Pre-Populating inside Repeat based on Question outside Repeat and Past Records

CharlesRiverConservancy — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 16:52:31 GMT

We're working to develop a survey to track invasive species management we do with volunteers. There will be a drop-down list question outside the repeat for the general location (i.e., a certain park or stretch of riverbank) of the day's work, and then each species managed will be its own entry to the repeat, with one of the questions being the specific site (i.e., a particular patch of vegetation) within the overall location. We want to make sure we can track when we have repeatedly worked on the same patch of a given species, so we'll need consistency in that data.

I'm wondering if there's a nice way to set it up so any new repeat at a given location gets prompted to pick from all the previous sites (whether it's polygons/points on a map or choices in a drop-down), with the additional option to add a new one if needed. Obviously the simplest solution would be to put in the time upfront to create a list (or layer) of sites for each location based, but it would be great if we could essentially just create that list as we go, even if it ends up requiring some kind of weekly refresh to pull past records into a specific layer/CSV linked to the in-repeat question.

My sense is that a version of this will be possible through some combination of XLSForm, the Sent/Inbox features, or even favorite answers, but I'm having trouble conceptualizing exactly how to set it up. Thanks in advance!

Re: Pre-Populating inside Repeat based on Question outside Repeat and Past Records

Neal_t_k — Thu, 22 Jan 2026 19:10:48 GMT

It's a little complicated to setup and only works online, but you may want to look into open lists. https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-survey123-blog/survey123-tricks-of-the-trade-open-lists/ba-p/1180879

Re: Pre-Populating inside Repeat based on Question outside Repeat and Past Records

CharlesRiverConservancy — Fri, 23 Jan 2026 15:50:40 GMT

This is pretty much the exact functionality I'm looking for, thank you!

topic Re: Pre-Populating inside Repeat based on Question outside Repeat and Past Records in ArcGIS Survey123 Questions

Pre-Populating inside Repeat based on Question outside Repeat and Past Records

Re: Pre-Populating inside Repeat based on Question outside Repeat and Past Records

Re: Pre-Populating inside Repeat based on Question outside Repeat and Past Records