topic Re: When will Survey123 support polylines and polygons? in ArcGIS Survey123 Questions

When will Survey123 support polylines and polygons?

TiffanySprague — Tue, 27 Nov 2018 23:36:06 GMT

Is there any solid information about when Survey123 will accommodate polylines and polygons? It always seems to be "soon" or "high on the list", but with no dates. We use S123 and like it very much, but the inability to capture tracks may force us to switch to Collector, which otherwise would be suboptimal for our work (field ecological research by a non-profit organization using citizen scientists). Thanks for any insight anyone can provide.

Re: When will Survey123 support polylines and polygons?

Anonymous User — Tue, 27 Nov 2018 23:49:38 GMT

Main question on updates aside, have you considered using both Collector for ArcGIS and Survey123?

Integrate with other apps—Survey123 for ArcGIS | ArcGIS

If Collector for ArcGIS isn't an option, could also consider integrating it with a Web Mapping application.

https://community.esri.com/groups/survey123/blog/2016/07/30/understanding-survey123s-custom-url-scheme

This way the users could create features in the Web Map (using Collector or the Web Mapping Application) and then launch a survey from the feature.

I find this workflow to be quite good when the majority of time we're working spatially but on occasion we need a bit more depth to our field data collection.

Re: When will Survey123 support polylines and polygons?

JamesTedrick — Wed, 28 Nov 2018 02:26:39 GMT

Hi Tiffany,

As the Survey123 team researched into best supporting polygon and polyline collection, we came to the conclusion that there are a few prerequisite improvements that need to be made. One of these enhancements, among others, involves replacing the existing map with an ArcGIS Runtime map. We've encountered some delays that have pushed back when we can first implement the Runtime map; at this time we don't have a date for providing polygon/polyline support.

Re: When will Survey123 support polylines and polygons?

KimCoburn — Wed, 23 Jan 2019 22:17:30 GMT

Did you guys see the new Survey 123 Beta!?!

3.3 Beta update - Polyline and polygon support!

https://earlyadopter.esri.com/project/article/print.html?cap=e69ef91f45744b98882c651f7b518eb7&artid={E63303B5-EF11-4E56-9962-8920E9FE2654}

Background

In line with popular demand, we are planning to introduce support for lines and polygons in the Survey123 Field app - I’m sure this is an existing prospect for many of you!

So, what does this mean? Essentially, in builds 3.3.28 of the Field App and 3.3.21 Connect, you will now be able to:

Publish surveys that use lines or polygons as the geometry type
Capture line or polygon features by digitizing them on the map and use them as the geometry of the submitted survey
Publish a survey against an existing line or polygon feature services

There are many reasons why you might want to work with lines or polygons (instead of points), but here are some examples:

Capturing the portion of a river surveyed for environmental issues (geotrace)
Capturing the location and length of a transect line and recording the species seen (geotrace)
Capturing the extent of damage caused by a flood or fire, together with other key attributes (geoshape)

Getting started

To get going, all you need to do is publish a survey that contains either a geotrace or geoshape question. FYI In XLSForm speak a geotrace is equivalent to a line question and geoshape is equivalent to a polygon question. Publishing a survey with one of these questions in it will result in feature service with a line/polygon geometry being created. Once the question is added to the survey, you will be able to tap on the question to open the map, and then start capturing feature's geometry.

Note that in your existing surveys these questions will throw an xls validation error (as these question types are not yet listed), but you can ignore the error and successfully publish your survey.

In this beta version of the app, we have added support for the following:

Survey123 Connect:

Publish XLSForms with geotrace and geoshape question types
Publish surveys on top of existing polygon and polyline feature layer

Survey123 Field App:

Capture line and polygon features by freehand sketching
Capture line and polygon features by vertex by vertex capture
Edit line and polygon features by moving, adding or deleting vertices
Accurately positioning vertices by GPS location, coordinate, place or address.

Survey123 Website:

Explore and Filter captured records using the Data and Analyze tab
Create custom reports on top of polygon and polyline surveys
Test webhooks

Re: When will Survey123 support polylines and polygons?

AdrianWelsh — Wed, 23 Jan 2019 22:53:35 GMT

Thanks for sharing Kim! This changes everything!

Yay!

Re: When will Survey123 support polylines and polygons?

KimCoburn — Wed, 23 Jan 2019 23:51:16 GMT

Agreed! I have been looking forward to this for years and only been using way too complicated collector links in the interim.

Re: When will Survey123 support polylines and polygons?

