InfoPath Dev

Hi, I have a form that is used to create quotes for jobs. My problem is as more items are added to the form the slower it gets. Let me explain the form: I have a repeating section for each item in a quote. Within this section I have another repeating section which pulls product data from a database. The user would choose a product through a number of drop downs and then enter a qty. Like a bill of quantities. Next, I have a simple repeating table with values calculated based on details of the products above. Next, there is some total fields and user editable fields like markup% etc. Lastly there is another repeating table with more costs based calculations, then a few more total fields. This works fine, even if the user has a good few product entries within the one repeating section. The problem arises as more actual items (main repeating section) are added. Any changes to fields, calculations start to take longer and longer. After about 6 you can be waiting up to 10-15 seconds to jump from one field to another. I am trying to find a better way to do this without loosing performance. I have 2 ideas, but not sure if they can be done. 1) I was hoping that I could fill in one repeating section and instead of click to insert the next section have a button to send all data in the current section into another view, remove the current section and start a new one. Thus leaving the user with only one section on screen at once. This may or may not solve the performance issue as the data is still in the form, just not in the current view? But I would also need to be able to pull a item back, should any changed need to be made. 2) I make the whole calculation part of an item a form by its self and just have a button to open the form to create an item. Then when saved to sharepoint pull the final required item details (qty, desc, price) into the current form (and maybe a link reopen the item if changes need to be made). I would be glad of any feedback on this or any other idea you may have. Thanks bmcomp

Hi bmcomp,

Yes, you have hit one of those InfoPath performance issues, most likely with the calculations and the combination of repeating tables.  The rules/calculations are taking time to render in InfoPath.

Have you read this msdn article that talks about how to tune InfoPath? http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb380251.aspx  It should be of some help.

We also offer an InfoPath "detailing" service.  With this service one of our InfoPath MVP's will take a look at your template and deliver an analysis of the form and where performance improvements could be made.  This service won't actually fix the form but will provide you with a detailed report about your form and offer suggestions on improvments - it's a very useful service.  You can find out more details about the service here: http://www.qdabra.com/en/consulting/detailingService.aspx

Feel free to send me a private message if you want to discuss the service in more detail.

Ted

Hi Ted, Thanks for the reply. I forgot that I posted this here! But I did have a look at the article and came up with a solution. The problem was as you said the rendering of each rule/calculation in the view (even though the user would only be editing one item in the table) all fields/tables where being rendered after every change. So in turn as it grew the form slowed down. I solved it by creating a drop-down filter at the top of the view to filter the main repeating table so only one item was in the view at one time. Then added a rule when a new item is inserted it would update the drop-down filter to the new item id. Now the form performs much faster. Thanks again.