---
title: "A new cycle of NFI in an existing survey"
url: "https://openforis.support/questions/3717/a-new-cycle-of-nfi-in-an-existing-survey"
tags: ["collect"]
status: "accepted"
score: 0
answer_count: 1
asked: "2023-07-27T08:22:46"
last_activity: "2023-07-31T09:20:47"
source: "Open Foris Support - Q&A Forum"
license: "Copyright Open Foris, 2026. Some rights reserved under creative commons license."
---

# A new cycle of NFI in an existing survey

Asked by beka on 2023-07-27

Dear OF team,
We are going to conduct NFI again next year, we are not changing the methodology, and therefore the existing survey that we had during the first cycle is still relevant now.
Is it possible to continue working in the existing survey so,  the old and new data are distinguished, and when importing the data from the mobile, there will no conflict between the previously captured and the newly captured clusters, when the numbers of clusters match each other?
thanks in advance,
Beka


## Accepted answer (score 1, by Stefano (OF) on 2023-07-31)

Link: https://openforis.support/questions/3717/a-new-cycle-of-nfi-in-an-existing-survey/3729

Dear Beka,  
What you could do in Collect is to create another attribute in the "root" entity and mark it as key (e.g. collection_period and it could be filled by default with the year of previous data collection phase, or whatever you prefer), then update the current data and set a value into the new key attribute.  
When you will collect new records with Collect Mobile, you will have to use another value in that attribute, for example the current year.  
In this way you can have records with the same id, but different collection period/phase.  
I hope this suggestion can be helpful to you, let us know.  
Open Foris Team