Upgrade ArcGIS Field Maps Web App

Question

Hi guys,

We have ArcGIS Enterprise 10.9.1 installed which comes with a pre-installed Field Maps. That version of the Field Maps does not support Calculate expressions, which is being supported in the ArcGIS Online.

ArcGIS Online:

ArcGIS Portal 10.9.1:

Is there a way to have that functionality enabled in the portal? I tried to find a way to upgrade ArcGIS Field Maps web app, but I couldn't. We really need to utilise some of the functionality described here - https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/field-maps/field-mobility/common-calculated-expressions-for-arcgis-field-maps/

Thanks a lot in advance.

Dmitry

Dmitry_Shatilov · Answer

Thanks for the reply, guys... Can't comprehend why ESRI couldn't just give us an option to upgrade the Field Maps. Jumping through all of those hoops seems ridiculous...

JustinReynolds · Answer

We do this currently.  Everything is authored in AGOL.  Everything we do is templated and highly repeatable.  We save the form JSON template to a file and use the ArcGIS Python API to update the form JSON in all of our maps. Field Maps mobile will always support the latest and greatest regardless of your portal version, it is just your ability to author many of the latest and greatest things in field maps web app that will be frozen in time with whatever capibilties that shipped your current portal version.

As you mentioned making a manual save in the map viewer will sterilize the form to only the things that are supported in 10.9.1.  To get around this we created a GP tool for Pro to update the form JSON when we need to save the map interactively in portal (a reset if you will).  We also have a scheduled task that ensures all the maps using our forms are up to date periodically as insurance.

ArcGIS Enterprise 11.1 or 11.0.1, which ever it will be should be out in Q1ish 2023.  I'll pushing our org to upgrade ASAP for this reason... it is a pain.

DavidSolari · Answer

In theory, you can take the JSON object definitions the AGOL app generates in your web map files using AGOL Assistant (or a similar tool) and copy-paste them into your Enterprise map. Assuming the AGOL map and the Enterprise map are otherwise identical this should work fine as the Field Maps app will blindly read the incoming JSON and set the expression definitions.

In practice, this is at best extremely fragile as there's no guarantee any further updates to the map using the Enterprise tools will preserve these copied objects or leave them in the correct place. At worst you'll create subtle issues that manifest as corrupted data with no easy way to track down the root issue. Be prepared to extensively test your workflows and monitor all changes to the maps for potential issues. Caveat emptor and all that.