Multiple Choice Questions with Cases as Choices

This is now supported in the Application Builder using the 'Custom Single and Multiple Answer Questions' Feature Preview. For more information about how to turn on this feature please see Feature Previews.

So what you're looking to do is create a multiselect that lists cases to be selected? Unfortunately this is not supported in CommCareHQ's Application Builder. It can be done through a custom method described below, but is not recommended.

The process described below is not actively supported by CommCare

The instructions below are for advanced users only; Dimagi may not be able to help if you attempt to make changes to xml by hand and make a mistake.

This feature requires a software plan

Full access to this feature is only available for projects on a Standard software plan or higher. For more information, see https://www.commcarehq.org/pricing/

Also see: Updating case properties based on the outcome of a multiple choice question

This is useful if, for example, you have a form where you want to check off which of your cases are attending.

Modifying the XForm

If you are comfortable hacking around in the XForm, you can set up what you want by setting up an "itemset" which is based on the case database.

If you are not already using a form which required selecting a case, you will also need to add this xml right above where the app places all of the <bind> tags

<instance id="casedb" src="jr://instance/casedb"/>

Essentially: You'd create a select question, edit the XML, find the <select> block which represents your placeholder question and replace its <item> tags with the following (Only the bold parts of the XML below are changes. Everything else is what was there before). You'll need to include your case's "type" in the xml where noted

<itemset nodeset="instance('casedb')/casedb/case[@case_type='your_type']">

<label ref="case_name"/>

<value ref="@case_id" />

</itemset>

</select>

The options will include all the cases on the tablet of type 'your_type' (including closed cases).

If you want to list only open cases, you need to append a [@status='open'] clause as shown below:

<itemset nodeset="instance('casedb')/casedb/case[@case_type='your_type'][@status='open']">

<label ref="case_name"/>

<value ref="@case_id" />

</itemset>

</select>

Variations

If you would like to restrict the cases shown to be only child cases of the case which you are updating you can insert the following syntax as above:

[index/parent = instance('commcaresession')/session/data/case_id]

For Dimagi people reference:

You can look at this app for reference: https://www.commcarehq.org/a/tdhtesting/apps/view/39d3a2c79d16e59d035a4093fa0cf3cd/modules-1/forms-2/source/

In Child Classification form, the 'Authentication' group of questions at top. To see how access case properties of the selected case, look at hidden variable 'selected_user_pin'