dependent survey questions not appearing for in-flight records after deactivation

[anushreem1]

I have a requirement where two questions depend on a parent question in a survey. I want only one dependent question to be displayed and the other to be hidden.

To achieve this, I deactivated the question that is no longer needed. This works correctly for newly created surveys. However, for existing in‑flight (saved) surveys, both dependent questions do not appear.

To resolve this, I removed the dependency from the question that is no longer needed, and now it works correctly for both new and in‑flight survey records.

Could you please suggest alternative approaches to achieve this without removing the dependency from the deactivated question?

[Tanushree Maiti]

Hi @anushreem1 

Which version you are using ?

refer KB: KB1644137 Surveys with 2 or more dependencies don't hide the questions correctly 

Resolution

The issue is solved in Washington DC Patch 1 and above. However it requires an additional property to be created.

1. Open sys_properties.list
2. Create a property named "com.snc.assessment.metric.clear_value", type true|false
3. Input a description and set the value to True
4. Submit it

[Ankur Bawiskar]

@anushreem1 

this is OOTB behavior

-> changes to survey questions do not apply immediately to existing survey instances; they only affect new survey instances created afterward

-> That is why deactivating the dependent question works for new surveys but can break saved/in-flight ones, because those instances already contain their own generated instance-question records

Recommended approach

-> Clone/version the survey: keep the old survey definition for in-flight instances, and create a new survey definition for new responses with only the desired dependency path. This avoids impacting existing saved instances

💡 If my response helped, please mark it as correct ✅ and close the thread 🔒— this helps future readers find the solution faster! 🙏