Survey123 repeat position - avoid double counting on repeat removal

ChristopherCounsell

Hi,

Have a survey with a repeat. We'd like to calculate the position of each repeat so that becomes the ID. e.g.

repeat
ID
ID name
End repeat

Gives an outcome like

1	Name 1
2	Name 2
3	Name 3

 

We can use the position(..) calculation to calculate the ID number within the repeat. 

If a user collecting data deletes a repeat, we could use the Once(position(..)) calculation to prevent the ID from changing. However, a new repeat will potentially re-use the same position value. e.g. for the above scenario, if we remove the second repeat entry and entry a new one, the table will look like:

1	Name 1
3	Name 3
3	Name 4

 

We can't re-calculate all the IDs as they are referenced in questions later on in the survey.

We want the re-entry to take the 4th position. So looking for ways we could resolve this e.g.

• Different calculation method for position(..)
• Prevent users from deleting repeat entries
• External calculation/function to track highest value entered across repeat IDs and then +1 into new repeat (without somehow causing a loop)
• Other suggestions

@DougBrowning @IsmaelChivite would really appreciate your eyes on this one 🙂

Cheers

abureaux

I would also love an answer to this (for a different reason though).

I'd just love for repeats to have a "recalculate" option and force their calculates to do their thing again. Adding calculationMode=always to a repeat would be neat (but I can see that bogging things down after a while).