XLSForm questions with emtpy appearance column are ignored without alerting the user of the error

[cdparra]

Description

After importing an XLSForm that contains a group with appearance "field-list" that contains select_one questions, but with the error of putting the "field-list" label in the "relevant" column rather than the "appearance" column, KoboToolbox will deploy the form and simply ignore these questions without any warning.

Here is the XLSForm we used as example.

Cuestionario.xlsx

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create an XLS form
2. Create a group of select_one questions
3. Put the "field-list" value in the column "relevant" rather than appearance
4. For the select_one questions, use the value "list-nolabel" also in the wrong column "relevant"
5. Import this xlsform to Kobo
6. Deploy

Expected behavior

Deploy should issue some type of warning or fail.

Actual behavior

Deployment succeed, the resulting form displays correctly but ignoring the questions with the error.

[jnm]

Hello,

appearance is allowed to be empty, even for groups of select_one questions, and I'm not sure how we would distinguish between a "legitimate" relevant value that hides a question and one that was placed there by mistake.

Let us know if there's a way you envision us detecting this as an error versus something that was done intentionally.

Thanks—