What high-level problem are you trying to solve?
Not a high level problem, rather low-level a problem of my own making.
I updated an active form to remove certain fields that were previously collecting important data but are no longer relevant (but I still want the old data from these fields). This of course stuffed up my OData feeds, where the feed was looking for fields that are not in the current form version. This was particularly in Excel and for users that I had assisted in setting up their OData feed.
The fix was relatively simple, to go back and reinstate the fields with relevant = false() so the fields are in the structure but do not present to the user.
I wonder if it would be possible to test a draft form structure against your existing OData feeds
Any ideas on how ODK could help you solve it?
In Central, perhaps have a check box in the drafts testing section that you check to test the OData feed, I would suggest a ten minute timeout for the test. When this box is checked the Odata feed is presented with the draft structure, so the user can go into R, Excel or some other and test impact of the form changes.
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