Support calculating geometry from select_multiple choices inside repeats in Survey123

Chalhoub — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 08:42:42 GMT

In Survey123, a common workflow is allowing users to select multiple locations or areas (for example, administrative boundaries, service areas, zones) and automatically populate the geometry for each selected item inside a repeat.

This is achievable today using calculated expressions, but the approach is advanced, undocumented, and fragile, making it difficult for many form authors to implement correctly.

Current working pattern

The following XLSForm structure is used to calculate polygon geometry based on each selected value from a select_multiple question:

type name label repeat_count calculation appearance

select_multiple location_list	selected_locations	Select all applicable locations			horizontal-compact
begin_repeat	locations	Locations	count-selected(${selected_locations})
calculate	location_code			selected-at(${selected_locations}, position(..)-1)
geoshape	location_shape	Shape		pulldata("@layer","getValue","geometry","<feature_layer_url>", concat("<location_id_field>='", ${location_code}, "'"))
end_repeat

This pattern relies on:

count-selected() to dynamically create repeat instances
selected-at() with position(..) to map each repeat to one selected value
pulldata("@layer","getValue","geometry",…) to retrieve geometry from a feature layer

idea Support calculating geometry from select_multiple choices inside repeats in Survey123 in ArcGIS Survey123 Ideas

Support calculating geometry from select_multiple choices inside repeats in Survey123

Current working pattern