Copy the Sent Data Survey123

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03-26-2020 10:34 AM
EricS
by
Occasional Contributor

I have a date field in my survey that I would like to keep hidden.  I am using a calculation on the field now().  However if a user does a "copy the sent data to a new survey" the date and time does not update to what is the current time should be.  It keeps the date of the survey being copied.  Is there a way to turn OFF copy the sent data while still allowing the surveys to be saved to the device? Sometimes the user needs to edit an already sent survey so that function is critical to keep.  OR is there a way for the date field to update when a "copy the sent survey" is created?

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8 Replies
JamesTedrick
Esri Esteemed Contributor

HI Eric,

When a survey with existing data (such as the Inbox or copied from the Sent folder) is opened, the values are compared to the calculations - if they differ, the value in the form is retained (this usually indicates a user change of value).  

For your situation, it sounds like you want to record the time a survey starts.  It would be more appropriate to use a question of type start rather than a calculate/hidden with now().  Refer to the 'Metadata' section of XLSForm essentials—Survey123 for ArcGIS | Documentation  

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EricS
by
Occasional Contributor

HI James

The problem that I am having is that when a user selects Copy the sent data

to new survey the date and time does not update to the right time. It just

copies what was on the prior survey. Is there a way to fix this? Nothing I

tried seemed to fix it

Thanks for the help

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JamesTedrick
Esri Esteemed Contributor

Hi Eric,

As I mentioned above, that is the intended behavior of the field app - the existing date time value is preserved as it differs from what the calculation 'now()' would be.  I would suggest changing it to a 'start' question.

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TaylorSchyrbiak
New Contributor II

Is there any way to set a survey up to automatically refresh the calculations when copying to a new survey? I am running in to a similar issue, where the user will copy a sent survey to a new survey, even update a field used in another field's calculation, but the calculation will not update unless manually refreshed. 

This was not the behavior when the survey was first published, but has been happening after one of the updates last year, which has been quite confusing for several users.

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cbolen
by
New Contributor III

Related to the 'Copy sent data to a new survey feature' it appears it copies over the x,y location of the copied survey as well.  Thus stacking points on top of one another vs recording new location.  Is this a known or expected limitation of the function?

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SarahPC
New Contributor III

Hi @JamesTedrick , to follow-up. I have a similar issue where I am wanting to copy a previous inspection to a new record (including related data) and it works, however there are several fields I would like to not copy. Rather adhere to defaults or a calculation. Such as date, survey round and surveyor etc. Is that someway of limiting what fields in a survey are copied over?

JakeMatthys
Occasional Contributor II

My question is the same as @SarahPC .  We would like to allow for the copy a sent survey to a new record but would like one column to not retain the copied value (our inspection key value column).   Is there any method to support this functionality?

Thanks, 

- Jake

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wilbanrw
New Contributor II

@JamesTedrick  I changed my field type to start but when I use "copy the sent data to a new survey" it retains the date and time of the copied survey. This is using now() as default.  Is there anything else that needs to be set?

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