Deploy a new form on an existing survey

Dear Kobo team, if by mistake I replaced an already deployed form (data collection currently being conducted) by another form. And then I redeployed the original backend of the current data collection, would it change anything in the variables once updated?

@myriamdagher1, could you also provide a sample list of variables that you had before and then also a sample list of variables you have with the form when you redeployed?

Hello,
You probably know: Form changes do not update existing data (neither on the device nor on the server).

In. your case you would need to know if someone entered (and submitted) data with the 2nd form, i.e. before you re-deployed the right one. Any entered data will keep related to the local form version used at first entry/save.

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Hello Mr. Kam, I redeployed the original backend but unfortunately, I am having trouble editing the old forms submitted on the original backend. To make sure this is the same backend I filled a survey just to double check that the list of variables is still the same (attached the excel sheet with the yellow highlighted case which was filled as a test after I redeployed the original backend) and the variables seem very well aligned. However I am facing the following issues now:

  • When I need to edit old submitted forms only two sections seem empty (although they were filled) for required answers. These empty variables are highlighted in red in the excel sheet exported.
  • Another issue I am facing is that the questions of one of the mistakenly deployed surveys are showing in the extracted data (highlighted in blue in the excel sheet) although deployed the original survey.

Please I appreciate your advice to know how can I remove old deployed variables and most importantly how can I edit the old submitted forms without having missing data issues.

Regards.

data redeployed.xlsx (35.3 KB)

Do you mean you wish to delete the old records from the system and only keep the ones from the newly deployed survey?

We want to be able to edit the old record. But I am not able to do so because an error showing missing information is occurring after clicking on edit button although I redeployed the original backend (from which old records were filled). Any advise please?

Thank you!

@myriamdagher1, could you share the screenshot of the error message you see? Maybe that should be helpful for the community to troubleshoot.

Dear Mr. Kal, this is the message occurring once I click on edit and submit. Uploaded records appearing to have missing data although when extracting the sheet these data are present. Appreciate your advice.

@myriamdagher1, could you share with me the following through a private message so that i could have a closer look at it:

  • Username
  • Project name
  • Server

Shall I send these information in a sperate email to the following email? Can you please confirm?### noreply@community.kobotoolbox.org

You could send me a private message as outlined in the post discussed previously:

Seems like the data is missing for these variables:

Could you download your data in XLS format and check it out to see if they are filled in there?

Yes the data on the extracted XLS sheet is filled in there ans there is no missing info. This is why it is very weird which is preventing me from editing the info on kobo.

Hello @myriamdagher1,

  • Did you use/deploy different versions of this form? (e.g. with changes on required or relevant definitions)
  • Could you provide the related part of the (XLS) form here?
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One final check, maybe you will need to download your XLSForm and see if the latest version of your XLSForm should have the questions that are missing while editing. I guess this is the part which is affecting.

Here are the XLSform downloaded and and the original survey.Both are exactly the same when ti comes to those two parts (highlighted in yellow in the first file). I deployed by mistake a totally different version and then redeployed the original backend without any change on required or relevant definitions.

Is there any solution for this? like for example deleting all the previously deployed forms and then deploying the original forms again? I hope there is an solution for this issue :frowning:

Regards.

HH-mother survey_aug2021.xlsx (74.8 KB)

I see a total of 18 different redeployments:

So, which is the version that was accidentally uploaded that caused trouble?

Dear Mr. Kam, the original backend is v14 and then I accidently deployed another survey and redeployed the original form. Is it possible if we select that we want the v14 (which is the origianl one) to be used? If yes, how should I do that?

Thank you!

OK, so the one needed is v14. What about other versions (like v15, v16, v17, and v18 ) you have uploaded?

V15 and v16 by mistake. Then when noticed that, I redeployed the initial one several times but no data collection has been conducted after v14 since the backend were uploaded on the survey on date of v14 only.

I hope this works please let me know when you can :\