There could be times when you wish to cascade a question for a survey project. Creating a cascading "Select One" question is possible through the formbuilder as outlined in the support article here. However, if you wish to cascade a select multiple question you will need to make use of XLSForm. This article illustrates how to cascade a "Select Multiple" question.
The survey sheet in this example will require six column headers: type,
name, label, required, choice_filter and calculation.
| type | name | label | required | choice_filter | calculation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| select_multiple Q1 | Q1 | Q1. Select all that applies from Q1 | TRUE | ||
| calculate | C1 | if(selected(${Q1}, '1'),'condition1','') | |||
| calculate | C2 | if(selected(${Q1}, '2'),'condition2','') | |||
| calculate | C3 | if(selected(${Q1}, '3'),'condition3','') | |||
| calculate | C4 | if((selected(${Q1}, '1') and selected(${Q1}, '2') and selected(${Q1}, '3')),'condition4','') | |||
| select_multiple Q2 | Q2 | Q2. Select all that applies from Q2 | TRUE | filter1=${C1} or filter2=${C2} or filter3=${C3} or filter4=${C4} | |
| survey |
Here row 2 and row 7, are select_multiple questions where we will be
cascading the choices of Q2 (row 7) based on the choices selected in Q1 (row
2). Row 3 to row 6 are calculate questions to create cascading conditions
for (row 7). The choice_filter used in row 7 then finally cascades the
choices of Q2.
The second sheet your XLSForm requires is the choices tab. This sheet will require three mandatory column headers (list_name, name, label) and additional column headers (filter1, filter2, filter3, filter4) that hold the choices based on the conditions created in the survey tab using the if function. You could give any suitable names for these additional column headers (filter1, filter2, filter3, filter4) if you wish to, apart from what has already been used here.
| list_name | name | label | filter1 | filter2 | filter3 | filter4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Q1 | 1 | Choice 1 for Q1 | ||||
| Q1 | 2 | Choice 2 for Q1 | ||||
| Q1 | 3 | Choice 3 for Q1 | ||||
| Q2 | 1 | Choice 1 for Q2 | condition1 | condition4 | ||
| Q2 | 2 | Choice 2 for Q2 | condition1 | condition4 | ||
| Q2 | 3 | Choice 3 for Q2 | condition2 | condition4 | ||
| Q2 | 4 | Choice 4 for Q2 | condition2 | condition4 | ||
| Q2 | 5 | Choice 5 for Q2 | condition3 | condition4 | ||
| Q2 | 6 | Choice 6 for Q2 | condition3 | condition4 | ||
| choices |
The third sheet your XLSForm requires is the settings tab. This sheet will require one optional column header (form_title).
| form_title |
|---|
| Cascading a Select Multiple Question |
| settings |
This is the screen you should see when nothing is selected in Q1.
This is the screen you should see when only one choice is selected in Q1.
This is the screen you should see when two choices are selected in Q1.
This is the screen you should see when all three choices are selected in Q1.
You can access the XLSForm here that was used in this article.