Survey 123: Auto Calculate Fields

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11-01-2018 05:23 AM
Status: Open
JohnMcEwen__GISP
New Contributor III

This idea post is one of several individual ideas that I had grouped together on this original post: https://community.esri.com/ideas/15660-survey-123-vs-gocanvas?commentID=66800#comment-66800. Even though Survey 123 Connect has many of these capabilities that can be "programmed", there are other applications that have web-based form design similar to the Survey 123 web designer but that are easier to use in terms building in capabilities that can only be built in using S123 Connect. Scott Prindle requested that I post each enhancement individually. These enhancement requests are based on my experience using a web app called GoCanvas* for damage assessments.

In S123 Connect, it is possible to configure fields that autocalculate math equations based on user input provided to other fields. In web designed, there are no calculation fields. For example, we had to do debris assessments that required us to provide estimated cubic yards of debris. Not everyone is trained how to eyeball a pile of debris and return a reasonably accurate measurement. In GoCanvas, I added a field each for the user to enter width, length, height of a debris pile in feet. We added a field to calculate cubic feet and a final field that divided cubic feet by 27 to return cubic yards. We then hid the cubic feet calculated field from the user and did not display it on the automatically created PDF report. This ability in GoCanvas allowed inexperienced field people to get three numbers they could measure to automatically generate another number that they were not qualified to estimate. See screen shots for how the field look in GoCanvas app designer and the general settings to calculate the final field. Additionally, calculated fields can be based on values from fields on other pages of the form or (for loop screens) it can sum or average all of the values that were entered into the same field for multiple repeated items.

*GoCanvas just happens to be what we use and is one of many similar field data collection platforms that, as far as I am concerned are easier to use than S123 Connect in a browser environment, automatically creates PDFs, integrates with cloud storage, and has email configuration options to automatically email specific people when a submission is complete.