Dear All,
This is to inform you that our next release of KoboCollect v2023.2.4 will have some major changes to the navigation. These changes are due to changes in the upstream version of ODK Collect that KoboToolbox uses.
1. Custom naming of instances won’t be possible anymore.
If this is important to your current workflow, please edit and redeploy your form as soon as possible (see below). The last screen of your form will now look like this:
As before, automatic naming of a survey instance will still be possible based on variables. So if your current workflow requires you to have a unique list of instances (such as when editing multiple drafts in Collect), you need to make a change to your form to enter this field. The big advantage of this approach is that your survey instance name is also included in your dataset.
How to add an automatic instance name based on a form field
-
In the survey tab of your XLSForm add a field such as
name(you can also use any existing field):
-
In the settings tab of your XLSForm add
instance_namein the column header, then reference the field that should be used (for example, here we use${name}to refer to thenamequestion in step 1):
-
When enumerators fill in the form, the response to that question will be automatically used for the survey instance name:
More details:
- Example XLSForm: instance_name.xls (23 KB)
- Previous forum posts about more advanced ways of using
intance_name
2. An update to the main screen
The main screen design has been updated for easier navigation. It now uses icons and simplified language to help with navigation. These changes were introduced based on first time user feedback that showed that the old navigation was not always intuitive.
For more details and the reasons behind the change, see this post.
3. “Mark as finalized” is no longer a separate check box in the final screen
With the next release of Collect, editing of finalized forms will no longer be possible. If you want to continue making changes to your form, you should save them as a draft. (With this release, you can still make changes to finalized forms to help users transition - just go to the Drafts screen. But remember that in the future all forms must be saved as Drafts if you plan on making more edits.)
