select_one_external choices not available (Survey123 Connect)

[ByronTsang1]

I have a long picklist of plant species (approx 3500 options to select from) that I have to choose from several dozen times in an ecology survey form. The selection from this question in turn pulls data from another external .csv file to feed various attributes to other calculate fields.

When I include this full list in the standard "Choices" worksheet and use the select_one field type, the survey takes AGES to load. To avoid this problem, I have made use of the select_one_external field type and added the required external_choices worksheet. It's worth noting, I forced the choice_filter field by setting my entire list to a constant, since I don't have any applicable cascading select field that would help me thin the list out. This has dramatically reduced the load time for the survey but now the autocomplete pulldown doesn't work! The field shows up in the survey preview but I cannot select it or choose any options.

Anybody have any suggestions??

[JamesTedrick · Accepted solution]

Hi Byron,

There are a couple of issues with the approach for external selects you implemented.  The choice_filter statement must include a reference to another question.  Additionally, using numbers in external selects can create a problem as they are stored as text (i.e., the 1 in the show column will be '1.0' in the CSV file).  The attached file addresses these issues (note the 'plantinit' question on line 78).

That being said, the performance issues of your survey will still be present, as you are loading your ~3500 item choice list 32 times in the form.  In looking through the form, you have a lot of sequential questions (i.e., 'Tree 1', 'Tree 2', 'Tree 3', etc.) You can improve the performance by using repeats for the situations where you are asking the same question(s) multiple times.  

[PatriciaAlgura]

Hi James,

I'm having this same issue, so i tried testing the xlsx form you attached but the external choices were not working.

[JamesTedrick]

Hi Patricia,

Which version of Survey123 are you using?  We identified an issue with autocomplete very late in the 3.2 development process that we have addressed for the 3.2 release.

[RandyDeodat1]

Hi James,

I'm having this same problem. I've attached my itemset.csv and .xls form with what you have outlined, but it's still greyed out for me. Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Randy

[LuisMartinez3]

Are there any known issues using a choice list to populate a geopoint question from a select_one_external on Portal?

It seems to work fine when in the choice list but I have 25K addresses to pull in, was thinking it was stored as a text string in the items.csv file, therefore, causing issues.

list_name	name	label	parish
address	+029.9329_-90.3637	103 1ST ST LULING LA	SCP
address	+029.9328_-90.3636	105 1ST ST LULING LA	SCP
address	+029.9338_-90.3640	105 1ST ST LULING LA	SCP
address	+029.9338_-90.3639	107 1ST ST LULING LA	SCP