adding autoincrementing respondent counter to survey

I think the best way is to use a survey flow web service call to keep and update an external count and return the counter as an embedded data field.

Another approach would be to use a quota and the piped quota count to calculate the counter (e.g., counter = $e{ qo://QO_xxx/QuotaCount + 1 }). However, with this approach you might end up with some duplicate and missing counts due to simultaneous responses (e.g., 1, 2, 3, 3, 5, 6, etc.).

Thanks Tom, I’ve been testing this solution and it’s very promising. I set up a quota that increases whenever its own value is equal or greater than zero, so essentially “count always”. Then, in the survey flow I add the quota counter from the piped text menu “${qo://QO_xxxx/QuotaCount}”. This counter increases with each response, but starting, as expected, at 0.

Minor, but I can’t get the “+1” right. When doing “${qo://QO_xxxx/QuotaCount + 1}” the field remains empty, so looks like the +1 isn’t parsed. Also tried “${qo://QO_xxxx/QuotaCount } + 1” but then I get a literal value like “9 + 1”. Guessing some variable type conversion (string/numerical) is needed. Suggestions on how to do this?

And related/more generally, is it possible to do things like concatenating piped variables with fixed text (or each other), along the lines of [“myText” ${qo//…./someVar}] ? Can’t find any documentation on any “pseudocoding” functionality that may be available when handling piped variables.

To do + 1 use:

$e{ qo://QO_xxx/QuotaCount + 1 }

Note the e before the {.  The spaces between everything are required.  Also, you need to replace QO_xxx with the actual quota id.

Yes, you can concatenate embedded fields with text or each other - no quotes are necessary:

my text ${e://Field/variable1} ${e://Field/variable2}

Just curious, instead of the +1, wouldn’t setting the quota value to start from 1 in the quota setting be fine?

Or is there any reason this method is not recommended?