topic Re: Survey123 Drafts, Multiple Users in ArcGIS Survey123 Questions

Survey123 Drafts, Multiple Users

AmyGrossman — Tue, 27 Dec 2022 22:15:15 GMT

Hello, I am designing a survey on Survey123 Connect (Excel) to be used by five different users, repeatedly, on their individual iphones or ipads and I have two questions:

1. If one user starts a survey and saves a draft of it (before returning to it later), does that draft get saved on that person's particular phone or is the draft available to all users of that survey even though they will each have their own phones and ArcGIS Online accounts.

2. If #1 is not how it works, is there a way to create multiple draft folders so that User A can save her drafts to User A Draft Folder and User B can save his drafts to User B Draft Folder, and so on?

Ideally, I want to make sure that User A doesn't end up interfering with User B's draft surveys, since the flow is meant to start a survey at your desktop, save it as a draft, and finish it in the field.

Thanks!

Amy

Re: Survey123 Drafts, Multiple Users

ZacharySutherby — Wed, 28 Dec 2022 00:47:58 GMT

Hello @AmyGrossman,

The first part of 1 is correct `If one user starts a survey and saves a draft of it (before returning to it later), does that draft get saved on that person's particular phone`, the draft will be saved on that particular persons device and is not available to the other users. Please see this documentation for more information on the different boxes available in the Survey123 field app.

Re: Survey123 Drafts, Multiple Users

MichelleWilliamsERM — Wed, 28 Dec 2022 17:50:40 GMT

I'd like to know more about your workflow - for example.

User A does the initial inspection, User B does the work and submits the record, and User C does the next step.

Re: Survey123 Drafts, Multiple Users

AmyGrossman — Thu, 29 Dec 2022 14:41:49 GMT

The workflow is each user, separately on their own phones and using their own log-ins, starts X number of surveys at their desk and saves each one as a draft. Then they go into the field and go to different sites where they resume each survey at each site and complete the survey by recording a geopoint and send in the survey. Then when they're back in the office, I review their survey records with them on the computer to process the data. They all do the same tasks, but I want to make sure each user has access only to their own drafts, not each other's drafts or finished surveys.

Re: Survey123 Drafts, Multiple Users

AmyGrossman — Thu, 29 Dec 2022 14:42:14 GMT

I think this should work for what I'm planning! Thanks!

Re: Survey123 Drafts, Multiple Users

MichelleWilliamsERM — Fri, 30 Dec 2022 16:32:09 GMT

You are safe; drafts stay on the device they were saved on; they haven't been sent to AGOL, so nobody else can see them.

If you'd like to dial in your workflow, I can show you another way to complete this process and ensure you don't lose the data by accident. DM me if you'd like to go over your options.

Re: Survey123 Drafts, Multiple Users

DanJacobsen — Sat, 02 Mar 2024 11:46:29 GMT

I have an inspection form that gets initiated and then updated by multiple users over several years. At key points, an inspection report is generated as the document of record. There are about 120 folks using the field app., and we will soon add 70 more. How can we use or not use Drafts effectively. The users were instructed to not use Drafts, but some do anyway and we think we are losing data. If the user holds a Draft for weeks, and others submit changes into the database, and then the Draft is submitted, does the data in the Draft get merged/synchronized with the data in the database, or does it override all of the data in the database? Thanks.

Re: Survey123 Drafts, Multiple Users

DanJacobsen — Sat, 02 Mar 2024 11:59:23 GMT

I should have mentioned that we currently have 420 inspection records in the database with about 1/2 of them active records. Each record get updated/maintained by 5-7 users.

Re: Survey123 Drafts, Multiple Users

DanJacobsen — Sat, 02 Mar 2024 12:04:14 GMT

I am curious about this “other way to complete this process and ensure I don’t lose data by accident.”