How to pass a value to Survey123 but not submit it to the Feature Service

[AaronThompson]

Hi all,

Is there a way to have a question in a survey that does not get submitted to the Feature Service? I need to perform a calculation on a value passed in from Collector, but I have an existing feature class i'm building this off of and don't want to add a field just for the purpose of storing that value and then performing a calculation on it.

Thanks,

Aaron

[Anonymous User]

Hi Aaron,

Have you tried using the 'note' field type? The 'note' type doesn't need to be associated to a field in the feature service and can be used for calculations. To ensure the 'note' field doesn't create an associated field in FS or give an error, ensure you leave the 'name' field blank for the 'note' question. You will be required to give it a 'label' however.

Regards,

Phil.

[JamesTedrick]

Hi Aaron,

As Philip said, the note type can provide the display of information, though if the value is used in a  later calculation, it can't be used.  In terms of using the calculations, you make a good point about existing feature services- I've added your use case to the enhancement issue we have on this topic.

[Anonymous User]

Hi Aaron,

Just letting you know that we plan to include a new feature in the upcoming 2.4 release which will address the above issue. A new bind::esri::fieldType parameter will likely be added to Survey123 Connect 2.4 which will enable it to be used on supported questions types in survey form (text, integer, select_one, date etc).

The result will be that when publishing a survey a new field will not be created in the feature service or be required to be present in an existing feature service if that parameter has been used. A field in the survey with this type will behave just like a normal field that has a valid esriFieldType, meaning that calculations and other functions can be used against the question and the value can be used in a later calculations.

Regards,

Phil.

[AaronThompson]

Thanks to both of you for the responses.  I ended up just adding a new field to our existing schema.

Philip, that is fantastic news. I think that functionality will be incredibly useful! Any idea on a time frame for this update?

[Anonymous User]

Hi Aaron,

We are aiming to have the next release of Survey123 available in mid-September.

Phil.

[BonnieWeller1]

I am having a hard time getting my head around exactly what esriFieldType does. I have some select one yes no questions in my form that I do not want submitted. Are you saying if I set the esriFieldType = null then the field will not get submitted? Is there a blog/webpage that you can point me to that describes these columns and their purpose in greater detail?  Sample xlsx forms would be even more awesome.

[ZacharyStauber1]

That is correct.  If the esriFieldType is null, it will not be recorded when the survey is submitted.  It will be used only during the survey.  It won't get a column in the output geodatabase.

[ZacharyStauber1]

Looks like it's been added.  bind::esri:fieldType of null