topic Re: Cannot attach images in Public Survey in ArcGIS Survey123 Questions

Cannot attach images in Public Survey

Anonymous User — Mon, 20 Nov 2017 22:26:45 GMT

Hi all,

I have created a public survey with the following settings.

And, whenever an user attempts to attach an image the survey wouldn't submit (sits in outbox with an error).

But, when I change the settings to "editors can see all features;" it works properly.

Can you please look into enabling images with the above settings. As I'd like to keep all survey results private from the public.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Gee

Re: Cannot attach images in Public Survey

JamesTedrick — Tue, 21 Nov 2017 18:37:07 GMT

Hi Geethaka,

Can you please check which version of Survey123 you are using? When we released 2.4 initially, it was affected by this issue; 2.4.72 should have resolved that. Additionally, the next update to ArcGIS Online will have better support for surveys with the permission settings you are applying.

Re: Cannot attach images in Public Survey

Anonymous User — Wed, 22 Nov 2017 00:50:33 GMT

Thanks James for getting back to me so quickly.

All of us have version 2.4.72.

I even downloaded the latest app (2.5.44) and the problem still persists.

Thanks for mentioning that the next update to ArcGIS online will better support surveys of this nature.

In the meantime, is there a backend fix that you could deploy to fix this? My client wants this particular survey published sometime this week.

Thanks so much

Re: Cannot attach images in Public Survey

JamesTedrick — Wed, 22 Nov 2017 00:53:51 GMT

Hi Geethaka,

The ArcGIS Online fix I mentioned is the backend fix that will be able to address it. As a workaround, can you try working with the 'Editors can only see their own features' setting? That should be able to address the issue and still limit the data to only items the submitter would already know.

Re: Cannot attach images in Public Survey

Anonymous User — Wed, 22 Nov 2017 01:28:29 GMT

Thanks James. I already tried this suggestion.

But, it wouldn't work in my case, as my client doesn't want any of the users to create an ArcGIS online account.

So, there is no way of tracking, and anyone will still be able to see each others submissions if they were to look at the feature layer.

Re: Cannot attach images in Public Survey

MichaelKelly — Wed, 22 Nov 2017 09:24:26 GMT

Hi Geethaka,

You can do this by building the survey on top of a Feature Layer View which has a View Definition (Define Features) set to hide all features (e.g. WHERE OBJECTID < 1). In this Feature Layer View, you can set editing so users can only add new features. Only the Feature Layer View has to be shared with everyone, not the parent Feature Layer where all the feature can be accessed from.

Mikie

Re: Cannot attach images in Public Survey

Anonymous User — Wed, 22 Nov 2017 21:47:41 GMT

Thanks guys for all your help. I really appreciate it

And thanks Michael Kelly for this suggestion that I could use in the interim until the next update to ArcGIS Online.

James Tedrick‌ - When can we expect to see the next update to ArcGIS Online?

Re: Cannot attach images in Public Survey

JamesTedrick — Wed, 22 Nov 2017 22:06:22 GMT

Hi Geethaka,

The next release of ArcGIS Online is planned for early December.

Re: Cannot attach images in Public Survey

Anonymous User — Sun, 10 Dec 2017 10:55:45 GMT

Hi JTedrick-esristaff‌

I noticed that the issue still persists in the new version of ArcGIS online...

Could you please look into this?

Thanks,

Geethaka

Re: Cannot attach images in Public Survey

JamesTedrick — Mon, 11 Dec 2017 18:06:52 GMT

Hi Geethaka,

While ArcGIS Online has implemented the fix I mentioned, Survey123 needs to update to be able to respond to the fix, so the problem will not be addressed immediately.

Re: Cannot attach images in Public Survey

TregChristopher — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 16:33:34 GMT

I have the same needs and same issue as Gee...Allow anon submission, with attachments, but keep results private (even from a REST query).

Michael provided an excellent suggested workaround (to not being able to utilize the setting "Editors can't see any features, even those they add" ) but I am still running into the same errors when anon user tries to submit a record with an attachment. (Sent Ismael and James an email about this yesterday before I found this post)

Workflow:

Parent feature layer is shared to authenticated users who can add/update features and edit their own data. No problem when they try to submit a record with attachment.
The 2nd, "Anonymous Collection" view has same editor settings but definition query was changed to hide records that aren't true for the condition (I tried both ObjectID<0 and MyField<0 with default value set to 0 in REST/Admin)
- record without attachment gets submitted fine (and no one can query this record at REST, which is great)
- but a record with photo fails to submit. Error when submitting thru webform is {"layerID":0,objectid:69 filename'mypicture.gif', success:false} and error with desktop app is "Send Error:....Code 405 Invalid attachment parent"
- record with MyField set to -1 and with attachment again gets submitted fine but then anyone can see this record thru REST query
Important to note: I have the same behavior when trying to add a record to a generic webmap, both using the workaround def query and changing to the expected layer setting of "Editors can't see any features", although James said this is working with the December AGOL update, this doesn't seem to be true (for me).

Re: Cannot attach images in Public Survey

Anonymous User — Wed, 03 Jan 2018 21:36:55 GMT

Hi Treg,

Whilst the December AGOL update addressed the permissions and the query capability for adding attachments anonymously (as James mentioned), we now need to implement the required changes to Survey123 Connect and Field App to coincide with the AGOL changes. We plan to do this in a future release so will keep you updated once released.

