Create a Highly Customized Editing Workflow using Dashboards, Arcade, and Survey123

[jcarlson]

By now, this is probably old news, but using Data Expressions in Dashboards can be powerful.

In developing a recent internal workflow, we had a situation. For a list of features, each could have a status. Depending on the status, different things needed to be edited.

When it's all in one table, that's easy: just use XLS Form logic to show and hide elements. But what if it isn't? What if a status in one table requires an edit be made in a separate table? I'm not talking about S123 repeats here, either, but tables in entirely other service layers.

In the past, the solution was to have a tab in the Dashboard for each status, then in each, have a list with accompanying embedded forms. This was adequate, but was visually cluttered, and often redundant.

Redundant because there were other widgets I wanted to interact with the main list of features, like a Details panel. With them all tabbed and split up, I would either have to duplicate those widgets, too, or my users would have to be sure they weren't leaving a feature selected on another tab. Sub-optimal, for sure.

Also, grouping all my widgets and stacking groups means that I can't use stacking of single widgets within a group anymore! So it was creating a UI nightmare, but I needed to somehow get this all to work in a single-page dashboard/survey setup.

What I wanted was a single list of features, a status filter, and an embedded survey, but I needed it to be dynamic. Enter the Data Expression!

// Get portal connection
var portal = Portal('portal-url')

// Get layer
var fs = FeatureSetByPortalItem(
    portal,
    'itemid',
    0,
    ['globalid', 'status', 'other', 'fields'],
    false
)

// ItemIDs of my forms
var review_form = 'one itemID'
var processing_form = 'another itemID'
var remarks_form = 'a third itemID'

// Output dictionary
var out_dict = {
    fields: [
        {name: 'globalid', type: 'esriFieldTypeGUID'},
        {name: 'form_id', type: 'esriFieldTypeString'}
    ],
    geometryType: '',
    features: []
}

// Populate dict
for (var f in fs){
    var form_id = Decode(
        f['status'],
        0, review_form,
        1, process_form,
        2, remarks_form,
        ''
    )

    Push(
        out_dict['features'],
        {
            attributes: {
                globalid: d['globalid'],
                form_id: form_id
            }
        }
    )
}

return FeatureSet(Text(out_dict))

Next, I set my embed URL to:

https://survey123.arcgis.com/share/{form_id}

It's a bit simplified from what I used in reality. There are other attributes being calculated and passed as survey field:name=value URL parameters, etc., but here's the point: I now have one list, one embed, but I can access each of the three forms I need, and precisely where I need them.

The end product feels more adaptive, is nicer to look at and work with, and opens my dashboard up to fully utilize other widgets and layout elements without any redundant widgets!

Never mind the emojis, keep your eyes on the form.

Do you have a complex workflow that could use a dynamic embed? Git it a shot!

[erica_poisson]

Hi @jcarlson  - this is great. One question I have for you...have you ever thought about ways to add in some sort of way for your users to tell how complete a features attributes are? This is something I am trying to figure out now and thought I'd see if you had any thoughts. 

[jcarlson]

@erica_poisson  I believe that was the aim of the Crowdsource Manager app back in the JS 3.x API's Configurable Apps.

Something similar could be accomplished in Experience Builder or a Dashboard, though, with a feature selection pre-filling form attributes. But the Crowdsource Manager solution is still actively maintained, so you might check that first.

[erica_poisson]

@jcarlson  - thanks for the reply. I actually had not seen that app, however it does not do what I am looking for.

Really, what I want is to be able to use Arcade to just pop out a number of null attribute fields which I could add into a custom list. Then, when staff are looking at the list, they could see records that require review. I suppose I could accomplish this directly in Survey123 by adding a read-only field with a calculation of some sort that would count completed questions, however it would be nice to accomplish this without changing the survey form. I just do not know if Arcade can even do something like this.

Something kind of like this:

[jcarlson]

Oh, totally! You can do that with the Advanced Formatting in a list. Say I've got the following features:

att_1 att_2 att_3 att_4

Yes		Incomplete	Pending
	Complete		Complete
No	Complete	Complete	Incomplete

In the Advanced Formatting, I can alter my list on the basis of any of these. Suppose I want to flag "null" attributes, I might do this:

var atts = [
    $datapoint["att_1"],
    $datapoint["att_2"],
    $datapoint["att_3"],
    $datapoint["att_4"]
]

var incomplete = Any(atts, IsEmpty)

return {
  backgroundColor: Iif(incomplete, '#3a0000', ''),
   attributes: {
    warnings: Iif(incomplete, 'Incomplete Attributes', '')
   }
}

[erica_poisson]

This is great! This is the final result for now:

Thank you! 🙂