Irrelevant repeats are having records erased.

Question

I'm trying to combine two forms into one by having an A or B selector at the top. Depending on which is selected, an appropriate repeat will appear. One is selected by default since it will be the most used. I have query and allowUpdates set in the parameters for both repeats so users can access previous records. However if one repeat becomes irrelevant, none of the records are queried back as soon as it becomes relevant again. So for instance, the form always starts with the A repeat and all records show just fine. But if B is selected, no records are returned and switching back to A has them all erased. Is there a better way to go about this? Thanks for any insight.

Tree Stump Removal.xlsx

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JasonJordan00 · Answer

I was afraid this would be by design, which in most cases it does make sense. In my case however, I'm not worried about information being read only, just keeping the interface simple and unburdened with extra questions that don't fit the situation. I guess it would be nice if it would query a repeat on becoming relevant, not just query it when the form is opened and it's already visible. That would save me from having to break this into two separate forms.

JamesTedrick · Answer

Hi Jason,

As Doug mentions, this appears to be affected by work previously done regarding relevancy, with one of the defining rules being that if a question/group/repeat is non-relevant, then it should not have any data.  In this situation, I might suggest instead of using the relevant column, you use the read-only column (with the inverse of the relevant function) to prevent alteration of data when not needed.

dougbrowning · Answer

I think this by design.  If something is not relevant then it should be "" empty.  This was changed in 3.5 to be consistent.

Maybe you could hide each question in the repeat instead of the entire repeat?  It may still blank them not sure.