Survey123 - Is it possible to populate a select_one list from answers to a text question?

[Anonymous User]

Is it possible to populate a list of select_one values from answers to a question?  I am creating a survey where new sites are added in a text field answer.  What I need is these new sites to be added to a list once the survey is uploaded for subsequent surveyors to have access to and save on effort and duplication.  I can't see how i would do this at the moment.  #survey123 #select_one #autopopulate

[Anonymous User]

Hi Gemma,

No, this is not currently possible. The select one list can only be a choice list that is prepopulated in choices or external choices sheet. It can not be dynamically updated with answers from other questions.

Regards,

Phil.

[Anonymous User]

Thank you for your super quick response.  Is there any kind of work around at all?  This is a fundamental element to the survey.  Could surveyors answer the question and then a central person updates a list daily? I can't see any other way

[DougBrowning]

What we do is have all our locations in Collector then launch 123 passing in the location id.  We also have the forms on the Collector map so that you can view everything.

[Anonymous User]

Hello Doug,

Thank you for your quick response.  The structure is the surveyor chooses from a select_one list whether the site is existing (if chosen prompts a select_one list of existing sites not changing), existing (provided by supervisor) (if chosen provides a select_one list of outputs from the new site choice)  or a new site.  The new site option will prompt a text question to enter the new site name.  Once the rest of the survey is completed and uploaded the new site text entry is then used to populate the existing (provided by supervisors) list.

I am not sure this is possible?

[DougBrowning]

Yea I get what you are saying.  I am saying that they used to do that here - trying to keep a list of job names current in the form.  It was a nightmare to keep up to date.

We now use Collector as the assets locations with each visit as its own form.  Then relationship class the two together and it all works nicely.  It also shows us things like someone going to the wrong site.  Users often picked the wrong job name on the drop down and everything gets messed up.  With a form per visit I can easily see if a name is wrong (which is rare now since I pass the key over) or they went to the wrong spot.  Plus editor tracking is all there, etc.

Just my opinion on a different way.

[Anonymous User]

Thank you for your help. I will look at collector and combining it with survey 123.  Fingers crossed!

Thanks again

Gemma

[Anonymous User]

Hi Gemma,

Yes, you could manually update the choice list in the survey in Connect every day, based on new data collected in surveys, and then republish the survey with these new choices included. However it would require every user with the survey in the app to update (re-download) the survey on their device to see the updates.

Phil.

[Anonymous User]

Hi Phil

Yes I have considered this as a solution. My concern is the daily updates being missed.  I do have this as a fall back.

Thanks for your help

Gemma

[WhitneyWeber]

I agree, it would be uber handy to be able to populate a select_one or select_multiple from the responses of a previous question. If this is feasible in the future or if someone knows of a non-manual work-around, please update this question!