Survey123 Connect Settings namespaces field

[KatherinePadilla]

Hello,

I am trying to understand what the "namespaces" column in the Survey123 Connect XLS form is for.  I tried to look for documentation for both allow_choice_duplicates and namespaces but did not find it.  Any ideas when this documentation will be available or where it may be already?

https://doc.arcgis.com/en/survey123/desktop/create-surveys/xlsformsettings.htm 

Thank you!

Katie.

[Jim-Moore]

Hi @KatherinePadilla 

Thanks for your query. Both the namespaces and allow_choice_duplicates columns were included in the Standard and Advanced XLSForm templates for forward compatibility with some features we're still working on. So while these columns might have some use in the future, currently they are not important for Survey123 surveys and can be disregarded.

• The namespaces column would be necessary for local XLSForm conversion (where you want to use a local Python environment to convert your forms in Connect, instead of the API). We're still working out the best way to implement this.
• Similarly, the allow_choice_duplicates column is part of the XLSForm spec and is used to restrict duplicate choice values and we're working on how best to support this.

Any queries on this, please let us know.

Best, Jim

[Jo-Johnson]

Hello Jim,

When you say to disregard these field for now, do you mean to leave the default values, or to delete the values pre-populated in there? When I create a new survey, the allow_choice_duplicates says "yes" and namespaces says  esri="https://esri.com/xforms".

[Jim-Moore]

Hi @Jo-Johnson 

Thanks for your query - in the latest (March 2022) versions of the Standard and Advanced templates, the allow_choice_duplicates column has been removed. The functionality related to this column is not supported yet and we're still working on the best way to do this, so we made the decision to remove it to avoid any confusion. For your existing surveys you can choose to keep or delete this column - either way, it will not affect your survey.

For the namespaces column, you can leave the default value esri="https://esri.com/xforms" as is. As described above, this is only useful for local XLSForm conversion, which we're still working on. The default value will be required if the local conversion is going to be used; but otherwise this column is redundant.

Hope this helps to clarify! Best, Jim