Possible that the pre-loaded data could be automatically edited as surveys are completed?

Colleagues, I have another topic to ask on form building. We plan to interview 300 beneficiaries – I have their names and information in a CSV that I can preload in the current survey and pull data from. Until here, fine.

Is it possible that the CSV could then be updated as surveys go on?

For example, if I interview beneficiary 1, I select him/her in the list coming from the CSV:

Q1. Select beneficiary you are interviewing:

  • Beneficiary 1
  • Beneficiary 2
  • Beneficiary 3

After I complete the survey to Beneficiary 1 and I move to Beneficiary 2, is it possible that Beneficiary 1 disappears from the list?

Q1. Select beneficiary you are interviewing:

  • Beneficiary 2
  • Beneficiary 3

I’m completely fine if this is not possible, but I welcome ideas. Thanks for all the support received so far in this forum.

If you do this, you will not be able to see the value of Beneficiary 1 in your server. Hence it is recommended not to delete the existing beneficiary details from the csv file. Maybe you could add more but is not advised to delete the existing record.

We are also facing this question of how to avoid repetitive entries for the same unique ID, but so far we have only been able to do data validation after receiving the data.

Because there’s no easy way to make the app check whether data for that ID has been submitted before by anyone else.

Could you add an additional value against the beneficiary in the csv when they have been interviewed, then have a lookup in the form to check that value when the beneficiary is selected, and then display a message to the user based on the lookup?

Means the beneficiary is still in the list to be selected (and you can see the value on the server fine), but at least the enumerator can know the status at time of selecting (obviously with a lag depending on how frequently you update the csv…)

It’s a bit of a workaround though - Kobo isn’t designed for two-way data sync like e.g. ODK-X - but might be worth a try.

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