Create survey for non-spatial table?

Question

I'd like to create a survey for a non-spatial table (defects) from an existing hosted feature service in AGO. There is absolutley no spatial component to it. Goal is to embed the survey in a Dashboard for a back-office workflow. Users will click from a Defect list, which will open the appropriate survey in Edit mode and allow users to edit and close out defects that were collected in earlier field inspections.

I've discovered that this isn't readily possible, as Survey123 seems to always "want" a geometry field, so it automatically plants a geometry column in my Schema, much to my chagrin. This prevents me from publishing, since of course my target feature service table has no geometry column.

Is there a workaround to this? A way to "fake" a temporary geometry in the schema to allow S123 Connect to publish? I've tried a few things with hosted views, but no luck so far.

dougbrowning · Answer

You may be able to publish it regular.  Then set the geopoint bind esri to null, put in a submission url to the table service, then try and publish.

But overall like Josh said 123 dumps data into a feature class, which I think is mainly a AGOL limitation.  It is GIS so of course spatial is kind of assumed. Worst case you have GPS of the office no biggie.  I think I have seen it done though using submissions URL though.

jcarlson · Answer

S123 can connect to a non-spatial table, but only if there is at least one spatial layer in the service. As far as I've found, you're stuck with geometry for now. But the geometry field can be null, so you don't even need to collect any points, and treat it as if it were a non-spatial table.