Auto populate attributes based on spatial location

[MKF62]

Say someone is out in the field and they're inside a specific polygon. Let's say there's a "Name" field for that polygon and the name of this specific polygon is Hawk Ridge. When they're inside the polygon and they create a new feature, the "Name" field auto-populates with "Hawk Ridge." Is that something that can be done? It's sort of like subtypes, but instead of picking the subtype out a list, you'd just populate it based on where the person is and then they could edit attributes associated with that subtype. I assume nothing like this has been implemented, but thought I'd ask.

[DougBrowning]

Survey123 can do this.

[MKF62]

Really? I'm aware that survey 123 can autopopulate coordinates of where you place a feature using lat/longs, but can it actually detect where you're standing and fill fields out based on that? If you've found any documentation on this subject before I'd love to read it. I can't find anything.

[DougBrowning]

https://community.esri.com/groups/survey123/blog/2018/07/06/understanding-reverse-geocoding-in-surve... 

[MichaelVolz]

Does Survey123 recognize Arcade expressions?  It seems like this type of operation is what Arcade expressions are specifically designed to do.  If this is not currently possible with Survey123, then this is a capability that ESRI should be adding to Survey123, as Arcade expressions seem like an important part of their architecture moving forward.

[lah]

I apologize for dragging up this post, I am also looking to do this exact thing in Collector. We have users drawing boundaries for their project areas, and I am needing any points they collect within those boundaries to be auto-calculated to the corresponding boundary names on the fly. Did you ever find a solution or workaround? I don't believe Survey123 is going to be the best option for this particular use case. I know I could also assign those values on the backend, but I've received feedback that it would be beneficial to see those name values pop in before submission. Thanks!

[MKF62]

Sorry I'm only now seeing this - do you have a relationship class between your points and the boundaries being drawn? That's the only way I could think to do it. The other thing about Collector though is that I don't know how to calculate in an existing database field; you can calculate a new field on the fly, but I'm not sure how to calculate an already existing field. It can probably be done, but I've never figured it out.

[lah]

Hi Molly,

No worries! I think you're right about the relationship class. I considered this, but also has its drawbacks from a user-interaction standpoint.

This is definitely something my team is still struggling with in multiple maps, but I have heard rumblings of future Field Maps enhancements that may help in this space, and make it easier to calculate form attributes on the fly! Watching closely...

Thanks, 

Larissa 🙂