Repeat Data in Form Exports

Owned by Jeremy W.
Last updated: Mar 25, 2024 by Gillian Javetski
2 min read

This page provides basic information on interpreting repeat data in form.

Overview

When you create a form export you have the option to include data that was captured in repeat groups. These are in a separate section of the export setup page, and you need to click on the checkbox to include this data in your export: 

After downloading the export you will see that the data for each type of repeat group is stored on a separate tab in your Excel file. A special column called row.number is used to link the repeat data with the main form submission. 

If you need to link the repeat data to a specific form submission you must include row.number in both the general form export and the repeat group export.

Using row.number

The row number will be your key to determining which general form data is associated with a given row in the repeat data.

In the main form export you will see that row.number just contains an increment count (1, 2, 3, 4) with one unique number per row.

In the repeat group tab row.number will contain a number in the format:

x.y

  • x is the number of the row from the main form export that the row in the repeat group is related to

  • y is the number of the count of the repeat group

So if you had 2 form submissions, and each time the repeat group was filled out twice you would expect to see the following:

Main Form Submission (first tab)

number

Note

number

Note

0

First Form

1

Second Form

Repeat Data (second tab)

number

Note

number

Note

0.0

First repeat group from first form

0.1

Second repeat group from first form

1.1

First repeat group from second form

1.2

Second repeat group from second form

You can use Excel functions like VLOOKUP to pull data from one tab to the other. For example, if you wanted to use a piece of data from the main form submission in a list of the repeat group data you could look up the row number from the first tab and pull over the necessary info.

Nested Repeat Groups

If you have multiple repeat groups, nested one within the other, then you will notice that the row.number reference includes more levels. 

For example, if you a form with one repeat group (houses) and then another group within that (house members) you might see a row.number in this format for the house members repeat group tab:

x.y.z

  • x is the row from the main form

  • y is the row from the house repeat

  • z is the number of the repeat from the house members repeat group

By referring to these components you can find the different levels of relevant data.