Another Other in Survey123

cnnlly

Survey123 is an easy way to create new surveys or replace existing paper-based surveys because of the flexibility of its functionality.

One example of this flexibility is the ability to allow users to enter an  Other value as an answer to a multiple choice question if the answer they need is not in the list. This has been implemented for the question What is the property type?:

In the background, Survey123 creates a new field to hold this Other value entered by the end user. The default name of this field is the name of the select_one field followed by ‘_other’, and the alias for this field is ‘Specify other.’.

This means you aren’t able to define your own alias to the question in the survey and, if this is repeated functionality, you can end up with multiple fields with the alias ‘Specify other.’.

I'm going to show you an alternative method of setting up an Other option using the question What type of survey is this?. This post assumes you have a survey set up using the Survey123 Connect for ArcGIS desktop application, with at least one  select_one type question. If you need some help setting up a Survey123 survey, check out the help  videos and  pages.

1.      Find the select_one question you want to implement Other for:

2.      Navigate to the corresponding list for this question in the Choices sheet:

3.      Add Other to the SurveyType list:

You have the flexibility of giving a more descriptive option for users here like:

4.      Create a new text question under the select_one question. This will be the text field to hold the Other answer for SurveyType. Name and label it something like this:

5.      Next we need to make this question optional, so it only appears if the end user selects Other for the SurveyType question. For this example, enter ${SurveyType}='Other' in the relevant column:

6.      Save the Excel spreadsheet and try out the functionality in Survey123 Connect for ArcGIS.

7.      When you’re happy with your survey, publish it and see it in action!

This post was originally shared on the Esri UK blog: GeoXchange — Esri UK. It's also a valuable source for posts on other ArcGIS topics by other Esri employees, check it out!

BrentKinal1

Great Post Carmel, I have found no matter how many choices I give my users they are always able to find a new exception to my select_one lists, I have been using the "other" value for a while to accommodate this. Since the 2.4 release added the ability to set a field type to null (seejames tedrick's blog post https://community.esri.com/groups/survey123/blog/2017/10/26/the-power-of-nothing) I've been able to take this a step further and make things a bit cleaner on the database end by putting all responses in a single column rather than one column for the select_one and a second for the "other" text field. Basically I set both these fields to type = null and then calculate with a conditional statement into a hidden field the value of the select_one if <> 'other' and the 'other' text field if select_one = 'other'.  See below: