Copy Features Function Missing from Experience Builder Edit Widget

[JeremyBrown4]

I have been searching the community site for a while looking for an answer to this question, but every time I see it asked there is no response from ESRI. I will go ahead and @AlixVezina , since she wrote the last article I read on the new Edit widget in ExB. 

My question is, are there any plans to updated the new Edit widget in ExB to include the Copy Features functionality that the WAB version currently has? If not, will there be some combination of features or Arcade functionality to accomplish this task, or will it simply be unavailable in ExB? 

[AlixVezina · Accepted solution]

Hi @JeremyBrown4 , Thanks for posting your question.

We have plans to provide this functionality in the future, but the delivery timeline has not yet been determined.  We're hoping to get this into our products in time before the ArcGIS Online retirement of Web AppBuilder at the end of 2025.

Right now, if you're looking to copy one feature at a time, there is an available workaround using the Survey widget in Experience Builder:

Using Experience Builder and Survey123 to pass attributes and geometry from one layer to another (es...

[JeremyBrown4]

That's great news! Thank you for the quick response! I totally forgot about that new feature of the Survey widget in ExB. I am going to see if I can make that fit my workflow. Thanks again!

[KatieHansen_NIFCAdmin]

Hi @AlixVezina ,

I'd like to tag onto this question with something more specific. I have users that would like to add a polygon from a shapefile to an existing hosted feature service. Our workflow now it to use the Add Data widget in WAB to add a shapefile and then Smart Editor copy feature into our HFS. Is this possible in EB yet? Is there another creative way to use S123 in EB to copy this shapefile? 
Thanks!
Katie

[AlixVezina]

@KatieHansen_NIFCAdmin 

The Survey workflow described in this blog will not work with temporary data added to the map using the Add Data widget since the connection between the source and target layers needs to be set from within the Survey widget configuration.

This is definitely a valid request and in line with what we had in the Web AppBuilder Smart Editor, so thank you for bringing it up!

[KatieHansen_NIFCAdmin]

Thanks very much, @AlixVezina , for the reply.
Can you speak to whether this functionality is on the EB roadmap or, if it specifically is not, then will there be thoughts to a work around like the one mentioned above with the use of S123 to add features?

We would really like to have our users add new and edit existing features via an app into our authoritative, national datasets no matter how the features were initially collected but seems that we are firmly planted in WAB still. 
Thanks!

[AlixVezina]

@KatieHansen_NIFCAdmin 

Can you speak to whether this functionality is on the EB roadmap or, if it specifically is not, then will there be thoughts to a work around like the one mentioned above with the use of S123 to add features?

This functionality is currently being researched and planned. We don't have any details yet, but once we do I'll make sure to provide an update. Since this was a popular workflow in WAB, it will make sense to also support it in Experience Builder.

[Tiff]

Hello @AlixVezina thank you for this temporary solution. Can you provide more detail on guidance and best practices to set this embedded survey up? In order to copy a feature from one layer to an existing layer, does it require Survey123 Connect with the same calculations/configuration as you would in a typical survey? It would be helpful to have steps that one would take to ensure that this works properly as part of the ExB widget.

[JaredDoke]

We use the Smart Editor Widget copy features functionality in a few of our core workflows for Urban Search & Rescue. See this video here https://screenpal.com/watch/c0iYh1Vkezl. We had planned to move over to Experience Builder for our 'Intel Manager', but are stuck on Web AppBuilder until Copy Features is a capability in ExB. 

[PaulDohertyFEMA]

Agreed. This is a core functionality we need at FEMA to support Urban Search & Rescue.