Survey123 dates: set calendar display to a default date without filling the field

Question

Good afternoon Survey123 friends,

My survey uses a simple relationship between dates:

The issue is, these can be recorded weeks/months after they happened: in full rush, field techs collect the paperwork ; whenever they can, they give it to admin assistants who will record the dates using the S123 form.

Therefore, the admin assistant are asking whether the display of the "delivery" calendar could be centered on the "pick-up date", to ease data entry by reducing scrolling.

The idea is to avoid setting a default date (which fills the field), with a date that could potentially be wrong, but just to view the calendar centered on the indicated pick-up date.

Has anyone done anything like this? Intuitively, it might be achievable using the "appearance" column or one of the ESRI-special columns, but I cannot think of a working solution. I did not find anything in the 'Survey123 dates & time' blog post, as it focuses on values rather than display.

Many thanks for any help & pointers!

With kind regards,

Hélène.

HélèneTouyéras · Answer

Hi CHedger1227, the field needs to be editable,  so a note is not usable here.

CHedger1227 · Answer

you can set it to a note field instead of datetime field in the type column.

HélèneTouyéras · Answer

Thanks for your reply, @CHedger1227 !

No, I do not want to set any value at all in the delivery date field.  The only requirement is a display requirement. This is almost an appearance setting on the calendar: If I activate the calendar, display it on the pick-up date (and not on today's date).

* The use case is: the admin assistant has received paper work stating only the pickup date, and not the delivery date.
* The subsequent data requirement is: the delivery is a non-required field, i.e. it must be able to be empty.
* The GUI behaviour is: If I activate the calendar, display it on the pick-up date (and not on today's date).

=> If I set a default value or calculated value, the field will always be filled, and often with the default, likely wrong, value.