[phpesp-dev] question: compositing surveys, possible enhancement

[Bishop B. <ph...@id...>]

All,

I am using a bulk uploader to create many surveys.  Surveys cannot be =20
created by hand, as we're talking about many thousands created at a =20
time.  One requirement is that these created surveys should be made =20
from multiple "template" surveys, as directed by the upload.

For example, say there are three surveys in the system called: CORE, =20
ONLINE, ILT.  Then, the administrator uploads data that says:

Survey 1 uses CORE
Survey 2 uses CORE and ILT.
Survey 3 uses CORE and ONLINE.
Survey 4 uses CORE, ONLINE, and ILT.

etc.

When I create these surveys (1 through 4 above), I want to take the =20
question sets for each indicated survey and create from them a new, =20
composite survey.

The way I want to do this is to write a function that takes multiple =20
survey IDs, rams their questions together, then creates a new survey =20
from that aggregation.   I think that would be simple to do, and it =20
could be later used in the UI, if we wanted to support "template" =20
surveys.

But, I have also thought about using conditions, such that there's one =20
template that has all the question on it, then conditions configured =20
at survey creation time determine whether the questions show.  So, =20
imagine there's a survey called "ALL" that has all the questions from =20
CORE, ONLINE, and ILT.  Each one of those question sets would be on =20
its own section.  The "jump" to those questions would be hard-coded =20
into the conditions, based on the direction provided at upload time.

To me, it seems like the conditions way would be harder to implement =20
than the combine method.  Thoughts?

bishop

--=20
Bishop Bettini
ideacode, Inc.
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