How to avoid duplicate entries from a feature service and a repeat related table inSurvey123?

Question

Hello everyone,

I created a form to capture bird nesting information and I am having an issue with duplicate entries and the parent global ID. The form basically create a nest record when a new nest is found (nest profile) and it creates an observation record on a related table to create a monitoring log for 30 days (see pic below). The problem is that collecting an observation ( the repeat related table) for an existing record also creates a new entry on the feature service with a different globalID and a child with a another parent global ID. I do have a common nest_Id fied that I can use to link the tables in PRO but I still have the problem of many empty records on the feature service. Does anyone have a suggestion on how to address the problem? Thanks for any suggestions!

JB

AndrewPadilla · Answer

Hi @JoseBarrios1 ,

If I understand correctly, you want to be able to update existing records within a repeat. I am doing something similar, where new surveys are created or existing ones are updated. I currently do this by using the Inbox to update existing records. That way it maintains the parentglobalID. This unfortunately requires the user to verify whether an existing survey exists in the  refreshed inbox first. If it doesn't exist they can collect a new survey, if it does exist then they can edit the survey in the inbox. I am trying to figure out a better way to eliminate the need to check the inbox, because users don't always remember and end up creating duplicates anyway.

Vinzafy · Answer

Ahhh I got you now and understand where the discrepancy is coming from. Thanks for detailing that out further.

Unfortunately I'm not sure how to accomplish that workflow solely within S123 without using URL parameters in some format. Apologies I couldn't help further, but I wish you the best of luck!

If there is a way to achieve that workflow and have it be self-contained in S123, that'd be great info to know.

JoseBarrios1 · Answer

Sorry for the confusion. It is even hard to explain for me!

Here are the requirements for the survey:

Biologists want to streamline the process for collecting information on nesting birds. The information include: nest location, species, nest description, environmental parameters and daily observation on nesting activity. I created a form that have two actions:

* User creates a NEW RECORD (feature layer) when a nest is found (nest ID, location, species, nest decryption, photo and env. parameters). It also create the 1st day observation (on a repeat table) on the nest condition (observer, # of eggs, photo, behavior, etc..)
*  The second action is to UPDATE A RECORD (daily obs). When the user select the “update record” , I use the search appearance to populate a list of existing nest records within the selected zone and I pass the nest_ID to relate the tables. The user then collect the observation data for the second day…. They will end with approx. 35 observation for each nest ID.

Here is the problem with current workflow. The first time the user create a NEW nest record, survey123 creates a globalid and a parentglobalid to relate the feature layer with the repeat table. However, when the user select the option to “Update Record”, the new created observation on the repeated table get a new parentglobalid that does not match the globalID from the selected nest profile. The 2nd observation  get the parentglobalid using the globalid from the new blank feature layer record. Does this make sense???