Regards.

Phil.

Re: Cannot attach images in Public Survey

TregChristopher — Tue, 09 Jan 2018 22:04:50 GMT

I look forward to the implementation in Survey123 but in the meantime, my questions that followed James's response to Gee, were related to:

1. This new functionality (using same settings as Gee's initial screenshot) does NOT seem to be working in AGOL either, so I'm wondering if anyone has been able to get this to work (in a generic webmap or a geoform)? When I open a webmap in an anon browser session and try to to add pic, the record gets submitted but the attachment isn't there. I tried the same thing in a GeoForm with same results, except the GeoForm generate an error message about the attachment before submitting the record. Can anyone verify that this does or doesn't work? If everyone is having success, then it is something with our AGOL Org settings that needs to be updated?

2. Mikie's workaround is a great idea and it seems like it should would work, so I'm wondering if anyone has tried this out with any success. I've used a very similar method on a ArcGIS Server feature service with success but for both Survey123 and a generic webmap, I couldn't get it to work. Has anyone else been able to utilize the workaround?

I've added some screenshots to show the process for #1...adding a record with an attachment in both a generic webmap and a geoform and also the results (from an admin view with full control from the original, 'Add only" HFL). The table shows that no attachments were added except when I accidentally submitted a geoform in the same browser as being logged in the HFL owner)

Re: Cannot attach images in Public Survey

Anonymous User — Wed, 10 Jan 2018 01:02:53 GMT

Hi Treg,

I am still experiencing the same issues as you

Michael Kelly‌'s suggestion was great. But, it wouldn't work with attachments.

The best solution that I've come up with is - unselecting all View Definition (Define Fields) of the Feature Layer View.

This would hide all fields from the Feature Layer View, apart from attachments.

Gee

Re: Cannot attach images in Public Survey

MichaelKelly — Wed, 10 Jan 2018 16:28:57 GMT

Hi Gee,

I have just tested this out myself and now understand why it is not working.

Attachments are stored as related records (1-m) so you can relate multiple attachments to one specific feature. When adding attachments, the parent record must be available to attach the record. What is happening is the parent record is getting added as expected, but then a second transaction is being made to add an attachment. As the parent record is no longer available (as it is hidden through the view), the attachment cannot be added. It doesn't solve the problem, but explains why this doesn't work. See below for the error message (Invalid attachment parent):

Kind regards,

Mikie

Re: Cannot attach images in Public Survey

TregChristopher — Wed, 10 Jan 2018 20:28:55 GMT

Hi Mikie,

Your explanation of why this doesn't work for attachments seems logical. However, your same workaround-technique works perfectly fine for an ArcGIS Server feature service (I've been using it for a couple years to collect anon data with attachments in a GeoForms, while hiding the results from a REST query). Both AGS FS and AGOL HFS are very similar REST-based web services, so I don't see why it would work in one situation and not the other.

Regarding my question #1, it's understandable that Survey123 trails AGOL in functionality but I can't get this (not your workaround but the original "Editors can't see, even features they add") to work in AGOL either and if it's not just me or my HFS or Org settings, why isn't this a huge issue for all sorts of crowd-sourcing data collection?

Treg

Re: Cannot attach images in Public Survey

Anonymous User — Thu, 18 Jan 2018 00:15:18 GMT

Hi Michael Kelly‌

Thanks for the explanation. I think this is the same reason why I couldn't upload attachments in my initial survey, with the following feature layer settings.

To me this seems like an AGOL issue rather than Survey123. It would be greatly appreciated if you could escalate this.

Thanks,

Gee

James Tedrick‌ Ismael Chivite‌

Re: Cannot attach images in Public Survey

IsmaelChivite — Thu, 18 Jan 2018 04:21:06 GMT

A quick update on this one.

A fix is planned for version 2.7 (March 2018).

In the meantime, a workaround consists on enabling ADD and UPDATE permissions in the feature layer.

Thanks for your patience with this.

Re: Cannot attach images in Public Survey

TregChristopher — Fri, 26 Jan 2018 17:09:01 GMT

Ismael,

Again, that is great that you are working on this for Survey123 but it seems I need to reiterate two items:

-The problem does not seem to be limited to S123, both Geet and I found the same issue with AGOL (see Geet's and my last replies)...can you or anyone in ESRI either verify or discount what we are seeing?

-Your workaround (switch to 'Add&Update') is not a workaround that solves Geet's (and mine) original goal to both anonymously Collect AND Hide results . Yes, you can now add attachments but it doesn't prevent an anon from querying REST for any records. Please see attached settings and results or try my example out yourself:

add anon data in webmap:https://arcg.is/HiSrX

add anon data in S123 webform: https://survey123.arcgis.com/share/7cc0503bddd24b4ea6c6eb0735e98d47

query results from either:https://services8.arcgis.com/qxgNeb414AvBYKO7/ArcGIS/rest/services/service_8cac2b6810bd4c63817e6dbef2d3186b/FeatureServer/0/query

Re: Cannot attach images in Public Survey

JamesTedrick — Fri, 26 Jan 2018 21:44:50 GMT

Hi Treg,

We are researching this with the ArcGIS Online team; we have internally replicated the behavior you are seeing.