Allow Editing on Fields with Arcade Calculated Expressions

[JoshuaFlickinger]

Idea

Allow fields to remain editable when an Arcade Expression is used to calculate them.

Reasoning

Calculated expressions are great at improving efficiency in field operations, but in advanced use cases they don't always work the way I expect them to.  Some of it may be user error on my part, but because I can't rely on my expressions, I generally end up not using them.  Allowing the field to remain editable would increase usability in the shoulder cases where my expressions fail to return expected results.

Example

I provide GIS support for a forest monitoring crew.  The crew maps trees in plots and fills out a bunch of information about each tree.  To keep track of trees over time, each tree gets a unique identifier.  I wrote an Arcade expression to create the tree ID on the fly whenever a new tree is mapped.  The expression uses a geometry intersect to determine which plot the tree is in.  Then it counts all the existing trees in that plot and adds 1 to the number of existing trees.  Finally it returns the plot and tree number in a nicely configured format. 

Works like a charm, when it works.  Unfortunately, it doesn't work when the accuracy threshold for data collection hasn't been met.  In these cases, no point exists to do the geometry intersect, but arcade still proceeds with the calculation.  It looks like it errantly picks the first plot in the list by default and returns me a blatantly wrong ID.  Would be great if I could go back in and manually input the ID in these cases.

[DaveGregovich1]

I just ran into this issue as a beginner. I want to calculate a field, populating the field from the previous record. Except for the first record, which I want the user to manually populate. 

So the situation is very similar to other users, calculate the field, but be able to manually intervene in specific instances.

[BClaridge]

The toggle work around functions in Map Viewer, but in Field Maps on a device- the feature with the arcade expressions and the editable expression has this error: 

I've updated the App, checked the default is set for the new Toggle field, etc.  Any ideas?

[JoshBerna]

Adding on to the pile, I just came across this issue myself. Setup some nice calculated fields, spent a good minute on the arcade, then realized sometimes the calculated value just ain't right. Went to enable editing and found the expression no longer applies! I thought it was a bug, but came here to find this is intentional behavior.

I very much believe it is within the AGOL team's capacity to enable a field to be calculated and editable, and can't quite deduce why this capability does not exist. Granted, I've no understanding of the underlying development.

Anyways, kudoes. I hope this idea is implemented soon.

[Amanda__Huber]

Cross tagging this functionality for Map Viewer too: 
https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-online-questions/arcgis-online-map-viewer-forms-logic-issue/m-p...

We shouldn't have to rely on arcade as a workaround. 

[AnnaJose]

Can we please have fields with Calculated Expression be editable? We have a lot of use cases where the expression work most of the time, but in some instances users do want to be able to edit the field. Having a toggle button (and an extra field) for all the calculated fields is not a usable option since there are so many fields.

Something like how it's done in Survey123 would be great, where the app calculates expressions, but there is a setting where the creator can mark the field as "Read Only" if we don't want it editable.

[Rgehman]

Adding onto this thread to support the idea of editable calculated expressions. It is not feasible to add extra fields to my data just for this use case, and the whole point of having a calculated field is to reduce the number of manual edits being made to a feature, so the additional toggles would be a lateral move in my situation.

As others have mentioned, the calculated field would be used 95% of the time in my case, but because of the 5% of times where a manual edit is needed, I can't implement it without losing some functionality.

[AliVanSickle]

Adding our 2 cents here as well. We use calculated expressions to pre-populate some of the values when doing an inspection in the Field. Our Field staff love that is saves them time by just reviewing rather than have to input values. However in rare cases they need to change these values - which is not allowed so we end up not able to use the calculated expressions. 

This seems like a very silly "works as expected". Please include this functionality! 

[AndreaR]

I have the same use-case as several others upthread.

We have a periodic inspection of buildings carried out several times a year. Field Maps using related records sounds ideal for this on paper as it allows us to keep a history of inspections.

However, users want to have the form pre-populated with the info they collected during the previous inspection, amending it if required. So using an Arcade Expression to pull data from the previous inspection into the new form is no good as it can't be amended.