Multiple versions of forms

[Chris Lacey]

Hi,

According to the ODK site (ref https://opendatakit.org/help/form-design/guidelines/ ), it should be possible to make minor changes to a form (e.g. add new select options) and then publish by incrementing the 'version' field within the 'settings' tab of an XLSForm spreadsheet.

However, if I try doing this and then upload to KoBo, the system complains that a "form with this id or sms-keyword already exists"

Is there any plan to implement the versioning functionality within KoBo, as it would be hugely beneficial to be able to add options to lists in the middle of data collection?

Thanks in advance,

Chris.

[Tino Kreutzer]

Hi Chris,

This is definitely something we'd like to implement soon. We've already started planning how this could be done in practice. The biggest challenge is allowing modifications to a form that is already receiving data without compromising data integrity between different versions of the form. When we have a proposed solution we'll present it here for feedback first. 

Best,

Tino

--
Tino Kreutzer

Program Manager KoBoToolbox 

Tel +1 617 372 7051 | Skype tinokreutzer
tino.k...@kobotoolbox.org

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[Chris Lacey]

Thanks, Tino, for your very prompt reply, and great news that you are considering this.

Would there be many data integrity concerns, though, if you only permitted changes to labels and to the options available in select-ones or select-multiples?  Presumably that shouldn't require any schema change for the form?

Best wishes,

Chris.

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[Tino Kreutzer]

Hi Chris,

The exact line of what's considered a 'minor' change depends a lot on the context. Many people would say that changing the label of a question means potentially changing its meaning entirely, making different responses impossible to compare. But of course often times you just want to correct a typo. We'll try to take both concerns into account. 

Best,

Tino

[Francis Vachon]

Hi guys,

Well I'd like  to pitch in that.

From a user's perspective, I feel that we should have as many options available as possible. From a technical perspective, I definitely agree you don't want to edit your data schema with that feature and that's fine.

However, while it is true that in a way changing a question's phrasing can in some cases result in, let's say, interview-side changes in data integrity (because you might not be asking the same question, thus the answers although they have the same "value" don't mean the same thing anymore), I don't think it's you server's responsability to manage for that. The benefit of being able to edit your form to reflect important factors that might not have been taken into account at form design without having to break your dataset is, IMO, a lot more important than the fact that you might allow a survey manager to lessen the value of its data by wrongly using the feature (e.g. changing the meaning of some questions in his survey).

You can't prevent people from doing poor work. From that perspective even editing submitted data / deleting submission would be wrong, as there is a lot of perspective to mess things up right there.

I would even suggest to edit pretty anything that doesn't change the schema - like constraints of relevent conditions. There can definitely be practical field realities, hard to plan for ahead of time, that might make you want to change how you manage that.

Francis

[Gerard Schut]

Hi Tino,

I was reading through the group posts looking for exactly this feature. Any update since March?

I understand the data integrity concerns, but I think that it should just be technical limitation, not an "ethical". It's the survey manager that needs to decide if the change impacts previous input or not. So if the survey manager wants to change a label of a question, then this is his/her concern. Limiting it in the software because it may possible skew results doesn't seem logical.

The reason I would like to use it is to add values to the lists. I guess that this could be done using an external csv file, but I have yet to figure out how to distribute an updated csv file to the Android clients without asking the users to fulfil manual steps outside the client.

[Tino Kreutzer]

Hi Gerard,

Thanks for weighing in. This is on our development schedule and we'll have a way to update forms after they've been deployed soon, probably in the coming month. 

Cheers,

Tino

[Gerard Schut]

Hi Tino,

 

Thanks for the very quick reply. I’m also quite happy with the answer. I’m going to continue the development, counting on this feature for the future.

 

Regards, Gerard

[ARIF AZAD KHAN]

Is there any update regarding this issue. Eagerly waiting for this feature.

Azad

[Tino Kreutzer]

Hi Arif,

This feature is now in testing and will be released shortly. 

Best,

Tino

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[Che Geiser]

As an alternative - or possibly additional method: being able to import data would be very helpful. In this way you could update your form, deploy it as a new form, then import the old data. Of course, you might also need to make some adjustments to the exported data columns so that that data would fit into the new form, but that would be for the user to figure out and wouldn't be too hard to do.

I think there would be many uses for a data import feature.

Thanks!