topic Re: How to design a custom report layout in ArcGIS Survey123 Questions

How to design a custom report layout

FatmaŞenol — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 21:04:13 GMT

Hello,

I collected data using Survey123 to create inventory of Historical buildings

in a small village. What I want is to build a custom report layout. Unfortunately,

ArcGIS Desktop 10.4 report builder doesn't have such flexibility compared to

Crystal Reports.

In my case, each section in the report should get the selected attribute. The report

would include a picture of the building, a map showing location of the building, and

other details such as building type, building structure.So, I would be able to create

and print report of the selected buildings. I attached the sample inventory form to

clarify my question.

I would appreciate if you could share your experiences and suggestions on this matter.

Re: How to design a custom report layout

RELAdmin — Tue, 03 Jan 2017 17:00:04 GMT

Yes, I am looking for this exact workflow. I've achieved something similar using a very lengthy workaround method (manually downloading geodatabase with collected data and utilizing the mailing function in Word) but nothing that connects natively with arcmap.

Re: How to design a custom report layout

JoeFlannery — Tue, 03 Jan 2017 21:32:41 GMT

Philip:

I'm intrigued - Are you connecting to a file geodatabase directly with MS-Word?

Joe

Re: How to design a custom report layout

HamidYunus — Thu, 05 Jan 2017 08:47:13 GMT

Concur with Joe. indeed very intriguing.

Would you be kind enough to share a screenshot after obfuscating sensitive info. Will be very much appreciated.

Re: How to design a custom report layout

RELAdmin — Thu, 05 Jan 2017 15:44:18 GMT

I don't connect the Geodatabase directly to Word, rather I download the data that was collected using survey123 into a geodatabase, open the geodatabase in ArcMap and use the Feature Table to Excel tool, save the excel table, and link it to the word template to automatically fill in the values on the report.

Here is an example of one of the reports:

This method works, but is a very manual process. I'm sure I could write a script to automate a few of the steps, but I haven't had time to get around to it. It would be awesome if there would be a tool that would integrate directly with Survey123 or ArcMap

Re: How to design a custom report layout

RELAdmin — Thu, 05 Jan 2017 15:47:04 GMT

I think you could also achieve the same thing using an ArcMap layout and data driven pages. This would allow you to add images and maps to the layouts as well.

Re: How to design a custom report layout

zkovacs — Thu, 05 Jan 2017 15:57:10 GMT

This is exactly what I was going to say. I use this method for every mobile mapping project where reporting is required (which is most of the time). Using dynamic attributes with data driven pages is just much easier to do especially if map is required too.

Re: How to design a custom report layout

deleted-user-FfGbgR253rTy — Thu, 05 Jan 2017 18:13:40 GMT

Attached photos are a bit trickier, but everything else can pretty much be done with data driven pages... Although you may want to modify your template...

Also, it's worth using rectangle text boxes to force wrapping etc.
Limitations include when you need multiple pages for a single row of data (or related table info). At that point you're getting into stuff not well supported by ESRI... and may need to look at business partners like SafeSoftware and FME.

Re: How to design a custom report layout

FatmaŞenol — Thu, 05 Jan 2017 19:16:53 GMT

Hello Philip,

Even your method is a manual process, it seems working. Could you please let me know the workflow to link the excel table to the word template to automatically fill in the values on the report ?

On the other hand, using dynamic attributes with data driven pages might be a more efficient solution as Zoltan suggested but I'm not familiar with this method and need to understand to build the report I want.

Re: How to design a custom report layout

Anonymous User — Thu, 05 Jan 2017 23:54:48 GMT

As has been mentioned, data driven pages is a good option, assuming you can fit everything on one page.

What I would love to see is an option for Survey123 to export survey results as a PDF, in the same format as the survey that you designed. I'm having users come back wanting me to print out their completed surveys. They don't want a separate report, they want it to look like the Survey123 entry form, just with the answers filled in.

