Changelog • robotoolbox

robotoolbox 1.6.2 (2026-04-01)

BUG FIXES

Fixed repeat-group detection regression: a recent change made entry into the repeat-group branch too strict and caused some genuine repeat-group forms to be returned as flat tables. kobo_data() now again relies on the form structure (begin_repeat) to identify repeat-group surveys and return dm outputs consistently.

DOCUMENTATION

Clarified fields behavior for repeat-group forms: repeat-group surveys always return a dm; main-table fields can be selected individually; top-level repeat groups are selected at table level; repeat groups are returned in full; nested repeat groups and child columns cannot be selected independently.

robotoolbox 1.6.1 (2026-03-31)

BUG FIXES

Fixed repeat group column assignment in dm objects: child tables were inflated with hundreds of spurious all-NA columns belonging to other tables. The internal scope tracking (kobo_form_name_to_list_()) now correctly maps each field to its repeat group, producing child tables that match the KoboToolbox Excel export.
Fixed repeat group column assignment in dm objects: child tables were inflated with hundreds of spurious all-NA columns belonging to other tables. The internal scope tracking (kobo_form_name_to_list_()) now correctly maps each field to its repeat group, producing child tables that match the KoboToolbox Excel export.
Fixed empty-result path in kobo_data(): zero-submission assets now return the correct structure (dm for repeat-group forms, filtered columns when fields is set, label-based names when colnames_label = TRUE). A spurious "NA" column no longer appears.
Fixed kobo_lang_get() and kobo_lang_set() with colnames_label = TRUE data: both functions now correctly detect and handle datasets where columns have been renamed to labels.
Fixed pagination edge case where paginate = TRUE with a single submission produced an invalid page_size of 0.
Fixed build_subs_urls() off-by-one that generated an extra empty API request when submission count was an exact multiple of page_size.
Fixed validate_query_() JSON validation: now uses RcppSimdJson::fparse() to actually parse the query string instead of only checking {/} delimiters.
Fixed kobo_token() error on missing URL: now aborts early with a clear message instead of a low-level curl error when no URL is provided and KOBOTOOLBOX_URL is unset.

DOCUMENTATION

Fixed kobo_attachment_download() roxygen: overwrite default corrected to TRUE, folder description no longer claims a default that does not exist.
Fixed kobo_token() example to call kobo_token() instead of kobo_setup().
README and intro vignette now mention the KOBOTOOLBOX_PAGE_SIZE environment variable as an alternative to the page_size parameter.

robotoolbox 1.6.0 (2026-03-27)

CRAN release: 2026-03-28

BREAKING CHANGES

Default pagination limit reduced from 30,000 to 1,000 to comply with KoboToolbox API changes effective with KoboToolbox KPI version 2.026.03 (March 2026) on public servers (see https://community.kobotoolbox.org/t/important-changes-to-api-v2-assets-uid-asset-data-result-limits/74610).
Auto-pagination now triggers at 1,000 submissions (previously 10,000).
Attachment filenames now include attachment UID for uniqueness. Files are now named {att_uid}_{filename} instead of {submission_id}_{filename} to handle cases where the same submission has multiple attachments with identical filenames.

NEW FEATURES

Session-level caching for form metadata and languages significantly improves performance for repeated operations. Use kobo_cache_info() to view cache status and kobo_cache_clear() to clear the cache when needed.
Language switching without re-downloading data:
- kobo_lang_set(data, asset, lang) instantly switches variable and value labels to a different language using cached form metadata.
- kobo_lang_get(data, asset) detects the current language applied to a dataset.
- Works with both simple data.frame and complex dm objects (nested forms).
Server-side filtering with query parameter in kobo_data(): pass a MongoDB-style query string to filter submissions before download, e.g. kobo_data(asset, query = '{"status": "approved"}').
Field selection with fields parameter in kobo_data(): fetch only specific fields to reduce data transfer, e.g. kobo_data(asset, fields = c("name", "age")).

BUG FIXES

Fixed kobo_audit() and kobo_attachment_download() to handle API changes where the instance field was removed from the _attachments structure.
Fixed kobo_attachment_download() overwrite = FALSE check to correctly skip existing files.
Improved error handling for non-JSON API error responses.
Fixed val_labels_from_form_() to handle forms without value_version column.
Fixed documentation typos in README and vignettes.

IMPROVEMENTS

Significant performance gains for forms with repeat groups: parallel form version fetching (3x faster) and precomputed label application (5x faster processing) reduce end-to-end time by ~40% on complex forms.
kobo_lang_get() and kobo_lang_set() now accept an asset uid string in addition to a kobo_asset object, consistent with other package functions.
Simplified internal attachment processing using tidyr::unnest() for cleaner code.
Reduced sleep times between paginated API requests for better performance with 1,000 record limit.
Removed deprecated vcr::check_cassette_names() from test setup.

