idea Enable easier access to attachments / photos captured with Field Maps - batch download from AGOL or local saving to device in ArcGIS Field Maps Ideas

Enable easier access to attachments / photos captured with Field Maps - batch download from AGOL or local saving to device

Anonymous User — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 15:37:05 GMT

Hi Community,

I find it difficult to access attachments or photos captured with Field Maps. I can download them 1-by-1 from ArcGIS Online, or use Extract Data in desktop GIS, or use the python scripts in desktop GIS, but I need an easier way to access photos.

Field workers do not have access to Desktop GIS, so the only option they have is to download photos 1-by-1 from AGOL. This is very inefficient when there are hundreds of photos to download.

I would like to suggest either allowing batch downloading of photos from AGOL (zip?), or the option to save photos locally to the mobile device storage (as well as uploading to AGOL), for downloading when back in the office using a USB cable.

Thanks,

Ben

Re: Enable easier access to attachments / photos captured with Field Maps - batch download from AGOL or local saving to device

TaireVanScoy_ECA — Mon, 01 Mar 2021 16:48:24 GMT

I like the dual storage idea to AGOL and local if desired at the same time.

Re: Enable easier access to attachments / photos captured with Field Maps - batch download from AGOL or local saving to device

andrewRaaf — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 15:18:20 GMT

Yes please this is a must-have!

There should be an option to "save attachments to device". Every time I collect a point and take a photo, I need the jpeg file saved to my phone's internal memory AND attached to the point. We need both functions. This is an important feature for file mgmt. We should be able to save to photo automatically to the phone's memory upon collection, without having to download 1by1 and offload from the feature layer later within ArcOnline. Thanks.

Re: Enable easier access to attachments / photos captured with Field Maps - batch download from AGOL or local saving to device

ChrisGynan — Sun, 19 Sep 2021 21:02:37 GMT

Hi Ben:

I found your thread and I'm having issues finding the photos taken. Do you know where they are located on-line and how to access them?

Thanks so much,

Chris

Re: Enable easier access to attachments / photos captured with Field Maps - batch download from AGOL or local saving to device

andrewRaaf — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 01:13:11 GMT

I have found that, when using an Android phone, the photos that I take when collecting a point also get saved to my google photos account. Once I get back to the office and connect to wifi, my google photos automatically updates and the photos then become part of my photos.google.com cloud storage. It's a less-than-elegant workaround but at least I have access to the jpegs via google photos. I still think there should be an option within the App to simply save the jpegs to the phone's memory upon collection.

Re: Enable easier access to attachments / photos captured with Field Maps - batch download from AGOL or local saving to device

ChrisGynan — Mon, 20 Sep 2021 13:18:37 GMT

Thanks for your response. I have an iPhone and the photos are not saved to the phone. Perhaps there is a way to control that. It seems that I need ArcGIS pro to download the photos as a geodatabase package. Perhaps others can comment on this?

Re: Enable easier access to attachments / photos captured with Field Maps - batch download from AGOL or local saving to device

Anonymous User — Tue, 22 Mar 2022 09:34:22 GMT

One important thing to remember is that you still need traceability of your photos. If you have collected 150 photos in for instance survey123, you need to be able to sort them by for instance ObjectId or some other key attribute.. Otherwise it could take forever to find the right photo to go along with the correct feature..

The batch download from ArcGIS Online/Enterprise would be awesome and more elegant than downloading to your phone, since you would just have to transfer them to your computer anyway - in my opinion 🙂

Re: Enable easier access to attachments / photos captured with Field Maps - batch download from AGOL or local saving to device

ENVGroup — Sat, 02 Apr 2022 17:39:02 GMT

Yeah, I'm starting to hate ArcGIS because it's such a pain to get photos off of it in a usable way. It's a great system for collecting data but I've wasted a lot of time trying to download the photos all at once with a numbering system that matches what I record on maps. I probably just don't know how, but it should be a simple system that takes just a couple minutes plus the actual download time. How can this be done?

Re: Enable easier access to attachments / photos captured with Field Maps - batch download from AGOL or local saving to device

LaineyLe_Blanc1 — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 14:03:46 GMT

We need to be able to batch download all the attachments from AGOL with the global ID or spatial data included. Downloading one-by-one is inefficient and easy to lose track of what image is linked to what point. We use field maps primarily for geological fieldwork collecting structural data and outcrop photo's resulting in hundreds of points, not being able to download all attachments have soured some users from using Field Maps at all.

Re: Enable easier access to attachments / photos captured with Field Maps - batch download from AGOL or local saving to device

andrewRaaf — Wed, 26 Apr 2023 15:22:04 GMT

This feature is still missing from Field Maps. Our crew has a workaround where you take the photo via your phone first, then collect the point in FieldMaps and use the button to "attach photos" rather than "take new photo". In this way, the photo is saved to phone's memory and also saved within the AGO layer. It's imperfect workaround and ESRI really needs to update this functionality because it's ridiculous that the photo files would only be accessible by clicking one by one through individual points. We need a batch download for the jpegs.

