Order of stored multiselect answer changed?

[Kylie]

Hi! I know in the past, the answers to a multiselect question were stored as a comma-delimited string in the order in which they were selected. But it looks like now maybe the order they are storied is based on the order the options were presented (not selected). Did this change? 

For example: If shown choices of dog, cat, elephant, mouse - previously, if I clicked elephant then dog then cat, I would get "elephant,dog, cat" and now I'm seeing "dog,cat,elephant"

If it is a change, then if the "random order display" option isn't enabled, two people who pick the same two options will have equivalent responses, where as before their answers would only be equivalent if chosen in the same order. 

I'm authoring in the web designer and collecting the data using the web app.

Thanks!

[ZacharySutherby · Accepted solution]

Hello @Kylie, 

The is a known issue in the Web app at this time. Select multiple questions should maintain the order in which they were selected. The order of selection will be preserved in the Survey123 field app. 

Please feel free to reach out to Tech Support to log an official Enhancement for this change. 

[ZacharySutherby]

This has been logged as BUG-000162103 - The output of a select_multiple question type in Survey123 is not consistent across the web and mobile apps

[Kylie]

Thanks so much! 

[MaryGraceMcClellan]

Hi @Kylie - did you figure out a workaround for this? I'm currently having trouble with preserving the order in which answers in a select_multiple are selected (I think this is the problem anyways, this is my question for reference - https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-survey123-questions/editing-records-with-repeats-based-on-of-se...). Any related info you might have found could potentially be really helpful! 

[Kylie]

I had been looking at determining what answers were equivalent, so it actually wasn't something I needed to work around. It sounds like your issue might be related since it has to do with the order of the response to a multiselect question. As far as I can see, the bug is still under consideration, and not something that has a target fix date.