Securely store photos collected in Field Maps and ArcGIS Enterprise in Box.com

[FionaRenton1]

Securely store photos collected in Field Maps and ArcGIS Enterprise in Box.com 

Staff collect photos in the field using Field Maps and these are currently stored in the ArcGIS Enterprise data store connected to a site location visit and site ID. 

There will be thousands of photos taken soon. We need to store photos and documents outside of the ArcGIS Enterprise data store so that they are accessible to other applications including our main enterprise revenue system. 

We use  active directory for security, ArcGIS Enterprise 9 on Azure and the most recent iOS Field maps app.

Is there a way to use the box.com API to store the documents in Box? 

 https://developer.box.com/reference/

Can an interface be developed for ArcGIS Enterprise?

[JenniferMoeller]

It makes sense to have connections to all enterprise level storage solutions like box.com.

[MichaelDavis3]

Agree - the entire concept of attachments at the enterprise level needs an update to include an option to just store attachment info in the database with the actual file data in Azure/S3/Box/Sharepoint/Dropbox/Local directory etc...

FYI this is something that can be done at the RDBMS level with Oracle - storing file data in a local directory to avoid bloating the size of the database. Not sure which other databases might support something similar, but even that seems a bit quaint in 2022 when cheap secure blob storage is readily available.

[JonEmch]

Hello there,

   To my knowledge, storing attachments outside of the datastore is possible through SAL / Oracle so long as you are using referenced data thats been set up to accept attachments. As far as implementing some type of a hybrid approach with hosted feature layers (making an assumption here, please correct me if I'm wrong) having an option to attach their attachments outside of the DS is a non-starter since it goes against how Hosted Feature layers are designed to work.

   It might be possible to do this workflow in the RDBMS, but I would have to research if geodatabases support a hybrid model as described above.

[FionaRenton1]

We would prefer file storage outside of a database like an Electronic Content Management system rather than blob files in a database

[SoerenTollund]

I'd like to hear if there's any news here - the support of storing photos outside the DB with a reference to the layer/service instead of storing a BLOB would be great. Many organizations would prefer to being able to use the collected photos from the ArcGIS mobile apps in other parts of their business.

[RoderickPerendy]

To allow cloud-based blob storage as a dedicated datastore for attachments would be a huge added value to clients who are worried about scalability. 

My company primarily uses enterprise for field worker data collection and our workers like to take tons of photos. It's starting to cause our databases to get bogged down. Keeping the RDBMS doing what it's intended for and compartmentally separating files to a dedicated instance designed and optimized for it would be a game changer. It would also make it easier for us when we archive old data which goes to a cloud-based blob storage anyway.