The Keep alive interval site preference determines the interval between HTTP keep-alive signals sent from Java applets or a form workflow to the application server. Process Tracker, the designer applications, and form workflows (available only if FileNet® P8 eForms is installed and enabled) are Java applets. While you are working in an applet, a signal is sent at regular intervals to the server to maintain your session connection so that you do not need to log in to the application again.
To change the interval, enter the number of minutes (from 1 - 60) in the Keep alive interval field. The default is 5 minutes.
The interval should be less than the application server session timeout interval so that the applet remains alive and connected. For example, if you set the interval for 10 minutes, every 10 minutes the applet sends a keep-alive signal to keep its Java Server Pages (JSP) session alive. The applet remains alive and connected until the user terminates the applet.
The session timeout value for the application is set in the session-config element of its Servlet descriptor (web.xml) file:
<session-config> <session-timeout>minutes</session-timeout> <session-config>
The application server reads this value when the web application is started. The default value depends on the application server, but is generally between 30 and 60 minutes. Note that some application servers can use a special value as a default that instructs the application to use a different timeout value set in a different configuration file.
On busy sites, you can tune your application by adjusting the timeout period of sessions. While you want to allow a browser client to finish a session, you do not want to tie up the server if the user has abandoned the session. Some other reasons that you might change the <session-timeout> default value are:
See your application server documentation for more information about the JSP session timeout interval.