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Why are Generated File Names Different in Survey than File System?

AaronColbran1

When file names (image,audio etc) are generated from images they display as the FieldName- + UUID + .ext

When the files are written to the "My Survey Attachments" folder they are written as FieldName-YYYYMMDD-Rand(6).ext

Name During Live Survey: BoreLeakagePhoto-c3fff6884a6949149d77fdcdbf837a5c.jpg

Name After Written to File: BoreLeakagePhoto-20190416-050430.jpg

The fact that a UUID is displayed at File Capture Time, but is replaced by a Date and a random number at storage time (My Survey Attachments folder) makes it impossible to create a workaround for this file management issue.

Why is the UUID displayed if it is never written?

Is there a way to replace the 6 Digit Random Number?

A basic workaround normally would be to add a custom prefix from an active survey field such as an IDENTIFIER CODE.

Currently the only way to identify one photo from another is the 6 digit random number before the file type extension. As a result the Survey Attachments folder fills with any number of non-differing names other than the random 6 digit suffix known as "?" FieldName + YYYYMMDD + ? + .ext

or my active semi workaround which is stored in the table until the image needs to be renamed.

${WORK_NO} +'_BoreLeakagePhoto' + '_' + format-date(${SurveyStartTime},'%Y%m%d') + '_' + format-date(${SurveyStartTime},'%h%M%S') + '.jpg'

Optimally names would be auto-generated from form data and custom calculations saving hours and days of downtime renaming and auditing files.

Is this fundamental issue of basic file management on the roadmap?

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Anonymous User

Hi Aaron,

Can you please share a copy of your xlsx file and the exact question you are seeing this issue on, and also what device you are using, does it happen on all OS (Windows/Android/iOS etc)? Please send through the make/model/OS version so we can take a closer look.

Regards,

Phil.

AaronColbran1

Hello Phil

Thankyou for your time on this question. The Tablet Samsung Galaxy Tab A 10.5 T595 (32GB, 4G LTE). I cannot supply the xlsx at this time. The issue is not related to the survey itself, it is the way the S123 image control names its written files.

The main issue for resolution is the inability to control file naming due to the application displaying a filename that is not the actual name of the file. The displayed filename at time of capture in S123 is "FieldName-UUID.jpg", but the actual name of the file stored on the tablet is "Fieldname-Date-RandomNumber.jpg".

Currently the only way to identify which photo belongs to which survey is by the 6 digit random number, which is a bit random, unless data is successfully exported to an FGDB where it is organised by UUID and can be processed and aligned.

This issue compounds as for any one survey on any one day hundreds of photos may be taken with similar but unrelated names. The simple task of aligning images to surveys is made more complex as the filename you thought was the name is no longer the filename.

My planned approach/workaround to the issue was to Generate the "filename" required with Time and Date Stamp to Match the SurveyStartTime to identify it against a survey. This was done in an extra text field as the image field in S123 does not store the name of the generated file. This is not possible however as I cannot control the naming process and the S123 application names the final file different to that which is displayed in the survey.

Aaron

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Anonymous User

Hi Aaron,

What version of Survey123 are you using? I just tested with 3.3 and 3.4 beta and am unable to see the same behaviour you describe above. If I use the camera icon to take a new photo, the image name displayed in the form is the same as the image name of the file created in the My Survey Attachments folder. I tested this on both Windows and Android. I also tested selecting a file via browse on an image questions, and using the annotate or draw appearance, as well as audio recording, all of the file names in form match that in the folder.

Note that images taken with camera do use a different name to those by browse image and audio? One uses random ID versus the UID. This was the only difference I saw.

We have an open enhancement request in our backlog to enable the user to set the image name via calculation so that variables can be passed and used to the set the desired image name. I have updated with your comments.

Phil.

AaronColbran1

Hello Phil

The S123 version on the field tablets (T595)(tablet photo test) and windows 10 (file browse test) is 3.3.64. These do UUID on the device but they do write the proper data based name to the file system. PhotoDeparture-20190424-011500.jpg

On the office Samsung 2017 Tab A testing tablet is v 3.1.159. This earlier version works as per S123 normal (Field-Date-Rand6.jpg) in form display and file export.

So my planned workaround is not working the way I planned. Images for us are a key piece of evidence linked to a fixed asset. There are 500 assets and 13 photos per asset site that are now autogenerating a guid label in the field.

If there is no way to resolve it at this time I will update the survey output naming convention to part match the outputs.

Hopefully the control calculated name update can be shuffled from backlog to frontlog as there are a number of users that have also been seeking this functionality based on form data or selections.

Input vs Output

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