Citizen Problem Reporter Categories

Question

I am working on setting up a Problem Reporter. I've been messing around with it and got a lot of it set up, but I am running into an issue with showing the categories. To submit a request it looks like this:

However, we feel it is confusing to have a list of all the existing requests presented right there, and would confuse a citizen in thinking that's where they click to submit a request. I think our general consensus would be to use the style we see with many existing problem reporters that looks like this:

I'm not sure if this is doable, it looks like the current solution has a different set up methodology between the 2.0 and 1.0 releases. The release notes even state:

* A new Citizen Problem Reporter app with a simplified process for modifying and adding request categories and types.

Don't get me wrong, I like editing and uploading a CSV file for categories, I am just wondering if there is a better way to present them to the public?

Chris Fox · Accepted Answer

Hi @TimBlanchard, with Citizen Problem Reporter we designed it to first show a list of existing reports/requests to help prevent duplicate requests from being submitted. Residents can see a pothole has already been submitted and click it to view its status and details rather than submitting a duplicate request.

If you want to reduce confusion about the purpose of the list you could consider moving the Submit a Request button to the top of the pane by configuring the application, see the setting below on the Form tab.

Another thing you could try is the text displayed for each existing report is defined by the pop-up title in the Citizen Problem Reporter web map. If you open web map in Map Viewer Classic you can modify the pop-up title. You might consider adding the timestamp with the request is submitted to better indicate it is an existing report.

In terms of your second screenshot. This is the UI you get when you have multiple maps shared with the Citizen Problem Reporter group. The icon is the thumbnail of the map. In version 1.0 we switched from multiple maps and multiple layers to a single map and a single layer to simplify the user experience.

I will say even in the previous version/UI when you clicked a problem category, for example Road Problems, you would still be taken into the same UI you are today. You would see the list of all submitted Road Problems and if you wanted to submit a new Road Problem you would need to click the Submit a Request button and fill out the form.

There is no way to skip the list of reports page when the user enters the app and just open the new request form.