How to set certain questions to only answer once and add several extras to answer until survey is over?

1

Hey all,

I’m new in using Epicollect. So far i found it a great app!!
I do have some issues though. I’m trying to run an ecological survey, where the first few questions should only be answered once (eg: date, start survey time, start coordinates, team, etc) but others that should be added as we go along (eg: time of sightings, species, number of animals, behaviour, etc).

Is there any way to do this in Epicollect? If there is it would be amazing because it would mean that people don’t have to add new entries for each sighting (for example), where they would have to fill the same questions over and over with possibly wrong information (eg: coordinates and start time as they move along the transect!)

I usually use Excel so it’s pretty straight forward them, so in this case i’d have several columns in which only 1 row would be filled (eg: date, start survey time, start coordinates, team, etc), and other columns where several rows would be filled (eg: time of sightings, species, number of animals, behaviour, etc). But i don’t know how to do it in this app.

Any help is very welcomed! :smiley:

Thank you!

2

There are a couple of approaches you can try

1 - Multiple forms in a hierarchy structure parent > child, for example, SURVEY > SIGHT. One SURVEY entry can have multiple SIGHT(s) entries. See →

2 - Using branches, which are basically a repetitive sub-form. So a SURVEY form having multiple SIGHT branches See →

When you export the data out as csv files, the system will give you a file per each form/branch.

To consolidate the data in the post-processing, with Excel or similar, see →

Differences between hierarchy (child) forms and branches, see->

We hope this helps

1 Like
3

Thank you very much for the reply.
I’ve tried “linking forms” but after i create a sub-form with a couple of questions and try to use it on my phone, after updating it, it doesn’t work. It only shows the 1st form and not the sub-form. I’ve checked all the options i could find in the “form builder” to check whether i missed anything but it looks like i did everything correct.
Any ideas why the sub-form is not appearing in the app on the phone?

Cheers

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Please see