Survey123: Split answers from multiple_select

[Nicole_Ueberschär]

I am pretty sure that I saw this problem solved somewhere already but I cannot find it. 

Assuming that I have a multiple_select answer that has the selected answers concatenated by a comma: 

Banana, Apple, Orange, Strawberry, Tree_Tomato

Now I would like to save these answers to different columns (=questions) in my survey

First Answer: Banana

Second Answer: Apple

Third Answer: Orange

Fifth Answer: Tree_Tomato

How can I extract the answers separately depending on their position?

Alain Roland Munyaneza‌

[Jim-Moore · Accepted solution]

Hi Nicole

This can be achieved using the selected-at() function, which will return the name for the choice at the given position. Note that this is indexed from zero. For example, to return the name of the third selected choice:

selected-at(${fruit},2)

This function is described here: https://community.esri.com/groups/survey123/blog/2018/12/02/survey123-tricks-of-the-trade-xlsform-fu... 

And also documented here Formulas—Survey123 for ArcGIS | Documentation and here XLSForm essentials—Survey123 for ArcGIS | Documentation.

Cheers,

Jim

[Nicole_Ueberschär]

Thanks a lot, I should have looked into the documentation first...

Any hint how I could split up a text when several answers are give in a free text question? When I give the option to list "others" and the user fills "Avocado, Cucumber, Tomato, Corn", is there a way to save those also separated in additional columns/questions? I found a lot in excel for only three values (like left, mid, right) but couldn't figure out how to do it with more than three items in the list. 

[Jim-Moore]

Hi Nicole

As mentioned in this post, there isn't a function for this in XLSForm. A JavaScript function (currently in beta) could help (refer to EAC).

For a calculation to work, users would have to type their list of additional entries in a strict format, which could be difficult to enforce. If your aim is to write each entry to a separate question anyway, one suggestion is to have one question per additional input; you could use something like string-length({$previous})>0 in the relevant column to hide the next question until it's needed. This would avoid issues with inconsistent data entry into a single text question.

One consideration with this approach is you would need to have a capped number of additional entries (questions).

Hope this helps!

Cheers,
Jim

[Nicole_Ueberschär]

Thanks a lot Jim!