Display time since initial survey in INBOX

Question

I am trying to do the following:

Truck checks into staging area and has a barcode scanned to enter Truck ID and date/time checked in. There will be multiple trucks waiting in the staging area and they are to be released by the longest wait time. Is there a way to see the calculated time since check in in the name of the survey in the INBOX. I can get the time to display once only and it does not update when INBOX is refreshed.

Is this possible?

We are trying this due to lack of Internet at some locations so having an experience/dashboard with list of wait times might not work all the time.

Thanks,

--gary

abureaux · Answer

Personally, I'd build a secondary app. S123 to collect data > PowerApps to view submitted data and release trucks. This may be beyond scope for you. And if you are internet limited, that may also limit options.

A web app may be able to replace PowerApps for dynamic wait times, but if internet is an issue, this may not work.

VenkataKondepati · Answer

No. It is not dynamic.

In Survey123, the Inbox does not recalculate or refresh calculated fields (including time-since-check-in) after the record is created. The survey name shown in the Inbox is static, based on values at submission or last edit. Refreshing the Inbox only syncs data; it does not re-evaluate expressions over time, especially offline.

What you can do instead:

* Store the check-in timestamp and calculate wait time at open/edit time (not live).

* Use a manual “Refresh / Update” button (edit + save) to recalc when connectivity allows.

* If/when internet is available, a Dashboard/Experience is the only way to show continuously updating wait times.

Live, auto-updating “time since check-in” in the Inbox (especially offline) isn’t supported. Survey123 is transaction-based, not a live timer.

Neal_t_k · Answer

Not sure if that would work because each from would have to be opened to get the time difference to recalculate.

That said, couldn't users just sort the inbox to the oldest entry?