topic Re: Remove an entry or item from the dropdown list after it has been picked once.. in ArcGIS Survey123 Questions

Remove an entry or item from the dropdown list after it has been picked once..

HamidYunus — Thu, 09 Mar 2017 17:00:46 GMT

I am dealing with a situation that requires me to come up with some way to remove the entries/items from a dropdown list after it has been selected or picked once previously. The reason to do this is so that the person doing the survey does not have that entry available to pick it again (either by mistake or on purpose). For example:

Survey has a drop down list with 3 options: A, B, C

- I arrive at Location 1 and Pick A.

- I arrive at Location 2; my options now should be B and C only.

- I arrive at Location 3; my option now should be C only.

Has anyone done this before?

In my case, the people using the surveys are not tech savvy at all; I cannot ask them to refresh new copies of surveys every day or every so often. They also will have a propensity of making mistakes when it comes to picking from dropdown list, especially in case where the dropdown list contains items that look very similar.

Looking forward to some guidance in this regard.

Re: Remove an entry or item from the dropdown list after it has been picked once..

CarmelConnolly3 — Fri, 10 Mar 2017 10:34:53 GMT

Hi Hamid,

Would you be looking for values to be removed across multiple surveys, or just within 1 survey?

I'm not sure that this would be possible across multiple surveys.

Carmel

Re: Remove an entry or item from the dropdown list after it has been picked once..

HamidYunus — Fri, 10 Mar 2017 10:43:52 GMT

Hi Carmel,

No, I would just want to remove that entry from that user's survey only.

Thanks,

Hamid

Re: Remove an entry or item from the dropdown list after it has been picked once..

CarmelConnolly3 — Fri, 10 Mar 2017 10:58:02 GMT

Hi Hamid,

You might be able to do something using Cascading Selects: http://doc.arcgis.com/en/survey123/desktop/create-surveys/xlsformcascadingselects.htm#ESRI_SECTION1_26C265B8FFAC45C6BFDD89652C1BA7CF

...but this might involve having more than one field for Location 2, Location 3 etc.

Carmel

Re: Remove an entry or item from the dropdown list after it has been picked once..

IsmaelChivite — Thu, 16 Mar 2017 23:03:40 GMT

Hi Hamid.

I am attaching an XLSForm with another approach. In the example, an expression is used in the relevant column to warn the field user when a choice has been made twice. An opposite expression could be used in the constraint column to prevent the field user from submitting surveys where a choice has been selected twice. In terms of actually displaying lists were choices are dropped as they are selected in previous questions, I cannot think of a simple solution that would be easy to maintain.

Ismael

Re: Remove an entry or item from the dropdown list after it has been picked once..

CamilleBeasley — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 21:20:59 GMT

Can you think of a way to do this in a repeat field? I don't know how to refer back to previous instances of a repeat. I'd like to use a repeat to create a plant species list, and I want to make sure users don't enter the same species twice. Is there a way to set a constraint or warning message to check all previous instances of the repeat? Just to clarify, I can't just use a select_multiple for the plant list because there are additional details for each plant species being collected. A repeat would work best because I don't want to limit the number of plant species that can be recorded.

Re: Remove an entry or item from the dropdown list after it has been picked once..

CraigValentine1 — Tue, 28 Nov 2017 12:21:43 GMT

Camille,

Did you ever find an acceptable solution to this? I also have a situation where I am using a repeat with a select one where I want to remove any options when they have been selected in a previous repeat.

Re: Remove an entry or item from the dropdown list after it has been picked once..

Bekki_HilaryWaskovich_Swain — Tue, 28 Aug 2018 15:34:32 GMT

Just wondering if this was ever addressed by Esri? Is there a place we can vote on it to be developed as a future feature?

Re: Remove an entry or item from the dropdown list after it has been picked once..

JamesTedrick — Wed, 29 Aug 2018 02:57:28 GMT

Hi,

You can add this as an idea to https://ideas.arcgis.com - currently I don't believe there's a request for this specific feature.

Re: Remove an entry or item from the dropdown list after it has been picked once..

JamesOsundwa — Thu, 13 Sep 2018 00:36:10 GMT

Hi guys, I also really need this feature. Users are assigned several (e.g. 30) stores to survey on. Scrolling through the list, they should only see stores that have not been surveyed, rather than the full list of stores. Further, they should see a progress bar of stores surveyed.

Re: Remove an entry or item from the dropdown list after it has been picked once..

Anonymous User — Wed, 10 Oct 2018 20:25:07 GMT

Hi James, were you able to find a solution to displaying only the stores that have not be selected?

Re: Remove an entry or item from the dropdown list after it has been picked once..

JamesOsundwa — Wed, 17 Oct 2018 22:17:37 GMT

Hi Floyd Bull, unfortunately I was not. I went for a different workflow and accepted it as a limitation of the application :-(.

Re: Remove an entry or item from the dropdown list after it has been picked once..

DougBrowning — Thu, 07 Mar 2019 15:54:21 GMT

James Osundwa Floyd Bull

I was able to at least simulate this now. My project has 8 fields all with the same drop down but that only show once the one above gets a value. A value should never repeat across the 8.

I cannot remove the choice from the list but I can yell at them if they pick it again.

Use a Constraint that checks the other fields.

Example

Field2 has a constraint of .!=${Field1}

Then just expand

.!=${TopCanopy} and .!=${Lower1} and .!=${Lower2} and .!=${Lower3} and .!=${Lower4} and .!=${Lower5} and .!=${Lower6}

You can even make exceptions with a If (surprised but you can use If in a constraint)

this says if my choice had a XXXX pattern in it then it IS ok to repeat but everything else cannot repeat.

if(not(contains(${Lower1}, "XXXX")), .!=${TopCanopy},1)

What about across repeats?

Harder one where I have a field that does a join() on a repeat to get a list. I then check my field against this list using contains. That way I can see if a choice has ever been used across the repeats. The trick is that the second you pick the last option, it adds to the list, then yells at you. So for that I did a substr to take off the last 3 chars (since my codes at 3-5 digits) then I do a contains on that substr. It works great UNLESS a user goes back in a repeat and tries to change a value. The search will find it and complain. I just teach my users to delete a repeat and then add a new one at the end. Was ok for me. This would be a lot easier if survey had a contains that returns the number of times the string was found not just a yes/no.

With these tricks I was able to get the checks in there that I needed.

Hope it helps.

Re: Remove an entry or item from the dropdown list after it has been picked once..

IslamSaeed1 — Sat, 19 Oct 2019 23:16:37 GMT

Hello James,

Is this feature has been yet implemented and if not is there a recommended workaround

Re: Remove an entry or item from the dropdown list after it has been picked once..

DougBrowning — Mon, 21 Oct 2019 14:29:23 GMT

See my workaround below.

Re: Remove an entry or item from the dropdown list after it has been picked once..

RicciLucas — Mon, 22 Nov 2021 21:37:37 GMT

@IsmaelChivite has this enhancement been done? Can you now remove an entry from or item from your choice list based on a previous question?

Re: Remove an entry or item from the dropdown list after it has been picked once..

EdHixson — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 11:55:45 GMT

Would love to know if there ever got added?