Support entities

[lognaturel]

• decide whether we're using "dataset" or "entity list". The former is what the API calls a collection of entities, the latter is what's user-facing. pyodk is kind of in the middle. I'm leaning towards "entity list" because it matches form design and it's often the same person who design forms and does analysis. I think we should align with ruODK.

  • Using entity_list

• list https://docs.getodk.org/central-api-entity-management/#entities-metadata

• create https://docs.getodk.org/central-api-entity-management/#creating-an-entity; I think it should take a required entity list name, required label, required dict for data, and an optional uuid (function can generate a uuid4 if none provided)

• get_table https://docs.getodk.org/central-api-odata-endpoints/#id3 same as https://getodk.github.io/pyodk/submissions/#pyodk._endpoints.submissions.SubmissionService.get_table

Should we also create an entity_list module by analogy to the form/submission separation?

• list https://docs.getodk.org/central-api-dataset-management/#datasets
• create upcoming (Create a new Entity List without publishing a Form central#575)
• add_property upcoming (Add a new property to an Entity List without publishing a Form central#576)

[kanhirun]

This feature is something my team is interested as well.

We're using pyodk to continuously pull data from ODK Cloud. However, if we could directly access the entity data, it would be better. Currently, we have to create our own entity model from the submissions data, which can cause confusion or inconsistencies.

[lognaturel]

Thanks so much for that feedback, @kanhirun! Our approach to pyodk has been to add support for functionality as its requested so please let us know as you have needs that we could address!

In general, you should be able to use any Central endpoint directly using https://getodk.github.io/pyodk/http-methods/. It's not as convenient as using the built-in methods but it's something to consider if we don't yet have nice methods for functionality you'd like to use.