Epicollect5 User Guide
  • What is Epicollect5
  • About
    • Projects and Entries Syncing
    • Our Community
    • Privacy Policy
    • Cookie Policy
    • News & Papers
    • Epicollect5 Citation
  • Web Application
    • Intro
    • Create a Project
    • Project Info & Privacy
    • Delete Projects (Web)
    • View Projects
    • Search Projects
    • Viewing Entries
    • Print Entries
    • Add & Edit Entries
    • Manage Entries
      • Entries Limits
      • Entries Bulk Deletion
      • Entries Bulk Uploads
      • Entries Ownership & Metadata
    • Manage Users
    • Transfer Ownership
    • Manage Entries
    • Data Mapping
    • Downloading Data
    • Downloading Media
    • Metadata
    • Clone Project
    • Rename Projects
    • Import & Export Projects
    • Web Link to Add Entries
  • Formbuilder
    • Intro
    • Languages and Translations
    • Question Types
    • Add Questions
    • Edit Questions
    • Linking Forms
    • Rename Forms
    • Print Forms
    • Remove Forms
    • Search
    • Jumps (If-Else)
    • Branches
    • Groups
    • Title
    • Uniqueness
    • Double-entry Verification
    • Import & Export Forms
    • Import & Export Possible Answers
    • Edit Possible Answers
  • Mobile Application
    • Intro
    • Platforms and Media
    • Mobile App Authentication
    • Mobile App Permissions
    • Add Projects
    • Add Entries (Single Form)
    • Add Entries (Multiple Forms)
    • Edit Entries
    • Re-use answers
    • Save & Resume Entries
    • Upload Entries
      • Upload Errors
      • Incomplete Entries
      • Missing required aswers
      • Unsync entries
    • Entries Limits
    • Download Entries
    • Delete Entries
    • Delete Projects (App)
    • Location Questions
    • Add Bookmarks
    • Project Info
    • Share Media Files
    • Adjust Font Size
    • Filter Entries
    • Beta updates (Android)
    • Xiaomi Troubleshooting
  • Developers
    • Intro
    • API
    • Apps
  • Integrations
    • Google Maps
    • Google Earth
    • Microreact
    • Survey Toolkit
    • Google Sheets
  • Common Use Cases
    • Matrix Style Questions
    • Consolidate data
    • Jumps 101
    • Other, Please Specify
    • Non-Hierarchical Forms
    • Users Working Groups
    • Excel and UTF-8
    • Excel All Data in One Cell
    • Barcodes
    • Child Forms vs Branches
    • Dependent Dropdowns
    • Referencing Parent Form Responses
  • Extra
    • Useful Links
    • Demo Projects
    • FAQ
    • How-to Videos
    • Known Issues
Powered by GitBook
On this page
  • 1 - Multiple projects
  • 2 - Single project with BRANCH or GROUP sub-forms
  1. Common Use Cases

Non-Hierarchical Forms

PreviousOther, Please SpecifyNextUsers Working Groups

Last updated 7 months ago

There are some use case where there is the need to have multiple forms on the same project but the hierarchy structure does not fit. Maybe the forms are not related or it just does not make sense for the project.

There are a couple of way to tackle this.

  1. Separate the project in multiple ones

  2. Use a single form with either BRANCH(es) or GROUP(s)

1 - Multiple projects

The simplest way would be having multiple projects, one with a single form each. Usually, a "base" project gets created first then it gets or multiple times.

The name for each project might reflect what the projects are different on, which could be the period of the data collection (like year or month), the groups of users it targets, the area or the country of the data collection and so on.

Each data set is downloaded separately as multiple csv files which be merged in the post-processing of data using your favorite third party tool.

This is the approach we would recommend.

2 - Single project with BRANCH or GROUP sub-forms

If having multiple projects is not an option, there are ways to implement it with either BRANCH(es) or GROUP(s).

We built a couple of examples for anyone to view and play around with:

The project definition files (to import each project and see how it is done) are available here:

The choice of using BRANCH or GROUP depends on the project requirements and preferences. The main differences are as follows.

  • BRANCH allows JUMP(s) between question, GROUP(s) do not

  • BRANCH(es) data gets downloaded as separate files, one per each BRANCH. GROUP(s) data is a single file.

The projects are very similar. There is a single hierarchy form called "Citizen" which has a pivot question at the beginning to pick which one of the sub-forms (BRANCH or GROUP) the user will want to fill. are used to build the logic flow so the users will never see questions they are not supposed to answer.

Feel free to give it a try using the example above. If you have any questions about these approaches do not hesitate to post it on our !

cloned
shared
EC5 Multiple non hierarchical forms GROUP
EC5 Multiple non hierarchical forms BRANCH
EC5 Multiple non hierarchical forms GROUP project definition
EC5 Multiple non hierarchical forms BRANCH project definition
JUMPS
community