topic Re: Read-Only Questions Look Editable in ArcGIS Survey123 Questions

Read-Only Questions Look Editable

MappingMoose — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 02:24:01 GMT

Hi all,

When configuring read-only questions in Survey123 Connect a lot of the time they look like they are editable because they still display what looks like a response field under the question (ever so slightly greyed out box).

I've found I can prevent this by setting the appearance to compact if it is an open text field or by using note fields and hiding the actual fields etc., but I was wondering if there's a simpler way to go about it for non-text questions like integer or decimal?

Re: Read-Only Questions Look Editable

abureaux — Wed, 28 Feb 2024 21:10:14 GMT

Not that I am aware of. Drop-downs are (visually) also bad for that since the drop-down remains.

In the end, so long as items are not editable, I try not to worry about it.

You can always submit an idea that "read only" items are visually consistent/obvious. This has been something that has crossed my mind several times in the past.

Re: Read-Only Questions Look Editable

DougBrowning — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 19:24:28 GMT

I think one of the reasons for this was so copy/paste is not blocked on these fields. I had requested it long ago I think.

Re: Read-Only Questions Look Editable

MappingMoose — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 21:14:02 GMT

I have found that with either presentation of the read only question, copy/paste is blocked on both the mobile app and the desktop app. It does allow highlighting of the value, but nothing further.

Re: Read-Only Questions Look Editable

DougBrowning — Mon, 04 Mar 2024 21:36:57 GMT

Well yep can no longer copy. Bummer. I do not think there is any way to make it different unless you change to a note type.

Re: Read-Only Questions Look Editable

JoshConrad1 — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 13:54:40 GMT

I needed to have a readonly date field appear in my form with the intent of hosting a web map as an element in an experience builder map that integrated survey123 into the map's popup. the form was developed using Survey123 connect, and when i would test it as desired (thru Experience Builder) the date field was still editable. I finally got the date field to be uneditable by configuring my date field in survey123 as described below:

1) create a date field type

2) set appearance to Hidden

3) set readonly to YES and default to "today()"

then created a new text field type - set it to required and read only and set the entry in the calculation column to format-date(${date_field_name},'%m/%d/%Y'). solved my issue.

hope this methodology works for others trying to do something similar with different field types!