InfoPath Dev

When I put in today() instead of 1899 its returning todays date with the validation error in the text box now when I type in an invalid time. I'm trying to get it so that it just displays whatever invalid time was put in, if its greater than 23:59 or less than 00:00. I tried some conditional formatting with the rules playing around with the order of less than or greater then with 23:59 or 00:00 without success.

I realize that using today will return today's date. I thought that may be less confusing for your users.

You want them to enter 2359, right? And have the colon added? So your condition would be if the entry is greater that 2359, without the colon. You are going to have challenges with this because you may also want to verify that they don't enter anything greater than "59" for the last to chars in the string - you may need to add a condition to check for that as well.

Thanks Hilary. Forgive me but I'm still stooped on this (I'm very novice when it comes to any programming whatsoever). Yes I want them to enter 2359 and have the colon added with the condition that if they enter anything greater than that (ie 2360 would be an error), it just stays on that value they entered with the validation error rather then defaulting to todays date or the 1899 date format. I noticed that for example if I manually add in the colon with an invalid time (I.E. 55:55) then 55:55 is what is displayed when I tab away with the validation red box error, which is what I want it to show (just what is typed in). The colon doesn't have to be there (ie automatically added), so if they typed in 5555 then a validation is shown with just "5555" in the box. I'm unsure where I would set that condition exactly. Do I add it on to the existing conditions (set condition) for both rules? I tried doing stuff there that wasn't working, like saying only apply rule (along with the other conditions) if the time is less than 23:59 (they make me type in a colon since the only options for a greater than condition are typing in a date and time which they want a year, month, and day with the time, select a field or group or use a formula) but that did nothing.

Another way to put all this is can I display something else as an error in the box, if an invalid date is put in there? 

 I really appreciate all the help so far!

See if this does what you want as far as resetting the value.

Thanks Hilary almost there. That's exactly what I want it to do. The only difference when I apply the condition in my form is now when something greater than 2359 is entered, 00:00 is returned with the validation error. I'm still wondering if its because the field in my form is binded to a data field in Access with the node for my field having that 1899-12-30T in it with the data type being optional_dateTime.notz under the binding whereas the field in the sample form you gave isn't binded to something from Access (data type is Date and Time (datetime) . I've double checked everything and I have my rules with conditions and values entered exactly the same as what is shown in the sample so that's the only difference I can think of, just like last time. I'd prefer it to do what its doing in the sample but if nothing can be done after this point, it looks much better than before with 00:00.

I think its pretty safe to say that it does have something to do with the binding to the Access database fields of why its returning 0:00 when I type in an invalid time. I created a separate access database with just one field (called Time) and created one field in infopath also called time. I linked the access database to the form and binded the time field in infopath to the time field in Access. I applied the rules with the conditions to add the colon and reset the value when an invalid time is entered. Same thing happens the value defaults to 0:00 when an invalid time is entered. I did what you said before by disabling the rules and entering a time with the colon manually and then looking up the node after saving as an xml for the time field I created and it says <d:Table1 ID="" Time="1899-12-30T23:59:00"></d:Table1>. In the sample form you gave me doing the same thing disabling the rules and saving an xml and opening it in notepad the node there says <my:field1>1899-12-30T22:33:00</my:field1>. So the format of the date and time look the same but why does it return 0:00 in my form? Again data type under the properties says optional_dateTime.notz and is greyed out whereas in the sample it says Date and Time for data type and isn't greyed out.

As I mentioned before if there's an easy way around this, I'd like it to do what it does in your sample form but if not, the 0:00 looks better than before. I really appreciate all the help so far and couldn't have gotten to this point without your help Hilary :)

Yes, the data type can't be changed if you are using a database bound form. That is expected behavior.

Either way I'm satisfied with that portion now. The other thing I'm trying to get it to do now is to run some sorta search query on the data that is being received from my access database. In the picture below is what my form looks like with the entry fields in the table at the top (the main connection submit query) then the table at the bottom is all the entered records ordered by most recent date which is a second query data connection receiving the info that is stored in my access database from running the first submit query (all info is gibberish for testing purposes). Is there a way, by the users command using date pickers and a search box, to narrow down the received data list to display a particular date range or word by running some sorta search query? For example like booking a flight using a date range using 2 different date pickers, or searching for a particular word entered into one of the text boxes?

I hope you can help me. I have an info path web part form that is connected to an excel web part. I have 3 fields in the IP form that routes to excel for a calculation - # of employees reported, empSTHours, empOTHours. Upon button click on the form, the data populates in an excel spreadsheet with calculated combined straight time hours and combined over time hours. For example: 13 employees worked 8:00 straight time hours and 4:23 overtime. The total equals 104 straight time hours, 56:59 overtime hours and a total of 160:59. I want the user to enter the totals back in the info path form after calculations have been done and I want to require it to be in the same format as the fellow person in this post, i.e. 00:00. So, I followed all of the steps attached here and my form requires that the user enter the data as time up to 23:59. I need to format the cells, however, to allow for any time over 24 hours. So, for example, I need the user to be able to enter 104:00 in the combinedSTHours field, and 56:59 in combinedOTHours and 160:59 in totalHours. Can you help me?