Error while trying to publish an Infopath 2013 form to Sharepoint 2013 Document Library

Question

I am a newbie in Infopath & Sharepoint. I am trying to create a form from Infopath 2013 and publish it as a document library to Sharepoint. I have some 60 fields that needs to be calculated(add) into another field. When tried to use the Design Checker, it throws an error as mentioned below in the screenshot. But it accepts if I key in only 45 fields in the Insert Formula text area. Is there any limitation on number of fields to be entered in Insert Formula? When I use PREVIEW in Infopath it works fine. This error pops up only when I try to publish it to Sharepoint. Any ideas on how to resolve this? - Thanks inadvance

Answer 1

InfoPath preview is rendered with IP Filler. The Browser experience has always been different, and the Filler preview is not a reliable check for the browser experience. You may have hit the limits of what a browser form can do. I don't have the numbers or limits, though.

Looking at the error message, you seem to be amassing an awful lot of calculations in one single field. My gut feeling is that this is very bad information architecture. What is the purpose of the form? What are you trying to achieve? Why would anyone have 60 fields in a form?

It looks as if you are summing a large number of cells. InfoPath is not a spreadsheet.

Use repeating tables to capture similar data. Then you can total the table entries with a standard IP function.

This looks like a sum of all the items a restaurant has on the menu. This is a perfect case for a repeating table. Don't use all 60 items on the menu in a list of 60 fields all in one form. That is overkill and not user-friendly. Create a repeating table structure where the user selects one of the 60 items and enters the transaction data. Each row of the repeating table can have another item of the list of 60. The grand total will be calculated from the entries.

If that is not viable, use helper fields to calculate sub totals by item category, and create a grand total from all the category totals.