Re: Enable easier access to attachments / photos captured with Field Maps - batch download from AGOL or local saving to device

cbp-geus — Wed, 07 Jun 2023 07:01:09 GMT

We have the exact same problem. Either our field geologists have to take the photos with the camera app on the phone and then 'attach' the photo through the ArcGIS Field Maps app in order to have it locally on the phone, or take the photo with the Field Maps app and then eksport the photos individually, in order to have the photos on the phone. Non of those options are optimal when working in the field and offline.

It is only when our field geologists are back home that we can make an extraction of all their field photos from ArcGIS Field Maps. This can currently only be done after all the phones are synchronised to AGOL and from there a combined geodatabase is downloaded. From here we use a python script to extract the attachments from the gdb, as there are no toolbox or batch functions for that yet in ArcGIS Pro.

Re: Enable easier access to attachments / photos captured with Field Maps - batch download from AGOL or local saving to device

PeterORegan — Tue, 30 May 2023 22:22:09 GMT

+1 on this thread. Bulk downloading of photos to share with other apps/ devices is VERY important.

Video attachments also need to be bulk downloadable/ sharable, as video evidence is underpinning an increasing range of workflows.

Re: Enable easier access to attachments / photos captured with Field Maps - batch download from AGOL or local saving to device

HylonPlumb — Mon, 20 Nov 2023 13:34:14 GMT

Improving access to the photo attachments on a smart device would be beneficial in the following ways ;

1 If field maps has a sync error, attachments could be tracked down quickly

2 A batch download would improve efficiency, if all photos are needed, I would need to click on each point individually.

And an observation; when accessing photo attachments on an offline map with sync errors, coordinates are not written to jpg file meta data when downloaded.

Thanks for listening,

Hylon

Re: Enable easier access to attachments / photos captured with Field Maps - batch download from AGOL or local saving to device

HannahV — Wed, 17 Jan 2024 05:32:54 GMT

Imagine my horror spending hours using this app and getting back to the office to realise I have to download photos individually or learn how to run a python script 😑 The images need to be saved to the camera roll simultaneously.

Re: Enable easier access to attachments / photos captured with Field Maps - batch download from AGOL or local saving to device

NLI_Wendy — Thu, 13 Jun 2024 23:32:25 GMT

This should have been done when the forms were first created.

Re: Enable easier access to attachments / photos captured with Field Maps - batch download from AGOL or local saving to device

andrewRaaf — Fri, 14 Jun 2024 18:41:08 GMT

Yes ESRI we need this feature. It used to exist in a prev version a few years ago and users have been asking for it ever since. When using Field Maps forms on a mobile device, we collect a point and use the in-app camera feature to take a photo, that jpeg file should be saved automatically to the phone's camera roll in addition to the jpeg being attached internally to the ArcGIS online service. It's crazy that the jpegs are locked in the Arc Field Maps ecosystem and we have to drill down and download individual photos one at a time.

Re: Enable easier access to attachments / photos captured with Field Maps - batch download from AGOL or local saving to device

BraydenDokkestul — Tue, 16 Jul 2024 21:23:37 GMT

It is completely unacceptable to have the process of extracting photos how it is, there should be a tool directly for this, or a way to download them within AGOL. This is a classic example of ESRI not having any competition, I cannot be alone in saying, if there was an alternative service that was offered elsewhere, I would take my money elsewhere. I shouldn't have to convert to a GDB, or create my own tool based off of a user provided script, simply unacceptable and lazy of ESRI.

Re: Enable easier access to attachments / photos captured with Field Maps - batch download from AGOL or local saving to device

KathyDube — Sat, 24 Aug 2024 01:40:33 GMT

I totally agree and can't believe that E$RI (it accidentally typed it that way but it is a more accurate spelling so I left it like that!) STILL has not developed a method to be able to easily access photos taken in Field Maps. It is a royal pain to try to extract them one by one and then "share" or do a script later. This is not a new request. Please provide a way to easily access photos.

Re: Enable easier access to attachments / photos captured with Field Maps - batch download from AGOL or local saving to device

arthurV — Wed, 06 Nov 2024 16:24:12 GMT

Totally crazy and nontheless i can't use thoses photo un a map series !

Re: Enable easier access to attachments / photos captured with Field Maps - batch download from AGOL or local saving to device

Debert — Wed, 18 Dec 2024 20:28:08 GMT

What an absolute pain!
I have 658 images attached to 658 points in ArcPro. The purpose was to give Field Techs the ability to access these in the field when needed. What is the workflow for achieving this?