Storing Survey Photos in AWS not in ArcGIS Online

Question

I am setting up a new survey for monitoring water quality. The survey requires 3 photos and this is quickly using up storage on AGOL. We need the images to remain linked (so we don't want to offline them) and we also need to be able to access them via a website.

I know others have done this on another app but cannot get hold of that code.

Any suggestions?

IsmaelChivite · Answer

I agree with @MobiusSnake  Double check the price you are paying for storage before you make drastic changes here that could compromise the security of your photos. Check this help topic for pricing: https://doc.arcgis.com/en/arcgis-online/administer/credits.htm#ESRI_SECTION1_709121D2C7694DCAB9B8592F36F7A5BA

A relatively easy approach to move your attachments out of ArcGIS is to use automation in Power Automate. Using the Survey123 connector you can easily upload your photos right away into other third party storage. OneDrive for example. Then, using the ArcGIS connector you can delete the attachment and update the survey record with a URL link to your file in OneDrive (or somewhere else).

MobiusSnake · Answer

Is your concern around credit consumption?  While photo attachments do use credits, they're billed at a substantially lower rate than feature data, just in case you're concerned you're paying the same for those photos as you are for features.

One concern I would have with moving photos to AWS would be privileges, you'd either have to make the photos public (which may or may not be a big deal for water quality photos, I'm not sure) or mess around to get some kind of authentication working in your apps, since it would be outside the AGOL ecosystem.