Survey123 excessive load time with CSV file

Question

I am using the pulldata function of suvey123 with a csv file of approx. 6MB.  Since adding this function the load time of the survey has increased from seconds to hours.  Is this normal for a file of this size.  The device I am using has over 40Gb of available space and the load is being done over a 100Mb wifi connection.

Anonymous User · Answer

Hi @PaigeRichardson,

In the latest release we have made signifcant improvement to using large choice lists and select one from file in the Survey123 field app. We utilize improved database performance, cahcing and indexing to achieve this. Unfortunately the web app can not use the same techniques due to the nature of the browser, and while some improvements have been made to increase performance, the time it takes to load a survey with 40,000 records in a list, will still be significantly impacted in a web browser.

Refer to the following blog for the latest 3.12 release and updates:

https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-survey123-blog/what-s-new-in-arcgis-survey123-february-2021/ba-p/1030586

Regards,

Phil.

PaigeRichardson · Answer

Hi Phil,

We are also running into this problem on mobile devices accessing the survey from safari browser. Did ESRI happen to find a solution or workaround to this slow load time using the 'select_one_from_file' field type? (We are using the pulldata() function to hit a csv with 4 columns approximately 40,000 rows - 6MB in size).

Thanks!

dougbrowning · Answer

In my case it was a select_one external.  You just have a regular choice list.  If your list is long moving it to external_choices should help a lot.  So that could be it.  Start there.

Hope that helps