topic Re: Surveys not generating, no error message. in ArcGIS Survey123 Questions

Surveys not generating, no error message.

ChrisShuck1 — Mon, 30 Jul 2018 22:58:59 GMT

My organization has a survey which we were previously able to generate reports from but now cannot. We do not receive an error message. The Word report just never generates and stays at 0%. Looking back at the last several reports that generated successfully, it seems that those reports all took around 3 min, 45 sec to generate. I'm guessing that this survey is too long or complicated and needs to be condensed and make better use of repeats. However, I'm not sure that this is the issue. I have attached the xls of the survey we have been having issues with.

Re: Surveys not generating, no error message.

IsmaelChivite — Mon, 30 Jul 2018 23:28:51 GMT

Please also share your Word document template

Re: Surveys not generating, no error message.

ChrisShuck1 — Mon, 30 Jul 2018 23:39:56 GMT

It has been added. Thanks.

Re: Surveys not generating, no error message.

ClaireProctor — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 04:40:09 GMT

Hi Chris,

This is largely unrelated, but why is your survey using groups and large amounts of relevant fields, rather than using repeats for every category? It would make your results neater by having less duplicate fields (many of which will be empty), and would reduce the survey's initial load time. I assume there's a reason, I'm just not certain from an observational point of view what it is.

Re: Surveys not generating, no error message.

ZhifangWang — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 09:47:27 GMT

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the feedback. I've published a test survey with your XLSForm and report template in ArcGIS Online with a fake record, seems to me, the report can be generated successfully.

* https://survey123.arcgis.com/share/3cd580ae7a6044eea3ed37d2b8351d15/result/data (use your ArcGIS Online account to sign in)

* if it's related to a specific record, can you please submit a fake record which can reproduce the issue by using https://arcg.is/00v0HH ?

Re: Surveys not generating, no error message.

ChrisShuck1 — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 17:46:23 GMT

Is there a way that I can pass on a completed survey to you that I know has had this issue, rather than trying to reproduce it?

Re: Surveys not generating, no error message.

ChrisShuck1 — Tue, 31 Jul 2018 17:57:13 GMT

Hi Claire. At the time this survey was created, we didn't know about repeats. We've since used repeats on subsequent surveys with success, but we haven't had time yet to go back and redesign this survey. It looks like we may have to. I was looking through some of the surveys that users were able to generate with this form this morning, and some of them took up to 18 minutes to generate. I have a feeling that if this survey were redesigned with repeats, this wouldn't happen. Strangely though, this form used to generate reports very quickly.

Re: Surveys not generating, no error message.

OscarSepulveda_III — Wed, 01 Aug 2018 19:47:09 GMT

Hi Claire... I am drawing a blank when you stated,"why is your survey using groups and large amounts of relevant fields, rather than using repeats for every category? It would make your results neater by having less duplicate fields...". We have a form developed on the web, and it has 70 questions (yes, no, N/A), if anything other than "Yes" is entered, note & photograph fields open for the user. That way each question has a way to capture individual notes and photographs.

Is there a way to simplify this? I utilized groups because the appearance was so overwhelming... Any help would be appreciated...

Claire Proctor

Re: Surveys not generating, no error message.

ClaireProctor — Wed, 01 Aug 2018 23:54:13 GMT

Hi Oscar,

Repeats are useful in situations like the survey Chris provided in the original post, when the user is answering several iterations of the exact same questions (so in that example, capturing the same information about several individual items). It doesn't sound like your survey has this structure, using groups might be necessary, but you can check out the documentation to decide for yourself: Repeats—Survey123 for ArcGIS | ArcGIS

Currently, you can't actually implement a repeat in the Survey123 web designer, it can only be added to a survey in Survey123 Connect, although they are usable in surveys opened in the web app once implemented.

Re: Surveys not generating, no error message.

OscarSepulveda_III — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 00:16:26 GMT

I am having the same issue. Except, pending prints finally stop attempting to print after 6+ hours and indicate:

Duration:
- 6 h 1 min26 s
Status
- Failed
Message
- task timeout
Failed Object IDs
- 4

I've tried removing the groups that were added after the last print without success. Any help would be appreciated.

Re: Surveys not generating, no error message.

ZhifangWang — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 02:43:10 GMT

Unfortunately, there's no easy approach to clone the entire survey which includes

form item (designed survey itself)
source feature service
- contains collected data
one or more feature service view
report templates (one or more MS word item)

If you still cannot reproduce the issue in the above test survey, https://survey123.arcgis.com/share/3cd580ae7a6044eea3ed37d2b8351d15/result/data , I would suggest that you raise an issue to Esri support service, I believe this is what they can help.

Re: Surveys not generating, no error message.

ZhifangWang — Thu, 02 Aug 2018 02:45:34 GMT

Hi Oscar,

Is it possible for you to upload the XLSForm file (.xlsx) and the report template file (.docx) which can reproduce the problem?

Re: Surveys not generating, no error message.

IsmaelChivite — Fri, 10 Aug 2018 21:08:46 GMT

Including here modified XLSFile and corresponding Feature Report Template.

Changes I made in XLSForm:

Replaced Groups with Repeats
Updated SUM calculations
Changed several question types from Text to Integer or Decimal
Renamed a handful of questions

Changes in Template:

Adjusted tables
Template is not complete, but I added enough to show the pattern.

With the changes above:

The form takes seven times less time to load (time difference calculated on Windows)
Report generates correctly

In the repeats, I added a hidden questions the Site Number, Area, Recorder and Date.This is of no use in the report, but it will help in case you want to download the data.

Chris Shuck‌

Re: Surveys not generating, no error message.

ChrisShuck1 — Tue, 21 Aug 2018 17:01:19 GMT

Thank you!