How to Use Repeat Groups in XLSForm

A repeat group in XLSForm collects the same set of questions multiple times — once per item in a list — by wrapping those questions between begin repeat and end repeat rows. It is how you record a household roster, a list of crops, or every child in a family without knowing the count in advance.

Repeat groups solve a problem paper forms handle badly: a variable number of items. Instead of printing ten blank "household member" blocks and hoping that is enough, a repeat group lets the enumerator add exactly as many entries as the interview needs.

How do you create a repeat group?

Add a begin repeat row, put the repeating questions beneath it, and close with an end repeat row. The name on begin repeat and end repeat should match.

type	name	label
begin repeat	member	Household member
text	member_name	Name of household member
integer	member_age	Age
select_one sex	member_sex	Sex
end repeat	member

◀ ▶surveychoicessettings+

During collection, ODK asks for the first member's name, age, and sex, then offers to add another member, repeating the block as many times as needed.

How do you control the number of repetitions?

Add a repeat_count column to set how many times the block repeats. You can fix it to a number, or — more usefully — drive it from an earlier answer:

type	name	label	repeat_count
integer	hh_size	How many people live here?
begin repeat	member	Household member	${hh_size}
text	member_name	Name of household member
integer	member_age	Age
end repeat	member

◀ ▶surveychoicessettings+

Here the form first asks household size, then automatically creates exactly that many member blocks. This guarantees the roster length matches the reported size.

How do you reference answers inside a repeat?

Two functions let you use repeated data elsewhere in the form:

• count(${member}) — the number of entries collected in the repeat.
• indexed-repeat(${member_age}, ${member}, 1) — the value from a specific repetition (here, the first member's age).

type	name	label	calculation
calculate	total_members		count(${member})
note	summary	You recorded ${total_members} household members.

◀ ▶surveychoicessettings+

Inside the repeat, you reference sibling answers normally with ${member_name} — each repetition sees its own values.

Why repeat groups matter in the field

Repeat groups make rosters accurate and complete. They capture the real number of household members, livestock, or visits rather than forcing data into a fixed number of slots, and they keep each item's answers neatly linked. Exported data lands in a separate, tidy table per repeat — clean to analyze. For complex rosters, build them faster with LooprAI, which generates the begin/end repeat structure and count logic from a plain-English description.

If the roster must persist across forms or be updated during later visits, use the ODK Entities and longitudinal workflow instead of keeping every record inside one submission.

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