# awx surveys and nested yaml variables don't appear to work as expected

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/awx-surveys-and-nested-yaml-variables-dont-appear-to-work-as-expected/26314>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Tags:** awx\
**Created:** [December 17, 2017, 5:17pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/awx-surveys-and-nested-yaml-variables-dont-appear-to-work-as-expected/26314 "2017-12-17T17:17:54Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Brandon\_Jozsa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/77aa72/32.png) [@Brandon\_Jozsa](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Brandon_Jozsa)\
**Post date:** [December 17, 2017, 5:17pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/awx-surveys-and-nested-yaml-variables-dont-appear-to-work-as-expected/26314/1 "2017-12-17T17:17:54Z")

</div>

Hey everyone. I have some questions about how AWX handles nested yaml values for things like surveys.

I have a nested yaml declaration in previous playbook for group\_vars, and they look like this:

# OS API User Login Information:

auth:  
os\_auth\_url: “[http://openstack.domain.io5:5000](http://openstack.domain.io5:5000)”  
os\_username: “username”

# OS Project Details:

project:  
os\_project: “admin”  
os\_region\_name: “RegionOne”  
os\_domain\_name: “Default”

And so on. This is definitely valid syntax, and when the variables are used in the playbook, they’re translated like the following:

- name: creating new instances and attaching to declared networks  
os\_server:  
state: present  
auth:  
auth\_url: “{{ auth.os\_auth\_url }}”  
username: “{{ auth.os\_username }}”  
password: “{{ os\_password }}”  
project\_name: “{{ project.os\_project }}”  
name: “{{ instance.os\_hostname }}”  
image: “{{ instance.os\_image\_id }}”  
key\_name: “{{ instance.os\_key\_name }}”  
timeout: 200  
flavor: “{{ instance.os\_flavor\_id }}”  
network: “{{ network.os\_network\_id }}”  
meta:  
hostname: “{{ meta.os\_hostname }}”  
group: “{{ meta.os\_group }}”

This works perfectly fine (as expected) when running manually. However, I’m starting to PoC AWX for our use, before deciding to purchase a Tower support contract. Unfortunately, when trying to use these same variables in surveys, I receive an error that states “Please remove the illegal character from the survey question variable name”. This occurs because AWX is not interpreting the “.” as a valid element.

Can someone tell me if there’s a work around, or do I need to redraft my playbooks (I would really like to avoid this if possible).

Thanks for the help/guidance in advance!

Brandon (IRC: v1k0d3n)