Test multi-entity functionality across Central + Collect + XLSForm/pyxform + Web Forms

[ktuite]

This issue is a reminder to check the behavior of entities from repeats and entities for multiple datasets across the full ODK ecosystem.

Central and Collect can both now handle submissions that save entities to multiple datasets when there are multiple <entity> blocks in the XML:

• Central: Entities from Repeats #1020
• Collect: Offline entities are created from entities in repeats collect#6876
  • Create offline entities from entities in repeats collect#6978

We also want to verify that this all works in Web Forms!

• Internal planning doc
• Docs
• Internal staging server forms
• pyxform test cases

[ktuite]

This doesn't specifically need to be done in 2026.1. There also isn't a specific thing to code up in Central at this time, we just didn't want to lose track of this.

[lognaturel]

Now that XLSForm/pyxform#818 is available on https://getodk.org/xlsform/, you can start this any time, @srujner. There’s no specific timeline for this, I think we’ll want to have a couple of end-to-end regression checks at some point but it’s not urgent because there are lots of automated tests and we’re unlikely to touch the core implementation.

[srujner]

@ktuite Shouldn't this pr be in Closed state now?
Considering that we have already started testing it

[lognaturel]

Interesting! Our flow is usually "code closes issue -> QA verifies -> QA changes tag". But this issue doesn't track an issue closed by code, it tracks an issue closed by the QA process itself.

Unless @ktuite has a strong preference I think it's totally up to you how you want to manage this @srujner (close it now vs. close it when you're satisfied with your level of exploration for now). We just wanted to make sure the work was visible to all of us and that we had a central place to gather resources. I've added a few links to the issue.

[srujner]

I can change the status from "Backlog" to "In progress" or "Done" so we'll see this PR in our list, but I think that it'll be good to remove this part from description:

"We're also discussing #1412, which plays into the XLSForm spec design and functionality of pyxform.

#1412"

I see it has been bumped to v2026.2

[ktuite]

I've remove the part about linking entities from the issue description. I'll also close this issue, which will mark it as "Done".

[srujner]

We verified this PR across Central, Collect, WebForms and XLSForm.
This is the list of the most important things checked, there was also a lot of smaller things tested and a lot of form writing included ;)

Verified cases:

• Multiple datasets in Multiple parallel groups (conditional create in single group) registration
• update form: in Multiple datasets there a property with the same name)
• Multiple datasets in Multiple parallel repeats in update forms
• Nested group and repeat with Multiple datasets; relevant question on choosing which group/repeat to update
• Multiple datasets in Multiple repeats
• Multiple datasets in Multiple groups inside single repeat
• Multiple datasets in repeat and one single outside repeat
• Multiple datasets - Single in group outside repeat and Multiple in nested repeat
• Check with different errors in save_to
• Error in Central when the create_if column is added next to the entity_id column in the update form on the entities tab
• Multiple datasets Multiple groups, group in a group
• Editing multiple entities
• Entity Workflow
• App User and Data Collector Entity Access
• Conflicts in multiple entities forms
• Multiple entities in Drafts
• Linked entities and csvs

[dbemke]

Tested with success!

[WKobus]

Tested with success