topic Re: Copy Features Function Missing from Experience Builder Edit Widget in ArcGIS Experience Builder Questions

Copy Features Function Missing from Experience Builder Edit Widget

JeremyBrown4 — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 15:55:05 GMT

I have been searching the community site for a while looking for an answer to this question, but every time I see it asked there is no response from ESRI. I will go ahead and @AlixVezina , since she wrote the last article I read on the new Edit widget in ExB.

My question is, are there any plans to updated the new Edit widget in ExB to include the Copy Features functionality that the WAB version currently has? If not, will there be some combination of features or Arcade functionality to accomplish this task, or will it simply be unavailable in ExB?

Re: Copy Features Function Missing from Experience Builder Edit Widget

AlixVezina — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 16:33:32 GMT

Hi @JeremyBrown4 , Thanks for posting your question.

We have plans to provide this functionality in the future, but the delivery timeline has not yet been determined. We're hoping to get this into our products in time before the ArcGIS Online retirement of Web AppBuilder at the end of 2025.

Right now, if you're looking to copy one feature at a time, there is an available workaround using the Survey widget in Experience Builder:

Using Experience Builder and Survey123 to pass attributes and geometry from one layer to another (esri.com)

Re: Copy Features Function Missing from Experience Builder Edit Widget

JeremyBrown4 — Tue, 19 Sep 2023 20:08:42 GMT

That's great news! Thank you for the quick response! I totally forgot about that new feature of the Survey widget in ExB. I am going to see if I can make that fit my workflow. Thanks again!

Re: Copy Features Function Missing from Experience Builder Edit Widget

KatieHansen_NIFCAdmin — Mon, 23 Oct 2023 22:02:35 GMT

Hi @AlixVezina ,

I'd like to tag onto this question with something more specific. I have users that would like to add a polygon from a shapefile to an existing hosted feature service. Our workflow now it to use the Add Data widget in WAB to add a shapefile and then Smart Editor copy feature into our HFS. Is this possible in EB yet? Is there another creative way to use S123 in EB to copy this shapefile?
Thanks!
Katie

Re: Copy Features Function Missing from Experience Builder Edit Widget

AlixVezina — Tue, 24 Oct 2023 01:48:50 GMT

@KatieHansen_NIFCAdmin

The Survey workflow described in this blog will not work with temporary data added to the map using the Add Data widget since the connection between the source and target layers needs to be set from within the Survey widget configuration.

This is definitely a valid request and in line with what we had in the Web AppBuilder Smart Editor, so thank you for bringing it up!

Re: Copy Features Function Missing from Experience Builder Edit Widget

JaredDoke — Tue, 24 Oct 2023 14:21:45 GMT

We use the Smart Editor Widget copy features functionality in a few of our core workflows for Urban Search & Rescue. See this video here https://screenpal.com/watch/c0iYh1Vkezl. We had planned to move over to Experience Builder for our 'Intel Manager', but are stuck on Web AppBuilder until Copy Features is a capability in ExB.

Re: Copy Features Function Missing from Experience Builder Edit Widget

PaulDohertyFEMA — Tue, 24 Oct 2023 16:45:09 GMT

Agreed. This is a core functionality we need at FEMA to support Urban Search & Rescue.

Re: Copy Features Function Missing from Experience Builder Edit Widget

EmmaMontague_IAFC — Tue, 24 Oct 2023 17:00:14 GMT

Hi @AlixVezina ,

The International Association of Fire Chiefs (IAFC) has an application for creating and preplanning evacuation zones for wildfires. We have a workflow that is very similar to what @KatieHansen_NIFCAdmin shared where in Web AppBuilder, we use the Add Data Widget to add a layer from AGOL and then copy the geometry of those existing features into our evacuation zone layer using the Smart Editor.

(See our workflow here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMIj5uHYk2g). This is a critical workflow and we can't move over to ExB for this application until this functionality is available.

Re: Copy Features Function Missing from Experience Builder Edit Widget

KatieHansen_NIFCAdmin — Tue, 24 Oct 2023 17:29:57 GMT

Thanks very much, @AlixVezina , for the reply.
Can you speak to whether this functionality is on the EB roadmap or, if it specifically is not, then will there be thoughts to a work around like the one mentioned above with the use of S123 to add features?

We would really like to have our users add new and edit existing features via an app into our authoritative, national datasets no matter how the features were initially collected but seems that we are firmly planted in WAB still.
Thanks!

Re: Copy Features Function Missing from Experience Builder Edit Widget

AlixVezina — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 17:10:23 GMT

@KatieHansen_NIFCAdmin

Can you speak to whether this functionality is on the EB roadmap or, if it specifically is not, then will there be thoughts to a work around like the one mentioned above with the use of S123 to add features?

