topic Re: restrict list choices in a repeat's "select one" question based on choice selected in a previous repeat in ArcGIS Survey123 Questions

restrict list choices in a repeat's "select one" question based on choice selected in a previous repeat

Galen_S_MnDOT — Tue, 25 Jan 2022 22:23:57 GMT

Hello-

I have a sign inspection form that incorporates cascading selects across three nested repeats. Depending on the type of inspection selected (which corresponds to the type of structure), the user is provided a filtered list of structural elements. Depending on the element they then select, they're provided a filtered list of relevant element defects to assess.

Although the cascading selects work just fine, and the form also locks the number of repeated element and defect records depending on the previous selection, I haven't yet figured out a way to prevent users from accidentally selecting either the same element or same defect twice.

I do have an "assessed defects" checklist question (read-only "select_multiple" question, uses the join() function) visible for each element:

... and a similar "assessed elements" checklist for the entire inspection itself, but this method still requires user oversight, and if an element or defect is repeated, I don't know how to indicate to the user specifically which choice was erroneously selected twice.

Is there a way to remove options from the initial "select one" questions for subsequent repeated records based on what's already been selected? That ability would eliminate this possibility for user error and ensure that each element and their corresponding defects are assessed only once.

Thank you for any assistance!

Galen S.

Minnesota Dept. of Transportation

Re: restrict list choices in a repeat's "select one" question based on choice selected in a previous repeat

DougBrowning — Tue, 25 Jan 2022 23:46:30 GMT

This has been posted a few times and as far as I know my hack to yell at them if they do dup is the only method so far. Except there are some javascript ways also but that is not an option for me.

See here https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-survey123-questions/how-to-not-use-a-list-item-more-than-once/td-p/847735

Re: restrict list choices in a repeat's "select one" question based on choice selected in a previous repeat

Galen_S_MnDOT — Mon, 31 Jan 2022 15:20:04 GMT

Understood - thank you Doug!

JS not an option for me either, unfortunately. I looked at the technique described in your linked post, and I don't think that'll be an option either since there's a high likelihood of backwards and forwards progress through the repeated records in our form.

Re: restrict list choices in a repeat's "select one" question based on choice selected in a previous repeat

DougBrowning — Wed, 02 Feb 2022 15:10:50 GMT

That should not matter we can add in any order of the 6,000 in our list and it works fine.

Re: restrict list choices in a repeat's "select one" question based on choice selected in a previous repeat

Galen_S_MnDOT — Wed, 02 Feb 2022 16:36:27 GMT

Ah, I must have misunderstood that other post then. I thought I read that the method breaks if user clicks back through any already entered repeated records.

However, I'm testing another possible method at the moment that looks promising; I'm using each choice/type's expected position (index) in the repeat list inside the choice_filter expression so that for every repeat, only one unique choice is available.

I'm not sure if this would be workable for a choice list as long as yours, since I had manually assign the desired repeat index values to every individual choice for our first and second level repeats:

... but that wasn't particularly burdensome, since our longest choice list is only 193 items.

But it seems to work! The one potential obstacle we've identified so far is that the position(..) function that actually populates the stored index values for each repeat seemed to be a little unpredictable during some previous testing, but I think I may have solved that by having the two nested repeats appear at specific times using Relevant expressions.

Re: restrict list choices in a repeat's "select one" question based on choice selected in a previous repeat

DougBrowning — Wed, 02 Feb 2022 16:44:19 GMT

I think the order of the selections is the order they clicked on the boxes and not the order of the list. So if they select the last item first it gets a 1. So they could have the exact same selections but the selected at would all be different.

If you post your form I may be able to help more.

Re: restrict list choices in a repeat's "select one" question based on choice selected in a previous repeat

Galen_S_MnDOT — Wed, 02 Feb 2022 17:14:40 GMT

Excellent, thank you! I'm curious to see what you think of it:

Re: restrict list choices in a repeat's "select one" question based on choice selected in a previous repeat

DougBrowning — Wed, 02 Feb 2022 17:57:00 GMT

Sorry this thing is way too big and complicated for even even to tell what you want. I am not even sure how to create a dup. Also your list values are all numbers which makes it harder.

Then there are so many nested repeats it is hard to tell where the check should be. You need to use join outside the repeat. Then if there is a nested you may have to use join twice to get them all.

I added the code I use hopefully you can adjust it to be in the correct spot. Line 192. You may want to break out a section for testing vs this big one.

Sorry I was not more help. This code works for me so hopefully it will help.

Re: restrict list choices in a repeat's "select one" question based on choice selected in a previous repeat

Galen_S_MnDOT — Wed, 02 Feb 2022 19:21:43 GMT

Heheh, totally understand Doug. Making any sense of it definitely requires a fairly nuanced understanding of overhead sign design parameters and inspection requirements. Thanks for even being willing to take a look!

Re: restrict list choices in a repeat's "select one" question based on choice selected in a previous repeat

DougBrowning — Fri, 18 Feb 2022 21:37:04 GMT

Coming back to this since I wonder if you were using the new 3.14? The new calc engine broke my trick but then I found a fix for it.

Here is a simple form I made to show how it works. Prevents you from adding dup species. Had to add the once() around the join for the new engine.

Hopefully you can follow this example and get it to go.

Re: restrict list choices in a repeat's "select one" question based on choice selected in a previous repeat

Galen_S_MnDOT — Fri, 18 Feb 2022 21:44:40 GMT

Thank you for the example! I ended up taking a slightly different strategy. Instead of trying to detect and prevent duplicates, I used a choice filter expression that incorporates the index values (i.e. "Position") of our repeated records, and only allows one at a time to be chosen, and in the proper order. Ultimately it still enforces that rule that each potential structural element is only assessed once, and each defect relevant to each element is likewise only assessed once.

This version of our form is still in development, but initial testing seems to indicate that our method works consistently. Of course we still run into problems sometimes when beginning new inspections entirely or trying to resume an existing but incomplete inspection from a draft (or crash-recovered entry), but most all of those problems seem tied to known bugs with the "repeat_count" parameter and not this specific use of choice filters.

Looking forward to digging into your example more as soon as I'm able!

Re: restrict list choices in a repeat's "select one" question based on choice selected in a previous repeat

DougBrowning — Fri, 18 Feb 2022 22:49:54 GMT

If you have not tried the 3.14 beta yet I would. There are major changes to repeat count that fixed and also broke some stuff in ours. Draft and repeat count still has issues for sure.

I have found that in some cases repeat count just wont do it. So instead I use position or count in a constraint. This way it grows the repeat up to a point vs loading the whole thing at once. It can get you around a lot of issues.

Good luck