Re: How to design a custom report layout

FatmaŞenol — Fri, 06 Jan 2017 06:13:00 GMT

Yes, data driven pages is an option but I still think it would be great if there is an option for

Survey 123 to print (as pdf, word or excel file) completed surveys on a custom designed report

separately or a single record including photo(s) taken using Survey123.

Is anyone at ESRI could post a solution or suggestion ?

Re: How to design a custom report layout

RELAdmin — Thu, 12 Jan 2017 16:54:51 GMT

Omur,

Download the geodatabase from the Survey123 online portal and save to your desktop

Open the table/feature class in ArcMap, and run the "Table to Excel" Tool (I always check the "Use field alias as column header" and "use domain and subtype description" options)

Open the exported excel file and save as .xlsx

In word (or excel) create your report template. Leave text boxes for the places where you will fill in your data from the survey

When the template is complete, use the Mailings tab in word or excel to "select recipients" and "use existing List" and select your excel file (the .xlsx version)

Now you can insert the fields where you want them. Open the text box, and click the "Insert Merge Field" button to insert the field.

When all of the fields are linked with the correct place, you can "finish and merge" and each individual report will be filled in based on the survey data.

~Phil

Re: How to design a custom report layout

JamesTedrick — Wed, 18 Jan 2017 15:51:41 GMT

Hi Omur,

At this time, the solutions described above are the best solutions for printing out the surveys. We are interested in supporting printing of the survey data with a custom format, though we don't have any immediate plans to focus on it. Additionally, this sort of functionality is something that could benefit the entire ArcGIS platform and we would a solution that can support the requirements of multiple applications.

Re: How to design a custom report layout

Anonymous User — Wed, 18 Jan 2017 16:08:48 GMT

Thanks James,

Survey 123 has come so far, quite quickly. It is a great tool. In my opinion the largest remaining gap for it is this report functionality. If this were available, then the tool would become a full-circle application that we could deploy on a project from start to finish: 1 - Collect data, 2) Analyze data, 3) Report results

When speaking with many other Survey123 users, this is their most frequent question as well. In my humble opinion it should be a high priority item.

Looking forward to this eventually becoming available.

Cheers,

Brendan

Re: How to design a custom report layout

FinnianO_Connor — Thu, 19 Jan 2017 11:28:57 GMT

Just adding another voice supporting report generation from Survey123. It is very much a requirement for certain data sets being collected and while there are ways to produce a report the simplest and most convenient option would be directly from the app itself.

Cheers,

Finnian

Re: How to design a custom report layout

FatmaŞenol — Fri, 27 Jan 2017 18:45:02 GMT

James,

I'm sorry for not responding your comments earlier. Of course, the described solutions would work but there are limitations. I strongly believe that report functionality should be given higher priority. I hope and wish that the next version of Survey123 would have integrated a flexible report functionality. On the other hand, as you mentioned such functionality would be great benefit to the entire ArcGIS platform.

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Re: How to design a custom report layout

FatmaŞenol — Fri, 27 Jan 2017 19:11:14 GMT

Philip,

My sincere apologies for delay in replying to you. Thank you for sharing the workflow. You method is the optimum solution to me at this moment. I hope ESRI would focus on report functionality in the near future

Re: How to design a custom report layout

RaviSingh1 — Fri, 02 Jun 2017 20:57:12 GMT

For text data you can create table in Arcgis Online Popup as discussed here: https://community.esri.com/thread/94951

kind regards

Re: How to design a custom report layout

DougBrowning — Tue, 06 Jun 2017 21:46:23 GMT

I did it using Data Driven pages. See the post here.

https://community.esri.com/message/586285#586285

Re: How to design a custom report layout

Anonymous User — Sun, 11 Jun 2017 02:23:15 GMT

I know they are clunky at best, but you should consider using the view -> create report to create your forms. Yes, it takes a lot of experimenting, but the gains are worth more.

imagine being able to run your reporting forms directly from within your file geodatabase.; which in turns allows you to quickly create filled forms. We have one such method that allowed us to create 1100 data sheets from a feature class with relationship classes I under 10 seconds.