Difference between dynamic selects with pre-loaded data and external selects

Support
1

What is the problem? Please be detailed.
I am conducting a follow-up survey and am confused about the best way to load previously collected data about the respondents and whether using pre-loaded data or external selects is more appropriate.

I need to be able to do a cascading select where surveyors first select a union, then a village (within that union), then a bari (within that village). Then I would like a list of households that we previously surveyed in that bari to appear so that you can select the household you are at, and then I would like a list of individuals in that household that we previously surveyed to appear so that you can select the individual you are about to survey.

Based on the individual selected, I would like to pre-load some information, such as their name and age.

I also need all of this to work in multiple languages.

Is this a combination of external selects and pre-loading data? What is the best way to achieve this sort of structure?

What ODK tool and version are you using? And on what device and operating system version?
I am using ODK Collect v1.18.1 on a Samsung Galaxy Tab E and building my form with XLSForm.

2

Hi @Nina_Brooks,

You may understand the difference by actually implementing them and see how each works. Depending on the complexity of the form, it may require you to use a combination of both.

Also check out this thread, it may help you.

3

You will likely have to do both because they aren't really related.

All selects can cascade (union-village-bari). If you have a very large list of selects (100s), external selects are more performant.

To pull up data about the household, say in a CSV, you'll need to use preloads.