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Whenever an author (not a respondent) logs on to the application, a new session object is created on the server. This object holds information about the author’s state (current survey, etc), and the Web server allocates memory for this state information. By maintaining this information as you move from page to page within Authoring the individual requests to the server are kept small and simple. However, the Web server does not want to keep track of this information when you exit the Web application, and it is possible to exit the application without explicitly sending a ’log off’ command to the Web server.
Therefore for security reasons, if the time between author-requests exceeds 60 minutes (perhaps you have gone to a meeting and left Authoring running), an automatic time-out occurs. At this stage the login overlay is displayed on your monitor in front of the window - . If you now re-enter your password (your username will be remembered), you can continue the session where you left off.
However once the login overlay time-out is reached (after a further 180 minutes), Authoring assumes you have logged off and frees the memory holding the state information. This is then lost, so if you log back in after the time-out you will be redirected to the first page of the Web application.
Figure 1 - The login overlay that is displayed when a Authoring session has timed-out due to inactivity
Note: If you have made some changes in your survey and the login overlay appears before you have the chance to save them, then all is not lost. If you log again in before you are locked out, Authoring will reopen at the page you were last in and will remember the changes, allowing you to continue where you left off (and save your changes at your earliest opportunity!).