Repeat within a repeat no longer functioning

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10-06-2017 07:46 AM
IngridAldridge1
New Contributor III

I have an admittedly bizarrely complex survey which I have built in Survey123 Connect.  In August we were testing and everything was fine.  However, since the minor update in September it is no longer working and I'm trying to find a work around.  After some research it appears I found a loophole which has since been fixed.

The survey is built with a repeat embedded within another repeat.  The reasoning is that this is a bridge survey.  For every arch in the bridge (first repeat) a number of questions are asked.  If there are any defects identified they need to be detailed (second repeat).  It can't really be outside of the first repeat as the defects need to be linked to the section of the bridge where they are found.

I've attached the portion of the survey that involves the repeat within repeat issue.  Any suggestions or ideas for a work around would be greatly appreciated.

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3 Replies
by Anonymous User
Not applicable

Hi Ingrid,

Currently, Survey123 doesn't support nested repeats (repeats within repeats). We have an open enhancement request for this feature and I have added your above comments to the issue.

In the 2.4 release we enabled editing of repeats via the Inbox. It is possible this new feature has caused an issue with your already published survey that contained nested repeats which are not supported.

A possible workaround would be to create a separate survey for the nested repeat that points to the same feature service (submission_url), and by entering the layer name in the form_id in the Settings sheet of the xls form, you can point the survey directly at that layer. There is no need to use the begin/end repeat in the survey, as it will be seeing the table and field names directly from that layer (nested repeat) in the main part of the survey.

Regards,

Phil.

ChrisBlinn1
Occasional Contributor

Hi Philip,

What's curious to me is why my survey (with MANY nested repeats), does submit data as expected, but hangs on the submitting data screen.  I have an open ticket right now on this issue (Esri Case #0200354).  We absolutely need this functionality for our project, and are a bit disappointed that our Help Ticket has been open as long as it has and the analyst was unaware of such limitation. 

We have upwards of 5 nested repeats in our form.  As I mentioned, if we fill these all out, and submit the data does write to the feature classes/tables correctly, the Survey123 application however has to be restarted since it gets stuck on the submitting data splash window.  Note, we are also updating data against our own Feature Service if that matters.

If we cannot use nested repeats, we absolutely need a valid workaround, so I am interested in trying your workaround.  Any additional info you can pass along would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Chris B.

VanessaSimpson2
New Contributor III

Hi Philip,

Do you know if this has been resolved since the original post? I have a survey that has a repeat within a repeat. It appears that the final data shows what I would like (meaning the feature attributes hold the data I had hoped when checking it on a web map- even thought the form itself shows the sub repeat as example, 4 of 4 instead of 1 of 2 - assuming I have 2 repeats on 2 original repeats).

We are finding issues with submitting the survey from the web form. The form submits fine from a device and the desktop app, however.  I have advice my end users to not use the web form for now, but am wondering if this could be part of the issue we are seeing. 

Thank you in advance,

Vanessa

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