topic Re: Preventing respondents from editing responses via editing link after a certain amount of time in ArcGIS Survey123 Questions

Preventing respondents from editing responses via editing link after a certain amount of time

ChandraLala — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 19:04:28 GMT

Hello everyone, I asked this question previously at https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-survey123-questions/disabling-mode-edit-links-for-specific-forms-once/m-p/1694610#M65867 but am creating a new post to restate my question in a better way. My ultimate objective is to create a constraint where respondents with an editing link are unable to make changes to their answers once 30 days have passed since their initial submission date.

To do this, I want to use conditional readonly statements. I am currently testing the configuration of this, and do not want to wait 30 days to see if this would work, so for testing I am trying to create a condition where I am unable to edit my survey responses via the editing link if I submitted the survey less than one day prior.

However, no matter what I try, the readonly conditional statements will not evaluate to TRUE and the editing links still allow for changes to be made. My current workflow is creating an end type question named submission_date that retrieves the submission date and time. Then, a days_past integer question with the calculation int(now() - ${submission_date}) retrieves the numbers of days that have passed since submission. I have set readonly conditional statements for all the questions as ${days_past} < 1 and pulldata("@property", 'mode') = 'edit'. I have also tried with the &forceRecalculate=days_past parameter added to the editing URL. This has not worked and I am still able to edit my responses. My thinking was that if this test worked properly, I could replace my conditional statements with ${days_past} > 30 and pulldata("@property", 'mode') = 'edit'.

The only thing that prevents me from editing my responses via the editing link is setting the readonly column to TRUE. However, my ultimate goal is to make it so that the readonly column only evaluates to TRUE after 30 days since submission. Is there something obviously wrong that I am missing? It just seems like the readonly conditional statements aren't evaluating correctly. Any help would be appreciated.

EDIT: I have seen old posts talking about how survey123 webforms can't support formulas in the readonly column (https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-survey123-questions/does-the-survey123-web-app-support-readonly/td-p/806469). Is this still true? If so then that would probably be the reason this isn't working... are there any workarounds to this? If not, then I will likely have to hide all my questions using the visible column, using the conditional statement ${days_past} < 30.

Re: Preventing respondents from editing responses via editing link after a certain amount of time

DougBrowning — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 22:34:37 GMT

When opening a form for editing most calcs will not refire. Esp if no changes.

If you tried Calculation modes yet? I am not sure there on editing still but maybe. https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-survey123-blog/survey123-tricks-of-the-trade-calculation-modes/ba-p/1206967

May have to set to always on the time calc and maybe even pulldata to get it to go. Test date first.

You could also look at hiding all the questions in a big group but my guess is users will think it is broke.

Hope that is it.

Re: Preventing respondents from editing responses via editing link after a certain amount of time

ChandraLala — Mon, 13 Apr 2026 23:43:00 GMT

Thank you for your suggestion, unfortunately this did not fix things. Seems like hiding all the questions is my only option.

Re: Preventing respondents from editing responses via editing link after a certain amount of time

Neal_t_k — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 13:09:16 GMT

This appears to work, at least in Connect. Once you get this working you can adjust the readonly calc to what ever your time scale needs to be. I believe this is what @abureaux suggested in your last post.

Re: Preventing respondents from editing responses via editing link after a certain amount of time

abureaux — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 16:15:07 GMT

Indeed!

An alternative for the "today" date field would be to skip the calculationMode and instead use the 'null' property (bind::esri:fieldType). That would also ensure it defaults to "when the survey is opened" and also prevent that field from being added to the feature layer (since it doesn't really need to live there). Both options should have the same end result.

Re: Preventing respondents from editing responses via editing link after a certain amount of time

ChandraLala — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 18:07:10 GMT

Thank you for your help. I tried this but it is not working for me, I'm not sure why I am still able to edit answers with the editing link. I included the calculationMode as well for the current date row, it just isn't shown in my screenshot.

My understanding is that since I set the conditional read only statement to evaluate to TRUE when the current and submission dates match, I shouldn't be able to edit my answer in the scenario above.

Re: Preventing respondents from editing responses via editing link after a certain amount of time

Neal_t_k — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 18:30:00 GMT

You are right, calculation appear not to work in read-only column in the web app, You can set up two fields (one Text entry, one Note) hidden based on the the date equaling or not equaling each other to get the same effect. See attached for an example which I tested on the web app. Make sure to "null" the note field so there is not duplicate entry in the data.

Re: Preventing respondents from editing responses via editing link after a certain amount of time

ChandraLala — Wed, 15 Apr 2026 18:43:32 GMT

Thank you for your suggestion! I will probably be using this strategy as a workaround.