One specific use case we are aiming to support is an offline clinical trial in which samples need to go from a clinic to a lab facility. Two forms will be used: an intake form in the clinic and a sample processing form at the lab. The intake form will be used to print out information about the sample(s) collected including a qrcode. The lab will scan the qr code in the sample processing form. This will make it possible for the sample processing form to use information from the intake form. In analysis, it will also enable linking submissions to the two forms about the same sample.
This is closely related to the work that we are doing with Entities which help represent a person/place/thing across form submissions. In a context with reliable internet, Entities could be used to meet the same need. Later this year it will be possible to link form submissions through Entities within a single device but using a printout as outlined above will continue to be useful for workflows that have multiple steps performed by different people who are all offline.
This functionality is now available in Collect v2024.1. You can find its documentation here.