This functionality is currently being researched and planned. We don't have any details yet, but once we do I'll make sure to provide an update. Since this was a popular workflow in WAB, it will make sense to also support it in Experience Builder.

Re: Copy Features Function Missing from Experience Builder Edit Widget

JessicaGough — Wed, 29 Nov 2023 05:39:13 GMT

Our organisation also uses the copy-paste function in the Smart Editor in WAB as a core workflow step for our users to create new data with high integrity. It is an absolutely essential functionality for our organisation and we cannot move to EB until this is addressed.

Re: Copy Features Function Missing from Experience Builder Edit Widget

Tiff — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 19:04:58 GMT

Hello @AlixVezina thank you for this temporary solution. Can you provide more detail on guidance and best practices to set this embedded survey up? In order to copy a feature from one layer to an existing layer, does it require Survey123 Connect with the same calculations/configuration as you would in a typical survey? It would be helpful to have steps that one would take to ensure that this works properly as part of the ExB widget.

Re: Copy Features Function Missing from Experience Builder Edit Widget

ChrisH2 — Thu, 18 Jan 2024 01:06:25 GMT

This functionality is also critical for an application that we've started building in WAB with the Smart Editor, but arde considering switching over to ExB due to it's support of snapping and the use of smart forms and contingent values (both equally as important to us)

I note the workaround with Survey 123 but is this the suggested method (or are there others?) for duplicating records within the same hosted layer?

Our use case is for a user to select a polygon and be able to duplicate the geometry, and then re-edit the attributes in the edit widget

Re: Copy Features Function Missing from Experience Builder Edit Widget

AshneyDaniel — Thu, 28 Mar 2024 17:50:11 GMT

You can't select multiple features to copy with this option like you can in SmartEditor but this is probably the ExperienceBuilder/Survey123 option ChrisH mentions:

https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/experience-builder/real-time/using-experience-builder-and-survey123-to-pass-attributes-and-geometry-from-one-layer-to-another/

Re: Copy Features Function Missing from Experience Builder Edit Widget

Tiff — Mon, 01 Apr 2024 18:58:37 GMT

Agree strongly with @JessicaGough and @ChrisH2. This needs to be a functionality available within Experience Builder sooner than later. I saw this forum post late last year but now revisiting because the Survey123 workaround does not fit our needs, specifically because:

1) Survey123 does not work with traditional versioned feature classes in enterprise geodatabases, which is a limitation for us and possibly many others.
2) Survey123 works with one target layer where features are copied to. This does not suffice for workflows where you want to copy features from one layer to potentially multiple layers.

Re: Copy Features Function Missing from Experience Builder Edit Widget

KatieHansen_NIFCAdmin — Wed, 21 Aug 2024 18:12:42 GMT

All, please "Kudo" this idea here for more visibility into this critical functionality: https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-experience-builder-ideas/copy-features-for-experience-builder/idc-p/1525289

Re: Copy Features Function Missing from Experience Builder Edit Widget

SusanPollard — Wed, 11 Sep 2024 03:53:30 GMT

Add data (file) and copy feature (smart editor) is one of our most used workflows and a showstopper for experience builder. The comparison functional matrix below

is misleading in suggesting that smart editor is in any way equivalent to EB 'edit' widget. There is no comparison. Web AppBuilder and Experience Builder functionality matrix—ArcGIS Web AppBuilder | Documentation

Re: Copy Features Function Missing from Experience Builder Edit Widget

AlixVezina — Wed, 15 Jan 2025 21:07:11 GMT

Hi all,

Just a quick update on this topic. While copy-paste (copy features) is not yet available in Experience Builder, you can find the functionality in the Web Editor for now: Copy and paste features—ArcGIS Web Editor | Documentation.

At this time, there are still some limitations compared to what you could do in the Smart Editor (which supported field matching and copying features from multiple different layers), but Web Editor allows you to duplicate multiple features within the same layer with their attributes and also copy and paste single features between layers.

Copy-paste will make it into ExB eventually, but we don’t have a timeline yet.

Re: Copy Features Function Missing from Experience Builder Edit Widget

Tiff — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 12:59:34 GMT

Thanks @AlixVezina, we are aware of the web editor option and we're thinking of how we can utilize it. However we know that photos are not carried over with the copy/paste here, which makes it so that web app builder copy/paste is still advantageous over web editor. Can Web Editor also include attachments and photos please?

Re: Copy Features Function Missing from Experience Builder Edit Widget

AlixVezina — Thu, 16 Jan 2025 21:15:30 GMT

Hi @Tiff , There are no plans to support attachments in copy-paste in the Web Editor at this time. For any further requests around this, please post in the Web Editor community.
Also, unless I'm mistaken, attachments were not copied over when using the Smart Editor widget in Web AppBuilder. This was also a limitation, unfortunately.