This is great Jonathan! And thank you so much for replying and helping develop ideas in survey123....
I will very likely use this for the Line-intercept section of the vegetation data collection once I get through the more complex plot data gauntlet....
However, I am stuck in the development of a plant data collection form using survey123 because the forms are too slow.... bummer... I really like the work flow that you and esri have created.... totally awesome.... and totally easy usable interface....
It seems the only way I can make the form work fast at this point in time is to use repeats for each plot (species name, cover value, and height)..... the problem I am running into is the overuse of the select_one type in order to select from a species (3,000+) list... this slows the forms down significantly.... I have tried using pulldata() with .csv, cascading selects, and external choices.... these are great... however my form is too complex for survey123.... and the forms still performance is limited especially on the uploading on my phone....
The problem: I have to select from a species list at every plot (20 plots per beltline=60 total plots).... on every beltline transect (3-5 at minimum)..... in more complex ecosystems there are sometimes 50 species....
The solution: I need to create a calculation that pulls the values (species name specifically) from one repeat and paste them into the next repeat for each plot on all beltlines.... this would limit the amount of select_one list pulls needed to accomplish the task and would make the form performance increase.... I believe... and hope... and pray.... This would also save time on the collection process..... win win!
I used the open data kit (ODK) to produce a xlsForm (see attachment) that addresses this issue.... they created an indexed-repeat() calculation that can pull answers within repeats based on the repeat position in the repeat child table.... the only thing I haven't figured out is how to add the species names to the next repeat in the next plot.... I may be able to use the relevant column and a simple calculation as you did in the above example to accomplish this task....
Does survey123 plan on making this a possibility anytime soon? I know it would benefit all business areas including the biological/ecological community.... I would love to make this form work in Survey123... cause its awesome and easy to use... and doesn't require crazy programming skills....
See attached example below that I used with ODK... I used the indexed-repeat() calculation to pull the plant species names into an analysis section... which is ultimately my goal in collecting plant data.... ODK has lots of other neat calculations and features that survey123 doesn't offer such as absolute value or "abs()"... I recommend seeing what developments these folks have made because they have the ability to improve survey123 and ODK uses the same forms and coding format... I think....
Thank you again for all Jonathan and esri
Can you consider this issue for elevation and development to esri/survey123?
