Why can't we create forms & surveys like all other form building software out there?

JT_MDC

Web developer of ~20 years here. When I started trying to use Survey123, the first thing I thought to myself was "people have been building web forms and online survey tools for literally decades, and none of them are like this, and that's not a good thing"...

Why has ESRI decided to completely forgo all of the techniques and methods developed over years of software development to establish their own clunky form/survey building system? (i.e., the use of an XLSform, extremely limited functionality and capability, etc)

You can look at just about any other form or survey building software out there to get a sense of how Survey123—as a piece of software—should be designed. Here are a few links to form builders that use a typical, yet intuitive drag and drop GUI, but also allow for an ample amount of both programmatic and visual customization, as well as the capturing of geo-data information and custom database actions.

ESRI should look at some of these over for inspiration:

https://www.gravityforms.com/features/
https://ninjaforms.com/
https://www.zoho.com/forms/
https://wpforms.com/
https://www.google.com/forms/about/
https://formidableforms.com/features/drag-drop-form-builder

dougbrowning

Well one reason is 123 is kinda not Esri.  They were bought after the fact and run their own deal more or less.  It is not based on the Esri stack.

That said I agree that not having a GUI can be tough.  The web designer does some of that.  I am not sure they have the same capacity of some of the above.  Plus having to fit things within the Esri platform creates a lot of limitations that these other platforms do not have.  I also believe sticking to the XLS spec is really limiting.  But their engine may be built on that so not much choice.  I think there are some competing factors going on here.

For me I wish they would focus more on speed of data entry. It can be really clunky for crews esp compared to our old forms.  An all new modern system needs to be faster and easier otherwise why replace it. 123 is old enough now that the clunky beta days need to be polished.  Focus on the core vs all these new shiny toys.  Building a whole fancy UI would prob slow down the functionality advances and I do not really need it.  I believe some more real world Field worker experience on the team would help a lot.  I think more real world could help Esri in general vs more academics hires.

I have been building tablet forms since 2009 and have used many options.  Overall 123 is doing a ton and are super responsive considering all the user types they deal with.  The places you listed do not really integrate with anything which makes it so much easier to develop.  Also 123 can do a lot more complicated forms then most of these online ones.  Offline is a big one too.

Good post thanks