topic Re: Launch Field App from URL on Desktop Directly, No Browser Window in ArcGIS Survey123 Questions

Launch Field App from URL on Desktop Directly, No Browser Window

RobertAnderson3 — Tue, 02 Apr 2024 14:48:50 GMT

Maybe there's something out there I haven't seen but, we're using the custom URL scheme to open surveys from Power BI when something needs to be edited, currently I am using the scheme:

https://survey123.arcgis.app/?itemID={itemID}&action=edit&update=true&folder=*&filter=globalid:{globalID}

That one opens up the browser to a page to download the app, or if you have it already, to Open the Survey.

I know there's also this one that will open the app immediately:

arcgis-survey123://?itemID={itemID}&action=edit&update=true&folder=*&filter=globalid:{globalID}

However, when we try to add this to Power BI as the link, it does not recognize it as a hyperlink to open the app, does anyone have any thoughts on how to make this work, skipping that browser page and opening the app directly? I would want this to work on Desktop and on iOS.

Re: Launch Field App from URL on Desktop Directly, No Browser Window

RichardHowe — Wed, 03 Apr 2024 11:40:47 GMT

I'll be honest, I'm wondering if something with the arcgis-survey123://?itemID= url scheme has changed. I have a webmap with a popup containing a constructed url that used to link to a survey123 form fine, but now all I get is a blank tab on my browser

Re: Launch Field App from URL on Desktop Directly, No Browser Window

abureaux — Wed, 03 Apr 2024 17:14:21 GMT

I would guess that the issue with arcgis-survey123 URL is that MS tries to be smart... much to its detriment at times.

You can use this style of URL in emails and web maps because you can set the URL manually. This either literally or technically is adding <a href=""> to the application and then nesting your URL in there.

But in some MS applications (E.g., Teams), it tries to detect links programmatically, which essentially means it looks for http:// or https://. If it doesn't see that, it assumes it isn't a proper link.

Regular S123 URL in Teams

Also in Teams, but just adding https://

I would suspect that PBI is the same, and it just doesn't recognize the arcgis-survey123 URL, and so doesn't treat it like a URL.

After some searching, here is what I found... As of 2017, PBI only nativity supports these URLs (here is the article - scroll to bottom):

http
https
mailto
news
telnet
ftp
file

You would need to add HTML to PBI to get the s123 URL to work.

Re: Launch Field App from URL on Desktop Directly, No Browser Window

RobertAnderson3 — Fri, 05 Apr 2024 18:10:53 GMT

Are you saying if the Power BI portion was set up with <a href="arcgis-survey123://...."> it should work and recognize it as a link? (I'm not the one setting up the Power BI so I want to make sure I have the full picture before trying to explain to someone else how to do it haha)

Re: Launch Field App from URL on Desktop Directly, No Browser Window

abureaux — Fri, 05 Apr 2024 19:06:55 GMT

It should, because you would be bypassing PBI's built-in link detection (which is the issue here) and manually specifying the URL via HTML <a>

The issue then becomes how do you add that HTML. There was an old add-in for PBI called HTML Viewer that would have some this, but it was removed from the PBI Store some time ago. Apparently HTML VizCreator Cert by BI Samurai (formerly HTML Text Styler) can also render HTML and thus work for this purpose. Check out this thread where they discuss both HTML Viewer and HTML VizCreator (They also provide a Google Drive link for the older HTML Viewer if you wanted to try that instead of HTML VizCreator).

Re: Launch Field App from URL on Desktop Directly, No Browser Window

RobertAnderson3 — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 11:56:33 GMT

When you say blank do you mean the "Download Survey123" page, or just nothing at all?

Re: Launch Field App from URL on Desktop Directly, No Browser Window

RobertAnderson3 — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 11:57:31 GMT

I'll have to send this to the person working on our Power BI stuff and see if they can get it working with this strategy.

This would be the only scheme that opens the app directly right? Would it work on both desktop and mobile?