topic Re: Why is Survey 123 dropping the connection to Microsoft Flow ? in ArcGIS Survey123 Questions

Why is Survey 123 dropping the connection to Microsoft Flow ?

MorganCrumlish — Thu, 23 May 2019 08:11:54 GMT

I have had some issues regarding Microsoft Flow and Survey 123. Essentially the Flow could not see the surveys. Recreating the connector to Survey 123 fixed the issue however it is a concern that this is the second time that we have seen issues and we only know the connector failed as we were testing, we cant go live with this without the ability to know when it fails.

If it fails there is no way of alerting us to an issue which means the first we will hear of it is when emails are not received on a survey being submitted. The concern is that the Flows could stop working due to a Survey 123 fault without warning.

Is anyone else having this issue or has anyone solved it successfully.

Re: Why is Survey 123 dropping the connection to Microsoft Flow ?

RogerDiercks1 — Thu, 23 May 2019 18:51:04 GMT

This might be related to your issue. The Survey123 connector has completely disappeared in Flow for me.

Re: Why is Survey 123 dropping the connection to Microsoft Flow ?

JamesTedrick — Thu, 23 May 2019 23:15:52 GMT

Hi Morgan,

One of the most common reasons for the connector to break in MS Flow is the refresh token (the long-life token) has expired. Aside from deleting/creating the connection again, you can re-establish the connection by going to (left-hand menu) Data > Connections. You should see any connectors that have disconnected and have the opportunity to reconnect them.

Re: Why is Survey 123 dropping the connection to Microsoft Flow ?

MorganCrumlish — Fri, 24 May 2019 10:22:34 GMT

Hi James, thanks but I don’t think this is the problem here.

The connector was not broken. I checked it at the time and Flow was showing it as connected. Flow will also normally give out to you when you open it if you have broken connectors, which it was not doing. In my case I chose to re-enter the credentials that the connector used which fixed the issue, rather than reconnecting or performing a delete/create of the connector
Given that we have only just set this up recently I doubt very much that the token would have expired. Firstly, there were no other issues with connectors to SharePoint that were running, and two, if there is a Survey 123 connector token that expires after only say a week then it would mean manually refreshing every few days. Obviously this would not be a viable proposed solution from ESRI and it seems unlikely that it would be configured to do this

Any more ideas ? This is really bugging me now !!

Re: Why is Survey 123 dropping the connection to Microsoft Flow ?

RogerDiercks1 — Fri, 24 May 2019 14:05:40 GMT

James,

I checked again this morning and the Survey123 connector is still completely AWOL from Flow. Yesterday, I had to refresh my ArcGIS Online credentials for a test workflow I had set up about a month ago. After entering my credentials, the connector disappeared and is no longer shown in the list of connectors. It also does not come up in the results when I search for it. Is this an issue I need to raise with Esri tech support, or should I talk to my organization's point person for Office 365 and contact Microsoft tech support?

Re: Why is Survey 123 dropping the connection to Microsoft Flow ?

JamesTedrick — Tue, 28 May 2019 20:53:54 GMT

Hi Roger,

Our understanding is that this is an issue in MS Flow, so Microsoft would be the appropriate contact to raise a support issue with. We have also notified our contacts with MS Flow about this.

Re: Why is Survey 123 dropping the connection to Microsoft Flow ?

LukeBurgess — Thu, 30 May 2019 16:19:37 GMT

Hi James,

The connector was setup and able to see the surveys. After 2 days the Flows stopped running. I verified this based on the run time of the Flows and compared it the dates that surveys got submitted. There are no errors in Flow, it simply did not trigger. Unlike some of the other threads I am seeing on this issue I didn't have to recreate the connector however I did have to reauthenticate with the same Survey123 credentials. The connector was not in a disconnected state when I looked and in fact everything looked ok other than the surveys were not displaying. If I remember correctly the survey I have connected to was displaying an identifier number instead of the survey name.

Unlike Rogers issue below we never lost access to the Survey123 connector option. I am not experiencing any other issues like this with existing, non-Survey123, Flows. I don't think this is a token expiry issue given the short period of time between creation and the issue occurring (2 days). Additionally after fixing the last issue the Flow has been working consistently for the last 2 weeks.

The issue appears to be an authentication issue between Flow (opposed to the Microsoft tenant) and Survey123.

The Flow is currently in UAT and not been transferred to production over concerns that the system may not be suitable for use if it could fail without notice.

Re: Why is Survey 123 dropping the connection to Microsoft Flow ?

JamesTedrick — Mon, 03 Jun 2019 21:12:10 GMT

Hi Luke,

Thanks for the feedback. Just to check, do you know which MS region you are using?

Re: Why is Survey 123 dropping the connection to Microsoft Flow ?

LukeBurgess — Tue, 04 Jun 2019 12:49:10 GMT

Hi James,

We are in North Europe.

Re: Why is Survey 123 dropping the connection to Microsoft Flow ?

JamesTedrick — Tue, 04 Jun 2019 23:24:15 GMT

Hi Luke,

Thanks for the additional information. I might suggest raising an issue with MS on this; I can also take this back to talk with our contacts.

Re: Why is Survey 123 dropping the connection to Microsoft Flow ?

StevenBowden — Wed, 14 Aug 2019 05:23:34 GMT

We have just recently experienced the same issue. The connector shows as connected

but when you go to try and create a new Flow or edit an existing Flow, it can't see any surveys

It can't be put into any kind of production process if it just randomly breaks and with no notifications.

We might have to start experimenting with some other webhook engines to try and determine if it is a Micorsoft or Esri issue.

Regards

Steve

Re: Why is Survey 123 dropping the connection to Microsoft Flow ?

NaomiBegg2 — Fri, 25 Oct 2019 03:26:52 GMT

I've had the issue a few times where flow seems to have forgotten my Survey123 login details, forcing me to rebuild another survey123 connection. The rest of the flow remains OK. And Flow doesn't point to any errors saying it has been disconnected.

I've found the below within https://community.esri.com/groups/survey123/blog/2018/07/19/automating-workflows-with-survey123-and-microsoft-flow and I'm hoping that this might be the cause of issue, and therefore a good solution to ensure it doesn't break again.

Re: Why is Survey 123 dropping the connection to Microsoft Flow ?

PaulCone2 — Thu, 02 Feb 2023 15:33:45 GMT

The list of connections does not show if a flow is broken but you can click on the ellipse next to the connection and choose Switch account, then just reauthorize to your existing one.

Paul

Re: Why is Survey 123 dropping the connection to Microsoft Flow ?

DrewMoffitt — Fri, 19 Apr 2024 20:47:29 GMT

Here's how I solve my Survey123 losing connection in PowerAutomate.

I have to go into my PowerAutomate account on occasion and perform the following steps.

1: Connections

2: Press the three dots on the Survey123 Connection

3: Press Switch account

4: Login to the account again

Re: Why is Survey 123 dropping the connection to Microsoft Flow ?

Krocha — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 19:22:02 GMT

How often do you do this?

Re: Why is Survey 123 dropping the connection to Microsoft Flow ?

PaulCone2 — Wed, 31 Jul 2024 19:35:59 GMT

I think the connection times out every two weeks or so, but the flow usually stays working. If you want to edit it though you have to redo the connection.