InfoPath Dev

Hi All,
I'm mainly a SharePoint guy and this is my first time getting a chance to do anything real with InfoPath.  Here's my situation and problem - I have InfoPath form services setup on a MOSS 2007 box.  I have an InfoPath form (form services) that our end users will need to keep open for about 1.5 - 2 hours while they evaluate a presentation.  This is going to be a multi day presentation and I've already broken down the sections into as many different forms that I can (well, that they'll allow me to anyway) but there are still going to be some forms that need to be open longer than the default time out. 

The full error I'm getting on the form is:
Critical Error 
 
There has been an error while loading the form.
 
Click Start Over to load a new copy of the form. If this error persists, contact the support team for the Web site.

Click Close to exit this message.

Hide error details
For your protection, the current session has been terminated due to inactivity.

I've tried changing some of the settings in CA for InfoPath like upping "Maximum size of form session state" to double what it was but it doesn't seem to be doing anything.  Any help/advice/suggestions someone can give on this would be really awesome.  Thanks!

Welcome to the forum.

I have ran across this issue before with large web based forms.

Have you considered saving their progress frequently. This would solve your timeout as well as multi-day issue.

 You can write to a database via web services and then each time they update or switch views or sections it can post this data back.  When they return it can validate the latest data from the database.

I think that would be how I would set it up.

I'm assuming that's not the answer you were looking for.  I just ran into the same issue today.  When the browser based form is sitting on the clients machine, using InfoPath Forms Server 2007 on Windows SharePoint Services, there is no way to save the form more often without the client initiating something.  If they are simply filling in the form, and it takes over an hour, this can happen.  I will also be looking into this for a setting change, if I find one, I'll let you know.   tburnie @ fbinsmi.com. 

It's configured through Central Admin ->Application Management but not the setting that I first thought.

There is a setting under  Congifure InfoPath Forms Services for Form Session State and within there there's an entry for "Active sessions should be terminated after" which by default is set to 1440 minutes, so I thought why are they timing out.

It turns out that the setting you actually want to change is in "Configure Session State" under Office SharePoint Server Shared Services which by default is set to 60 minutes.

Hope this helps.

Andy 

Hey Andy, thanks for the tip.

Hi Liam

Within Central Admin select the Application Management tab.

Under the Office SharePoint Server Shared Services heading you should see the Configure Session State option.

Obviously you must be running MOSS & not WSS. 

Hey Andy,

Yeah i am running MOSS.  Thanks for your help.  I got it sorted out.

Thanks a lot for your help Andy ! 

I had to ramp up to speed from zero to full throttle in a few days time with InfoPath in order to create the HR Performance Review forms for our organization.   Have a moss system with browser clients.  Everything worked really well until l started hearing moans, complaints, and other disturbing sounds from people who lost their work after having their forms open for 2 + hours.  I also saw the 1440 minutes for Active session in Central Admin so I continued to be puzzled about how to remedy the situation.

 The advice you shared is Primo, and very much appreciated.

- Larry