes you are getting more from a data connection than you realize or intend so this way you can see exactly what is being loaded so you can understand what is taking the time.

Just some ideas.

Clay

Thanks for the info.....

I don't think its the data connections. I only have 4 fields that are drawing data from sharepoint lists and the lists aren't that long.

I do have repeating tables and a lot of fields in the form. In fact, I created a project management gannt chart comprising of 288 text fields that are conditionally formatted to populate colors. I guess its just the nature of the form and there isn't anything to really do to improve the loading performance.

Once the form loads, then it works fine. Its just the intial load.

Hi Lou

You might want to look at that chart with 288 text fields and the conditional formatting, I am guessing that is where a lot of your load time probably is.

Your post reminded me of a thread I read a while back where performance was discussed in detail and the forms they were talking about seem to be a lot bigger than yours:

http://groups.google.com/group/microsoft.public.infopath/browse_thread/thread/4af482484f3bc6a9/ca37400105ab7e87?lnk=st&q=infopath+performance+issues&rnum=1&hl=en#ca37400105ab7e87

I recognize all of those issues in that thread may not apply to you but it may help you. 45 seconds seems like a long time to load. And i would also look at SharePoint too, even though you only have 4 fields - the connections still need to be made.

Good luck!

As a follow up- how can we monitor all of the events that occur while a form is loading to look for performance issues?
Dean