What's the best way to set up a dynamic survey?

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03-18-2019 12:18 PM
AlexDamiao
Occasional Contributor

I have a survey with about 250 distinct questions which are all of the yes/no type. The idea of the survey is that a subset of these 250 questions will only appear if they are applicable (depending on a "condition" chosen by the person filling out the survey. Let's call these conditions 'condition_1', 'condition_2',...,'condition_150').

For example, if a person starts the survey and selects 'condition_22', then the survey will only show yes/no questions for what makes sense under that condition (could be questions 3, 67, 98, 99, 143).

So, my approach was to use the relevant column and insert the conditions there. I insert all 250 questions in the "survey" tab of the xlsform and fill out the "relevant" column accordingly. So for example, if question 30 is applicable only under conditions 23, 57, 129, my relevant column would look like:

${variable}='condition_23' or ${variable}='condition_57' or ${variable}='condition_129'

For the dataset that I have, some questions appear for all 150 conditions, so you would have ${variable}='condition_1' or .... or ${variable}='condition_150'.

I implemented this survey and what I've been finding out so far is that the phone app and the Survey123 Connect for ArcGIS are both having trouble loading it up (it crashes 9 out of 10 times, making it unreliable for this task). The browser version doesn't crash, but it doesn't work properly. There is a noticeable performance drop (it takes about 20 seconds just to load the conditions you choose from) which I currently cannot get around.

Am going about this wrong? Is there something simpler that I didn't realize I could've done instead?

Thank you in advance!

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14 Replies
by Anonymous User
Not applicable

Hi Alex,

We have just updated new 3.4 beta builds to EAC which include fixes for required questions when using relevant, constraints, and validation in repeats, as well as supporting expressions for required in all question types. There are several other important fixes in these builds too. Please test them out and let us know if you still have any remaining issues.

 

You can find the latest 3.4 beta builds here: Survey123 Early Adopter Community

Phil.

by Anonymous User
Not applicable

Hi Phil,

Thank you for the update and information regarding this question! I will test it out and let you know as soon as I can. Do you by any chance know when this is expected to be released from beta?

Alex

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by Anonymous User
Not applicable

Hi Alex,

Yes, the 3,5 release is currently on schedule for the end of June.

Phil.

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AlexDamiao
Occasional Contributor

Hi Phil,

This new update fixed this particular step of my process completely and I've obtained the desired behavior from my survey! Good stuff!

Thanks for the help!

Alex

by Anonymous User
Not applicable

Hi Alex,

Just letting you know that in the latest 3.12 beta builds available on the Survey123 Early Adopter Community we have made significant improvements to large choice lists which improve the survey load time in both Connect and the field app and further improvements to stability and speed of select one and select multiple choice lists once the form is open. From our testing this significantly reduces the time it takes to open a survey with very large choice lists.

On top of this there are now some new ways you can manage your choice lists dynamically and update them without having to republish the survey. Please check out the latest announcement on EAC and test out these new beta features with the latest 3.12 beta builds.

Regards,

Phil.

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