NOTES

kobo_setup() now accepts a page_size parameter (default 1000) to configure the maximum number of submissions per API request. Users with private servers that allow higher limits can set this to a larger value (e.g., kobo_setup(..., page_size = 30000)) to fetch more data per request and avoid unnecessary pagination.
The default page_size is capped at 1,000 for safety on public KoboToolbox servers.
Known limitation: kobo_audit() and kobo_attachment_download() currently fetch attachments from the first 1,000 submissions only. Full pagination support for these functions is planned for a future release.

robotoolbox 1.3.4 (2024-12-19)

NEW FEATURES

Added kobo_file_list to list all media files availabe
Added kobo_attachment_download to download attached files in a specific folder

BUG FIXES

if you have a column var_other and select_multiple choice other for a column var, the, var_other is silently overwritten. It’s fixed now and we rename the duplicate.
text question with numbers are parsed as numbers, it’s fixed now.
select_multiple questions with choices with special characters suchs (, ), { or } were breaking the split into dummy variables. Bug fixed.
Fix bug on paginate in kobo_data
Fix bug in kobo_audit when you have audit data columns are different across submissions.

MINOR IMPROVEMENTS

Support for media question types (media::image, media::big-image, media::audio, media::video)
Keep the _attachments column in the data.

robotoolbox 1.3.2

CRAN release: 2023-06-09

NEW FEATURES

released to CRAN

robotoolbox 1.2.0.9075

BUG FIXES

Better version order to use the choice labels of the latest form deployed.

NEW FEATURES

Added a fonction kobo_audit to get all the audit logs data from a form with audit enabled. It comes with a vignette showing how to read audit logs.
Add a progress parameter to kobo_data, you can see your progress through custom messages.
Added a logical parameter select_multiple_label to kobo_data in order to turn select_multiple values to labels. It’s useful if you want to work directly with labels in select_multiple
Added a all_versions logical parameter to kobo_data to check whether or not you want to include data from all form versions.
Added a colnames_label logical parameter to kobo_data to check whether or not you want to include variable labels as column names.

robotoolbox 1.1.0.9004

BUG FIXES

Fixing the following issue: Using true or false as values in select_one breaks the labels.
Revert to type.convert because of flexibility on boolean/logical
Add a fonction to merge the variables from different groups due to different versions of the form used during data collection.

robotoolbox 1.1.0.9000

IMPROVEMENTS

robotoolbox provides WKT columns for geopoint, geotrace and geoshape question types, for easier spatial data analysis.
Remove unnecessary list-columns and pre-process _validation_status column.

BUG FIXES

Fix a bug in kobo_form when you have a list_name in the choices tab but no associated question in the survey tab.

robotoolbox 1.0.9.9002

BUG FIXES

It is now possible to match submissions to form based on the version of the form used even when you’re not the owner of the project. This new feature work best with Kobotoolbox kpi version 2.023.12 and up.
When you have child table with differents parent tables, split it and change names.

MINOR IMPROVEMENTS

Update purrr to 1.0.1

robotoolbox 1.0.7.9001

MINOR IMPROVEMENTS

kobo_data and kobo_submissions are faster for surveys with repeat group.
Add variables as labels when a variable label is missing
Custom labels for select_multiple dummy variables

robotoolbox 1.0.6.9000

BUG FIXES

kobo_form was not working with survey with duplicated columns. Duplicared columns will be deduped.

robotoolbox 1.0.5.9000

NEW FEATURES

Update to make it compatible with tidyr 1.3.0
Hide token when using kobo_settings print method

robotoolbox 1.0.4.9000

NEW FEATURES

Update code to remove depecrated .data arguments in tidyselect function. Introduced as of tidyselect version 1.2.0
Use readr::type_convert instead of utils::type.convert to get the right date, datetime types

robotoolbox 1.0.1.9000

NEW FEATURES

An empty tibble is returned for project with zero submissions
Fixed bug on kobo_form

robotoolbox 1.0.0.9000

NEW FEATURES

All columns are exported including columns with no responses
Adapt vignette to {dm} new features since version one and above.
Add retry support in simple queries.

BUG FIXES

robotoolbox 1.0.0

NEW FEATURES

BUG FIXES

robotoolbox 0.9.9001

NEW FEATURES

Renaming KoBo to Kobo to match changes made by the Kobotoolbox team
All values are turn into dummies including values not used