Why does ‘Extra’ appear if you select ”Expand Multiple Choice Questions”

commcare

I noticed that when I select "expand multiple choice questions" with a form export, an additional column 'data | extra' appears. Is this expected behavior?

enter image description here

Best Answer

This is indeed expected behavior. The "extra" column is for any options that were chosen that were not found in the list of specified options in the application. Suppose you have the following multiple choice options defined:

A B C

If CommCare sees an answer that is D. It will put it in the "extra" column.

This can often happen when a user changes the options in their application. For example, if one were to deploy an app with the following options:

A B C D

Then in a later version change that question to only accept:

A B C

Any forms that had already answered D will show up in the "extra" column.