Preventing session timeout during long processing time in JSF

I've been working on an JSF application. At one place, I've to call an action in managed bean. The action actually process hundreds of records and the session timesout before the processing is finished.

Though all the records are processed successfully, the session expires and the user is sent to login page.

I'd tried adding

session.setMaxInactiveInterval(0);

before the processing of the records with no effect.

How to prevent the session time out during such process.