Republishing and Overwriting Survey on Survey123 Connect creating duplicate feature layers

Question

Using ArcGIS Enterprise Version 11.4.0

I have a survey that was published back in 2025 after the implementation of the new update that creates the _form view automatically when publishing a survey from Survey123 Connect. The issue is, I am updating the schema to include a new repeat section and it will overwrite the feature service. I have run tests and several trials to ensure I don't lose the data, but instead of overwriting the old feature service it just makes a duplicate one and replaces the _form view.

Is this a new feature that essentially archives the old feature service for data retention, or is this a bug? Has anyone else had any insight on this particular issue when updating schemas in a published survey on Enterprise?

TylerGraham2 · Answer

I've found with old surveys they maintain the original paths between form and data source. So, if you have a form that points to and you update the form, it will still point to and it won't create a new view. Though if you make a big schema change it should still create a new feature service with the old one still hanging around.

abureaux · Answer

Yes, this is a "new" feature. I believe it has been live in the newest versions of Enterprise, though I don't recall which version it was added (definately 11.3, maybe 11.0). Only applies when you get the warning in Connect about publishing a new schema.

This is expected behaviour and I find requires a little extra work for a couple reasons:

* If you are making several changes back-to-back, you many end up with several duplicate layers. I find that tagging old layers can be helpful. Then, deleting the old layers when safe to do so.
* Becaues the old layer doesn't get removed now, if you have an automation, it likely won't break and will just silently "not work". So you need to check up on linked automations to ensure they reference the newest layer.

jbrower · Answer

Do you know if this will affect older surveys? I have an older survey I republished with a repeat section as a test and it overwrote the older survey but not the newer one.

It has actually ended up overwriting the _form on Enterprise, I have noticed that when I change the schema in any tests it creates the new hosted layer but overwrites the form and adds in the new repeat so there’s only one _form layer.