Disconnected Editing

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12-18-2013 03:02 AM
OCSFountains
New Contributor
I haven't taken a thorough look at this app yet, but can anyone tell me if it supports disconnected editing?
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5 Replies
RussRoberts
Esri Notable Contributor
Not yet. We are currently working on bringing offline support to the Collector app.

Russ
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VishApte
Esri Contributor
Hi Russ,

Is it is possible to know what sort of offline editing capabilities will be supported? Will it be similar to ArcGIS for Windows Mobile solution?

I have a client who is waiting desperately for Collector to allow offline editing. Client often works in a remote area.

This customer also needs to validate the data against their business rules when update is submitted. Being in a remote area it is costly for the client to resend its crew back to add missing information or fix incorrect capture.

One of the option we are thinking is to do some server side validation at the time of the synchronisation. The validation will update an attibute of a feature class that denotes invalid data. With thematic applied to feature layer based on invalid data, field person would know immediately that it is incorrect capture. But I am not sure how offline version is submitted and if it downloads immediately bringing in server side updates? Is there any other way to incorporate validation rules in a collector app?

Regards,
Vish
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JeffShaner
Esri Regular Contributor
Vish,

As Russ mentioned above, we are busy at work adding disconnected editing support into Collector now. The next update (10.2.2) will include support for taking map areas offlline and we are on-track to have this release available in early March. Between now and then we will be blogging on what is coming in the release.

To answer your questions:
1. Similarity to ArcGIS for Windows Mobile:
The release in March will not fully match what is there in AGWM. What we will release is an �??on-demand�?� workflow in March where the Collector user will define the map area that they want to take offline. The �??pre-planned�?� workflow will come in a later release. This workflow enables a field manager to pre-cache map areas for field workers using the web site �?? basically the analogous functionality of creating/packaging a project and hosting it inside of your portal.
2. Validation and the sync process
The sync process is bi-directional and improving upon what we have done with AGWM there is proper change detection so you are only pulling changes from the server when you sync. The workflow you mentioned in your post may require that the user call sync twice though. The sync process will first import all edits (do an upload) and then request a lock to do the download (no edits can happen when it generates the features to send back to the mobile client). So if you are implementing your validation via a class extension where the edit happens immediately after the insert it is possible that you could get back the invalid status in the same sync process however it is not guaranteed. The field user may need to tap the sync button again.

Please look for the blog articles to start coming out next week at:
http://blogs.esri.com/esri/arcgis/ (you can filter by the mobile category)

Jeff
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RussRoberts
Esri Notable Contributor
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RussRoberts
Esri Notable Contributor
Check out our latest post on disconnected editing. Please add any questions you have to the blog post and we will try to answer them as soon as possible.

http://blogs.esri.com/esri/arcgis/2014/02/17/collector-disconnected-editing-and-sync/

Cheers
Russ
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