Being able to visualize calculate-type fields in the map

Hey there :slight_smile:

I am working in a mapping NGO and our team meet a pretty annoying aspect. When you have calculated fields in your survey, you cannot display them in the map : this is the case for numerical (ie results of sum of variable 1 and variable 2) or text (ie “if response to this and that is so and so, specify “X” ) calculations. Nevertheless, these are often at the heart of what one wants to represent in a data collection that has a geographical component. For example, if we are conducting a survey about water where a calculation field calculates the average quantity of water per day we can not display it on the map. Whereas it’s the most important aspect for us of the whole form in this case.

We are using the KOBO Humanitarian response instance.

The idea will be to have these calculated fields also in the list of things we can display on the map as a disaggregation variable.

This feature will be very useful to the visualization of data and to improve the quality of a lot of work by saving a lot of time: using directly KOBO instead of download data to use another way to visualize key indicators of this form.

I hope this is something the community would also find useful, thanks in advance for thinking about this suggestion !

Chloé

I’m not sure how you are displaying other (non-calculation) results on your map, but you can get a calculation result into a regular question as its result via a default (and optionally make the question read-only for display purposes only). You can also insert a calculation result into a question’s label (that is, if you are able to display question labels on your map…); see https://xlsform.org/en/#calculation

Have you tried either of these tricks?

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Hi @Xiphware

Thank you very much for the answer !
Exact I try what you suggest with a new integer field, I cannot use the default column as it’s a dynamic value but the calculation column works with the once() function.
(you can see the XLSForm here: displaycalc.xlsx (14.0 KB) )

And it works :

A little bit fastidious if you have a lot of calculation to add as there are many fields but good to know it exists a workaround :slight_smile:
Nevertheless, I hope one day it will be directly possible to display calculation fields in the KOBO map !

Thanks again,
All the best,
Chloé,

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Glad you found something that works for your need. BTW nice map of Quebec - might I ask what data you are capturing about?