Error: No exact match was found

​I had just finished some significant upgrades to an InfoPath SharePoint list form and moved it to production when users of the form started to have this validation error:

“my:PersonOrGroupFieldName Error: No exact match was found”

In my upgrade process, I had changed one of my existing Person or Group fields from allowing the selection of only a single user (People Only) to allowing People and Groups. I realized right away that I had forgotten to make the change on the production list. I did that and republished my form, but I was still getting the same error.

I wasn’t using this field on my form at all, and I was assigning the value to it with a workflow, so I’ll admit that I was stumped as to why a validation error was firing.

I finally took apart the .xsn and looked at all the .xml and .xsd files. When I did, I noticed that there was an extra .xml file and _that_ file had the offending Person/Group field in it. Now it hit me what was going on. I opened my form back up in design mode and checked the View dropdown in the Page Design tab. There it was, another view of my form, that I had forgotten was there (it’s been a while since I touched this form) that was using the Person/Group picker that I had changed. I went into the properties of the field and under the General tab, I changed the picker to allow People and Groups instead of just People Only.

Two lessons learned here

1. Changing the properties of a SharePoint list column does not necessarily change the properties of the corresponding InfoPath control – even on list forms.
2. Check for alternate views you forgot you had.