Photo Quality Control and Data Integration With Story Maps/Dashboard

[GarrettSmith1]

Hello Everyone.

I am embarking on the creation of my first app using AppStudio and I am sure that I will be interacting with this community frequently throughout the process. I will more than likely be using and combining the Map Viewer and Quick Report templates as I want people to be able to collect field observations that will be able to be navigated to by other users.  

There are a few questions that I have before I start to develop.

1. Is there a way to ensure that photos that are taken are appropriate before they are posted onto the app (i.e., that there is no adult content uploaded).

2. How are the field observations integrated into the app so that people can navigate to them in the future? Does it update each time an observation is taken or does a manager have to update it?

3.  Can you integrate the app so that the data can be displayed on a dedicated website, maybe something like a Story Map or a Dashboard so that people that cannot go out to the field can view them from a computer/tablet/mobile device?

4. Without a developer license, can you still post the app on the Apple and Google app stores?

Thanks so much and I look forward to this journey that I am about to embark on.

G

[ErwinSoekianto]

Hello Garrett,

Welcome to AppStudio community, I am Erwin with the AppStudio team in Esri. Are you thinking to use one of the templates or create something custom?

1. We don't have something in-house for this, I would recommend doing this using an external 3rd party service that can do this validation for you. As long as the service supports REST call, we can support it in AppStudio apps.

You can also find 3rd party javascript library that may support this, we can run javascript libraries as long as they are ECMA 5. 

You may have seen a demo in previous Developer Summit plenary regarding the use of Tensor Flow inside AppStudio, this is not released yet, but when it does, you can also use this.

2. I don't quite understand this question, can you elaborate a little bit more? 

3. Yes, many have created something like this by using ArcGIS Dashboards, if you are storing your data in a feature layer, then this should just work. If not or if you want to use different dashboards or websites, you can make use of a Webhook that will help you do the post-processing workflow, or just simply send the request to those websites directly. 

4. In most cases, you would need an AppStudio Developer edition license to create the executable to be submitted Apple App Store and Google Play Store via AppStudio Cloud Make.

You could use Local Make workflow if you want to create the executable locally, here the doc, Install development tools for local Make—AppStudio for ArcGIS | Documentation, please note that this process is quite complicated but technically possible, and many people have done it. 

Thank you,

Erwin. 

[GarrettSmith1]

Hello Erwin

Thanks for the response.

I am thinking about combining two templates, Quick Report and Map Viewer. As I understand it, I will have to do some coding in QT in order to combine them. 

A little background on the project might help out. We are interested in documenting locations of historical Arborglyphs (carvings on trees) in our region. In the late 1800s and early 1900s Basque and Irish sheepherders would carve initials, pictures, and other insignia into trees. As these trees reach the end of their lifespans, mostly 90-100 years, these artifacts are in danger of being lost. We envision the app that we develop as a way to both document these carvings through photographs and geolocations. We hope that users will have the ability to both take geotagged photographs of the carvings and also be able to navigate to locations where these geotagged photographs were taken. As part of the project, we also want to have a dedicated website where people can view a map that will also include the locations and pictures of the carvings.

As for the initial questions I will be a bit more detailed below.

1. I do not want to do this automatically. Rather, I just want the ability to delete inappropriate photographs, if they are taken. I imagine that photos are saved as attributes of a feature so I could just delete that feature.

2. With Quick Report, people can record observations in the field. I then want people to be able to navigate to those observations as well. I was not sure how immediate observations would be recorded into map viewer? So if I was out in the field and recorded an observation, how long would it take before it was uploaded to the map viewer side of the app?

3. Thanks for the Dashboard recommendation that will definitely work for the website.

4. Thanks for the idea, it might be above my pay grade, so if it gets too complicated I will probably just get the Developer license.

Thank you again for the responses. I think that I will be starting the project in the next couple of weeks and will definitely be active on this forum since there are a lot of questions that I will have.

G