Field type: text audit
- Arrival time and duration for visited fields
- The exact multiple-choice options presented to the user (if you specified the choices appearance)
- Which fields were recorded by an audio audit (if an audio audit was recorded for the submission)
In the form designer, click + Add hidden field, then choose text audit as the field type.
text audit: record meta-data about how the form was filled out. Including this field type anywhere in your form will record additional data while the form is being filled out. This meta-data will be stored as a .csv attachment to the submission.
By default, including a text audit field anywhere in your form will record timing information (in seconds) about each field visited while filling out that form. You'll be able to tell when the field first appeared in the form, and the total amount of time that was spent on the field. The text audit .csv file that gets attached to the submission will contain a row for each field.
Below is the basic structure of a text audit. Each row represents a field.
| Field name | Total duration (seconds) | First appeared (seconds into survey) |
| Records the field name (including containing groups, and instance numbers for repeated fields). | Records the total aggregated number of seconds spent on the current field. | Records the number of seconds since the form was first opened that the current field appeared. |
p=# appearance
If you don't want to record text audit data for every single submission, you can use the p=# appearance. Enter p=# into the appearance column (e.g., p=50 to save meta-data for a random 50% of filled-out forms).
eventlog appearance
If you need a more detailed record of which field was visited at what time, include eventlog in the appearance column. This will change nature of the meta-data recorded in a few key ways. All timing events will be recorded in milliseconds instead of seconds. The shape of the text audit .csv file will also change. Instead of one row per field, each row will represent a form event. Types of form events that are recorded are:
- Start form will record when the form is first opened.
- Visit field will record each time the user arrives at a field. If a single field is visited more than once, an event will be recorded for each visit.
- Exit form will record when the form is explicitly closed, either when the user reaches the end of the form, or when they save and exit.
- Reopen form will record when a partially-completed form is reopened.
- Finalize form will record when he user attempts to finalize the form.
- Update form definition will record when someone uses the reload form with updated form definition feature. Note: this only applies to the Collect mobile app (not web forms). See the topic on updating an existing form for more info.
Below is the basic structure of a text audit with the eventlog appearance. Each row represents an event.
| Device time | Form time (ms) | Field name | Event | Duration (ms) |
| Records the full date+time (including timezone) based on the device's internal clock. Web forms will always be in UTC. | Records the number of ms since the form started that the event occurred. | For field visit events, this will record the field name (including containing groups, and instance numbers for repeated fields). | Records the type of event that occurred. | For field visit events, this will record the duration (in ms) of the field visit. |
choices appearance
You can include choices in the appearance column to also record details about which multiple-choice options were presented to the user in what order. That can be useful when the list of choices is dynamic, randomized, or translated into multiple languages. Using the choices appearance will add two columns to the text audit .csv file: Choice values, and Choice labels.
Below is the basic structure of a text audit with the choices appearance.
| Field name* | Total duration (seconds)* | First appeared (seconds into survey)* | Choices values | Choices labels |
| For select_one and select_multiple field, this will record a space-separated list of the choice values that were shown to the user. | For select_one and select_multiple field, this will record a space-separated list of the exact choice labels that were shown to the user. |
* Note: the choices appearance can be used with both the default text audit appearance, and with the eventlog appearance. The two choices columns will be appended at the end, regardless of what the first columns are.
To learn more about auditing and the format of the saved meta-data, see the help topic on collecting high-quality data.
In the spreadsheet form definition:
| type | name | appearance |
| text audit | fieldname | |
| text audit | fieldname | p=# |
| text audit | fieldname | eventlog |
| text audit | fieldname | choices |
| text audit | fieldname | p=#; eventlog; choices |
