Survey123 Connect - Hidden value type vs. Hidden appearance type

[Katie_Clark]

In both the "Type" and "Appearance" column of Survey123 there is an option for "hidden". 

What I'm wondering is, what would be an appropriate use-case for one vs. the other? Why would you ever want a hidden question type rather than a note type with a hidden appearance? Is there a best practice regarding this?

[jcarlson · Accepted solution]

I've wondered that as well. According to the S123 docs:

By setting the appearance to hidden, any question type, including groups and repeats can be hidden from view when filling out the survey, but will accept and submit default values and calculations. This is more versatile than the hidden question type, as it can be applied to any question type.

Which more or less confirms what I would have guessed. A hidden type question accepts any input, whereas a hidden date/integer/text question will ensure that any calculated value is applied as the correct data type.

[Katie_Clark]

Thanks for the reply, Josh! That's more or less what I had assumed, but wasn't sure if there was some nuance I was missing.

[jcarlson]

So, a quick test: I have a date question which is used to populate two other questions, one a date w/ hidden appearance, one a hidden type.

When I test submitting it, I can see that the hidden date has the timestamp integer, the hidden type has a string of the integer.

[DougBrowning]

There is also the body::esri:visible column now.