New GIS user, need help with Collector Related Table Forms

Question

Aloha,

We really like Collector and I've got us into the Workforce demo.  I'm creating maintenance forms inside of ArcMap using Relationship classes.  Now my maintenance guys are asking for something I don't know how to do.  The Primary key/Foreign Key number transfers through when they fill out an inspection form, but I need to send other data to the form as well.  For instance, the serial number.  If you're looking at the Hydrant sample, imagine if I needed the water pressure rating of each Fire Hydrant to flow onto each maintenance form in addition to the facility ID number as a pre-filled field.  Can I accomplish this through a field calculation?

I have no formal GIS training, been learning through OJT.  I usually do well looking through the help manual, but I'm not sure what term or tool I should search for.

This is the hydrant example I'm writing about:

https://blogs.esri.com/esri/arcgis/2015/02/18/related-tables-exploring-new-ways-to-use-collector-for-arcgis/

Thank you for your help.

Jason

ShelbySouthworth · Answer

Hi Jason -

We just finished our yearly hydrant inspections here (and are moving on to our ARV Inspections); while I can't give pointers on Workforce (we're in the beta but unfortunately I haven't had to time to test it out and get all my other work done 😕 ), I think I can shed some light on the question you're asking.

I had a conversation with ESRI support regarding this at one point and as far as I understand it, right now there is no way to call data from your feature service into your related table. This was counter-intuitive to me that this was not available because two objects stored in the same place that are already talking to one another through a relationship -SHOULD- be able to pull data from one into the other. In our case, I wanted to pull our internal Hydrant ID numbers from the feature service into the related Hydrant Management Table so that when I viewed the related records, I could tell within AGOL which hydrants required repairs. We used GlobalIDs and GUIDs to create the relationship rather than based on the Hydrant ID numbers to avoid any relationship issues. In order to work around this, our operators were required to copy the ID # from the basemap labels I included in our custom basemap into new management records so we could quickly find records related to hydrants needing repairs as they came in from the field. The only way to both see related records easily and edit them was to dual-wield AGOL via desktop and Collector via tablet so you can immediately see related data and edit it. Other than these crude work arounds, the only way to see the related records is to download your data from AGOL and perform a "Make Query Table" in ArcGIS Desktop (only way to join the two tables with a 1:M relationship). However when you have thousands of features in a feature service, and occasionally multiple records for each feature, this download can take a while ... quite often in the business of emergency assistance infrastructure like a fire hydrant, this is a lot longer than questions requiring immediate attention can be left unanswered.

IMO, part of the problem here is that when you click on a feature in a feature service within AGOL, it doesn't offer you the ability to see the related records associated with that point in the primary pop-up. In order to see that instantly, you must also have collector open in front of you. While I did find that filtering the features and related table by edit date I could narrow down the data I had to sort through, this was imperfect (due to user error such as forgetting to re-symbolize hydrants from requiring inspection to complete or requiring maintenance/repairs, or accidentally moving our hydrant points around while editing).

Hope this helps.

JasonOrso · Answer

We are also using Survey123.  Survey123 is good for filling out forms that aren't associated with assets.   For asset data, we really need something like collector.  This particular maintenance form is for valve maintenance.  I can put information onto the point within the shape file; however, when we then start a new form via a related table (the maintenance form) only the valve's ID number, (the primary/foreign key) is filled out.  I need to find a way for other attibutes from the shape file to also flow into the maintenance form so that the technician can see them while filling out the form.

GISSupport3 · Answer

Not a direct answer and have you also looked at Survey123 for ArcGIS