topic Re: THE EXISTING FEATURE SERVICE IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THE SURVEY in ArcGIS Survey123 Questions

THE EXISTING FEATURE SERVICE IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THE SURVEY

Billy — Wed, 25 Aug 2021 02:12:54 GMT

Hi,

Version: Survey123 Connect 3.12.232

We are trying to extract the latitude and longitude from a geopoint question of published survey. We followed the recommendations of this blog, from 2016: https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-survey123-blog/pulling-data-from-geopoint-questions/ba-p/896838. We tried using the hidden question type with pulldata to extract the x\y, and using decimal question type, pulldata and hidden appearance; in both cases we are getting the message that "The existing feature service is not compatible with the survey".

The survey was created in 2020, and the blog is from 2016. Why the addition of these questions is raising this warning? That we understand means that if we publish the survey a new service will be create and the old data will be lost.

Re: THE EXISTING FEATURE SERVICE IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THE SURVEY

jcarlson — Wed, 25 Aug 2021 13:24:05 GMT

Just go to the feature layer and add the fields using the name and type from your XLS form. Then when publishing the survey, it will recognize the existence of those fields and not prompt for re-publishing the service.

Re: THE EXISTING FEATURE SERVICE IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THE SURVEY

DougBrowning — Wed, 25 Aug 2021 14:25:36 GMT

Josh is correct it is telling you the fields are not there but you can add them using AGOL.

Also if you just need to display the lat/long I use Arcade for this. That way if the point is ever moved it will auto update vs the static fields.

Code is

Convert a Web Mecator Lat/Long to a WGS84 Lat Long using Arcade in a web map pop up var originShift = 2.0 * PI * 6378137.0 / 2.0; var lon = (Geometry($feature).x / originShift) * 180.0; var lat = (Geometry($feature).y / originShift) * 180.0; lat = 180.0 / PI * (2.0 * Atan( Exp( lat * PI / 180.0)) - PI / 2.0); return [lon, lat]; Or as text for passing to apps var originShift = 2.0 * PI * 6378137.0 / 2.0; var lon = (Geometry($feature).x / originShift) * 180.0; var lat = (Geometry($feature).y / originShift) * 180.0; lat = 180.0 / PI * (2.0 * Atan( Exp( lat * PI / 180.0)) - PI / 2.0); return lon + " " + lat;

Re: THE EXISTING FEATURE SERVICE IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THE SURVEY

Billy — Wed, 25 Aug 2021 19:14:36 GMT

Hi Josh\Doug,

Thanks for your answers. We need the lat\lon as separate fields in the database because we need it for another system when we export the data as csv.

Regarding the addition of the fields, Survey123 is offering to add the additional fields to the feature service during the re-publishing (see the publishing dialog image). Our concern is that we have added new fields in the past and never received the warning "The existing feature service is not compatible with the survey". Our understanding is that this warning means that if we re-publish the survey with the changes then a new feature service will be created and the old data will be lost.

Re: THE EXISTING FEATURE SERVICE IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THE SURVEY

jcarlson — Wed, 25 Aug 2021 19:18:44 GMT

You need to add the fields from the AGOL Content page, not via S123.

I don't know if that message and overwrite option is a new addition, but I have only seen it when adding fields to the original form in Survey123 Connect.

When adding new fields to additional forms that were created using the "from existing feature service" option, I get a different error that my form cannot be published due to fields not being in the feature service.

Re: THE EXISTING FEATURE SERVICE IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THE SURVEY

Billy — Wed, 25 Aug 2021 19:25:28 GMT

Before adding the fields in AGOL we need to be sure that when we try to re-publish the survey the old data won't be erased.

I searched the documentation for a reference to the warning message but didn't find anything.

Re: THE EXISTING FEATURE SERVICE IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THE SURVEY

jcarlson — Wed, 25 Aug 2021 19:27:56 GMT

If all fields are present and no schema changes need to be made to the underlying service, you see this:

The survey will be updated without affecting the existing data.

Re: THE EXISTING FEATURE SERVICE IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THE SURVEY

Billy — Wed, 25 Aug 2021 19:31:19 GMT

Ok, I will try it and report back the result.

Thanks.

Re: THE EXISTING FEATURE SERVICE IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THE SURVEY

Billy — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 14:36:44 GMT

I added the fields to the feature layer in AGOL like you recommended and re-published the survey. It worked fine without data loss.

Thanks.

Re: THE EXISTING FEATURE SERVICE IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THE SURVEY

anonymous55 — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 18:59:57 GMT

@Billy Could you give summary of your steps?
is going to be good documentation here for future
Thanks

Re: THE EXISTING FEATURE SERVICE IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THE SURVEY

Billy — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 19:48:15 GMT

These are the steps, like Josh recommended:

1- Add the new questions in your XLS form in Survey123 Connect. In my case the question type was decimal and the appearance was set to hidden. At this point, if one tries to re-publish the survey you get the this warning "The existing feature service is not compatible with the survey".

2- Go to the location where the feature layer of your survey is hosted (ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise), and open the layer to access its properties.

3- Click on the Data tap of the layer property window, select Field and then hit the Add button to add as many new field as the number of new questions added to the survey. The field name and data type have to be the same used in the XLS form.

4- Go back to Survey123 Connect and re-publish the survey. This time the warning "The existing feature service is not compatible with the survey" and the list of fields not found in the feature service are gone.

5- Go to your Survey123 Mobile App and re-load the list of surveys to force the application to recognize the changes in the survey and ask you to update it. Normally when you open the survey in the mobile app you are prompted to update the survey but in this case it didn't happened. Maybe because the fields were added manually instead of automatically by Survey123 Connect.

Re: THE EXISTING FEATURE SERVICE IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THE SURVEY

cartezj1 — Mon, 03 Jan 2022 14:32:37 GMT

Thanks so much for sharing your steps on this!

This is FYI for those running into other issues while following the steps.
I ran into an issue with trying to limit the length of both text fields one of which had domain applied. I received an error when republishing that the domain length was too short though it was not. Recreating the fields without a length limit solved the issue. It's likely I should have included the length in the XLSForm to match what is in AGOL. It wasn't a big deal to have a limited length with the two fields I added so I didn't bother with trying it out.

Re: THE EXISTING FEATURE SERVICE IS NOT COMPATIBLE WITH THE SURVEY

MeganHomison — Mon, 22 Dec 2025 17:51:32 GMT

I know this is an old post but if anyone else is getting this error-- I just got this warning message, selected "Add the following fields when publishing," and published. None of my old data was lost, even without adding the new fields in the AGOL content page first.