NathanDulfon — Fri, 08 Mar 2019 22:25:23 GMT

hello James,

If I built an xlsForm with the polygon/polypoint capabilities as in the SCAT.xlsx example... will it work when the newest Survey123 version is released?

Re: When will Survey123 support polylines and polygons?

DougBrowning — Mon, 11 Mar 2019 14:09:04 GMT

Anyone know if there is pulldata support for pulling vertexes, centroids, etc? Can't seem to get it.

Thanks

Re: When will Survey123 support polylines and polygons?

NathanDulfon — Mon, 11 Mar 2019 23:47:39 GMT

I meant to ask... if I build an xlsForm in Beta with polygon capabilities.... will it works when the S123 polygons is released?

Re: When will Survey123 support polylines and polygons?

Anonymous User — Mon, 11 Mar 2019 23:52:37 GMT

Hi Doug,

Please keep an eye on the EAC announcements for updates to Survey123 beta and support for polyline and polygons, we will be adding support for calculations and other functions in near future.

Phil.

Re: When will Survey123 support polylines and polygons?

Anonymous User — Mon, 11 Mar 2019 23:58:01 GMT

Hi Nathan,

Support for polyline and polygon is currently only in beta and not in the released version of the app. Please keep an eye out on the EAC announcements and updates. The next released version 3.4 of Survey123 will not include final support for polyline and polygon, however we are aiming for full support in a release soon after that. In the meantime please keep using the updated beta versions on EAC with your example/test surveys, and if you encounter any issues or with a subsequent beta update your xlsx form stops working, please provide feedback on the EAC forums.

Phil.

Re: When will Survey123 support polylines and polygons?

NathanDulfon — Tue, 12 Mar 2019 00:34:21 GMT

Thank you sir!

Re: When will Survey123 support polylines and polygons?

smukahhal — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 10:40:49 GMT

Is there a way to calculate the area of the polygon in Survey123 and show it in form ? like a calculation field ?

Re: When will Survey123 support polylines and polygons?

JamesTedrick — Wed, 13 Mar 2019 19:29:33 GMT

Hi Sulaiman,

As this is a beta feature, the Early Adopter Community is the more appropriate place to ask a question on this.

Re: When will Survey123 support polylines and polygons?

smukahhal — Fri, 15 Mar 2019 09:34:17 GMT

Thanks and I totally agree, I just follow the link from my mail and I though i was in the Early Adopter Community Form.

Re: When will Survey123 support polylines and polygons?

FlorenciaPineiro — Fri, 26 Jul 2019 16:24:43 GMT

Hi James,

For collecting polygons, the transmission tool may be available?

Re: When will Survey123 support polylines and polygons?

JamesTedrick — Wed, 07 Aug 2019 22:15:11 GMT

Hi Florencia,

I'm not quite sure what you mean by the transmission tool - can you provide more details?

Re: When will Survey123 support polylines and polygons?

FlorenciaPineiro — Thu, 08 Aug 2019 12:14:51 GMT

Hi James,

I mean the tool that allows you capture events in the field based on your path. It´s available in Collector for ArcGIS.

Re: When will Survey123 support polylines and polygons?

JamesTedrick — Fri, 09 Aug 2019 16:46:24 GMT

Hi Florencia,

You can already collect events (points) as you travel along a path using Survey123. Are you referring to a continuous collection of a line or polygon boundary as you move along the path?

Re: When will Survey123 support polylines and polygons?

RobertThomas2 — Wed, 14 Aug 2019 22:36:41 GMT

Keep in mind, the WGS 1984 Web Mercator Auxiliary Sphere coordinate system (or projection) that is used in web mapping is a simplication of the shape of the earth and thus will yield bad data when the user attempts to do analysis, calculate length, calculate area, or even determine direction. It is NOT a conformal projection, which means it doesn’t even preserve the shape of items on the earth. It is basically a simplified projection that companies like Google, Bing and Esri are using in web browsers to make life easier for some. It allows for simpler tiling and faster display of imagery and other base data for web browsers and web mapping. Best practice is to download the data from AGOL and use in a projected map document and do calculations within ArcGIS.

See ESRI blog post - https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-solutions/defense/what-does-the-nga-web-mercator-advisory-mean-for-esri-defense-and-intelligence-users/
- “Operational layers used with Web Mercator basemaps can be stored in other coordinate systems, and projected on the fly to match.”

NGA advisory notice for details about Web Mercator distortion slides from the ESRI UC 2015 presented by NGA after issuing their advisory notice in 2014. https://www.slideshare.net/NGA_GEOINT/ngas-position-on-webmercator

I hope this helps.