I had someone fill a form partially and then return a few hours later and the data was gone.

Hi. I have applications on jotform for people to submit. How long does someone have to complete the form before they are logged out or their information is lost? Or how long with no activity before they are logged out? What caution or warnings should I give to the applicants? Thank you.

 

Hi,

Forms do not timeout by default, so your users can take as long as they need to in order to fill out the form.

However, if you want to limit the amount of time your users have to complete the form, you may want to use one of our countdown widgets:

https://widgets.jotform.com/app/countdown - Countdown widget

https://widgets.jotform.com/app/global_countdown - Global Countdown widget

You can add widgets to your form by following this guide:

https://www.jotform.com/help/252-How-to-Add-a-Widget-to-your-Form

If you need further assistance, please let us know.

I had someone fill a form partially and then return a few hours later and
the data was gone. Is this not common?
...

If they close the browser window, the data is lost. You can enable the autofill feature to store data in the browsers local storage, so they can come back to fill the form without losing the data: https://www.jotform.com/help/227-How-to-Enable-Auto-Fill-on-Forms