Customizing Survey123 Sheets

Question

I am wondering if Survey123 sheets can be completely customized to match existing PDFs we use for our in field inspection type work. Sometimes the paperwork is required to be submitted and I'm told that the paperwork is set in a standard way now and can't really change when submitting (e.g. bounding boxes, certain statements, etc.). If anyone has done something like this I'd love to hear about it!

Anonymous User · Answer

Jansen,

Thanks for the reply! This is what I've seen so far as the extent of what can be done with the forms. I've had surveyors asking if I can replicate the reports they fill out exactly as they get sent to government entities in the end. I'm guessing that a lot of companies and government entities are more open now to accept different forms or style of reports than they were in the past that some surveyors are just used to.

GIS_Fox · Answer

Hi @Anonymous User , sure thing. We've done this but not in the manner of photocopying the field inspection item for item onto a survey123 form. What I found is that certain questions or fields only have an equivalent with the text boxes or question types in S123 such as likerts, multichoice, single choice questions, and the items that don't are made into the closest equivalent. To work around this for records sake, the focus shifts to using the reports function out of the data tab. In the report templates, you can format the word document used to be the template in however manner or type you like. If a field needs to have a certain format or background on the report or record, or if you need to add in an image/logo, this is the way to go since you can generate PDFs and disseminate them from there. You can add images on the survey form itself but it sounds like you need more than just that. Granted reports charge 0.5 credits per use right now, so there are other options such as the export. I'll leave a link below for your reference. The wording and statements aspect of your project would be simple using notes or description boxes on the survey so it can be done in tandem with the questions, page description, or just as a standalone note box in place of a question. I would recommend looking at the survey123 site or youtube for use cases and training videos that go over these and more. I'm sure I haven't touched on everything, there are a lot of resources you can follow. Hopefully this helps give you a good start.

https://doc.arcgis.com/en/survey123/browser/analyze-results/featurereporttemplates.htm

God bless,