Prefill Question(s) in repeat with answers from previous record

[DerrickWestoby]

Good Morning, 

I have a survey form for collecting samples from buildings.  The samples are contained within a repeat ( ${repeat_samples} ).   Within the repeat, I have fields for Building Number, Floor Number & Room Number.  Since multiple samples are always taken from each room, I would like NEW samples to default to the Building, Floor and Room values entered in the previous record.  This is the formula that I've tried using, but receive a dependency cycle error: 
indexed-repeat(${bldg_num}, ${repeat_samples}, position(..)-1)

Any help greatly appreciated. Thanks

[Anonymous User]

Hi @DerrickWestoby,

I believe what you are seeing is expected, as you are using a calculation that references a question that uses the answer to calculate itself, hence the circular reference. This is generally an issue with indexed-repeat functions if you use them inside the repeat that it is referring to. For the November update, we plan to update the documentation to say that using indexed-repeat inside a repeat it refers to is not supported.

https://doc.arcgis.com/en/survey123/desktop/create-surveys/xlsformrepeats.htm#ESRI_SECTION1_F3E28755...

Can you share your XLSForm and media folder so I can take a look and see if there is a better way to do what you are trying to achieve?

Regards,

Phil.

[DerrickWestoby]

Thanks for the response, Philip.   I'm not attached to this specific way to accomplish the goal, just the goal itself.  If there's another way to make a question's default answer match the input from the previous record in the repeat, I'd love to hear that! 

I sent you a message with my XLS as well.  Thanks for taking a look. 

[DougBrowning]

I have only got 1 way to work but it only works on small repeats.  See here  https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-survey123-questions/prepopulate-answers-in-a-repeat-with-last-v...

[DerrickWestoby]

Thanks Doug.  I may try this in a test version of the XLS, but not too fond of the javascript implementations based on experience and if you're already reporting it struggles with large surveys.  The surveys I have in use with javascript running are much less stable already.