Empty data in some of the rows

Hi @sanneberendschot,

Would you mind sharing your dataset (the one that you have shared as a screenshot) in a private message so that we have a closer look at it.

Have a great day!

Hi @Kal_Lam,

Thanks for answering, I just sent you the dataset in a private message. :slight_smile:
Hopefully you can help me.

Thanks,
Sanne

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Hello @Kal_Lam, here is the same issue I was having. This is the right thread.

I am also having the same kind of issue. We are still collecting data, but upon monitoring it seems that there are a few submitted forms with no responses to some mandatory questions. I don’t know how to troubleshoot this, but I hope you can help me with this. Thank you!

@joshbata, I have a few questions that should be helpful for me to investigate your case:

  • Did you redeploy your survey projects with multiple edits (say more than one edit) to your survey project?
  • Could you also share a screenshot of the missing case with the community as seen in the DATA>Table view and the Excel format?

Yes, I did redeploy our survey project. We have six versions, but the edits/redeployment was done before beginning data collection. I ensured that enumerators used the latest versions.

Screenshot of the missing mandatory responses from KoboToolbox

Excel screenshot of the missing mandatory responses


.
Thanks a lot.

@joshbata,
I would suggest to delete your previous post (or at least re-edit) tl remove the data screenshot.
With the names and GPS published (and further answers) anyone could fnd these households!

Pay attention to data protection rules, please, esp. names, GPS etc. See also https://community.kobotoolbox.org/t/reminder-about-sharing-personal-and-sensitive-information-on-the-community-forum/7348
@Kal_Lam

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Appreciate calling my attention regarding this. I removed the said sensitive data.

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@joshbata, as a quick check, would you mind doing the following to see if you have the questions in your XLSForm whose information is missing? To ensure this, you could download your question as XLSForm and then confirm to see if these questions are available for the missing rows?

Hello everyone,
I came across this thread, and it seems I am experiencing a similar issue as you all did. We were able to reach a conclusion and a recommendation that would prevent something like this from happening again?

Thanks

Welcome @omarmakki,

  • Did you change your form during data collection?
  • Could you provide more details and a screenshot, please?
  • Are these missing data from a specific user/device?
  • Which server are you using?
  • Do you use Enketo or Collect?
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Hello there @wroos ,

1. Did you change your form during data collection?
No. The form only has two versions, the last of which was deployed way before data collection was initiated.
2. Could you provide more details and a screenshot, please?
Sure. The survey includes questions that capture satisfaction/feedback from beneficiaries. Notice that some questions are empty. All questions, especially those that are empty, were made “mandatory”. When I try to edit, via a browser/ENKETO, a specific survey with missing data and try to resubmit it, it fails and warns me of the missing data that I should fill in prior to submission.

3. Are these missing data from a specific user/device?
The survey was completed by one enumerator via one device (i.e., a tablet on KoBoCollect).

4. Which server are you using?
Humanitarian server provided by OCHA.

5. Do you use Enketo or Collect?
KoBoCollect via tablet.

Hello,

  • Could you also provide the related part of your form, please, incl. the survey and choices sheez?
  • Do you use multiple languages?
  • Can you see more data settinng XMLValues//Headers for the screenshot (instead of labels)?

Hello @wroos

1. Could you also provide the related part of your form, please, incl. the survey and choices sheez?
Sure. I attached the XLSForm if that’s what you meant.

2. Do you use multiple languages?
No
3. Can you see more data settinng XMLValues//Headers for the screenshot (instead of labels)?
Sure.

Hello @omarmakki,
cases will be (almost) empty if respondent did not agree. See relevant filter.

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@wroos Yes. So, if respondents do not consent, then they will not be able to proceed with the satisfaction survey and answer any questions after that. Only general demographic-related questions would be answered at this point. However, we have empty data in questions for surveys of those participants who consented to proceed with the satisfaction survey. The screenshots provided were those who consented, knowing that these unanswered questions were made “mandatory”.

Here’s the satisfaction survey if you wish to see it: beneficiary satisfaction survey

We would appreciate it if you could kindly advise us on this matter with some recommendations just so this issue does not recur in future surveys.

Hello,
would you mind to check again the answer value (yes?) of the consent question for these cases in the table view?

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Hello @wroos,

If I understood your question correctly, I believe that you wanted me to take a screenshot of the data which shows the consent question column. Correct? If so, then here’s a screenshot:

On a side note, as I was taking the screenshot, I noticed that question number 2, which asks to click on the name of the enumerator, also had missing answers. I provided an example in one of the rows/surveys filled (notice red box). This question was presented before the consent question would be asked, the one that was connected to the satisfaction questions that came after via “skip logic” which also had missing responses despite being made mandatory, as I explained in the initial conversation. This question requests the enumerator to click on the radio button next to her name. That question ONLY had her name to select as there was one enumerator for this particular survey, and the question was made mandatory. I added a second screenshot next to the table as evidence (notice asterisk* indicating “mandatory question” in the blue box) just so you can view the flow of questions for convenience purposes and for me to illustrate my point.

Thus, it seems that the survey was being submitted despite certain questions being made mandatory irrespective of any “skip logic” incurred as well as their order in the survey.

I believe that it would be very risky for anyone (let alone M&E Officers) to rely on the “make mandatory” feature of KoBoToobox as we would end up with a lot of missing data. Thus, the only solution here would be to check each and every submitted form for their completeness on a regular basis, which is quite cumbersome, to say the least!

What do you think?

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@Kal_Lam & @stephanealoo I would love to also hear your take on my issue that Wroos have been discussing on this thread, probably some recommendations that I could use to prevent this issue altogether in future surveys? I will be using the same survey for the next cycle of our project… What do you think I should do? Should I redo the survey from scratch and utilize probably one skip logic for “a group” of questions rather than adding a skip logic to each and every subsequent question? I am just thinking out loud… I would definitely appreciate more and better sound ideas on this particular issue… Do you think that this cannot be optimized from my end and is rather an issue from KoBo platform that needs debugging? Thanks in advance.

@omarmakki, maybe you will need to validate your XLSForm through this online validator to see if there are any syntax issues in your XLSForm. If there are none, maybe you could make some dummy entries to this project to check if the issues are still repeating? I hope it should not repeat.

BTW, was just curious to know if this is your own project or if the project is owned by someone else. Could you also let us know if you have provided managed permissions to any of your team (if you own this project)? If this is the case, maybe it could also be a case where someone might have uploaded the submissions manually to the server.

Hello @Kal_Lam

I did what you suggested, and this is what I got. I don’t believe that these errors are related to the issue at hand. What do you think?


This is my own project and no managed permissions were provided to any other account. Also, no one uploaded the submission manually to the server as the enumerator does not know how to do that for sure.

Any thoughts?