Field Maps App 25.2.0 - Recommended before AGOL Update on Oct 22nd?

[JenFrazer_USFS_NR-GISS-IRIN]

Good day/evening. 

I re-read the Field Maps 25.2.0 release blog. Cool stuff here I want to leverage.  HOWEVER as a rule when I have field crews out (working offline with areas of little cell covereage) I advise them not to do any upgrades until they are done with the batch of work and they are back at home base.  I was not going to have them upgrade until early November, the next ArcGIS Online upgrade is coming October 22.

My Question, and I did not see it in the release notes:  Are you advising Users to upgrade Field Maps 25.1.x to the recent 25.2.0  before the October 22 AGOL platform upgrade?   Can I still have users leverage the 25.1.0 version and there will be no disturbance in the force Oct 23rd?  

[MaxMolello]

A word of caution with 25.2, they introduced a ton of app and workflow breaking bugs that is affecting all devices and many other things. There are plenty of posts in forums about it all. I have about 1400 users and many of the workarounds they are giving are not a realistic option with that many users. I'd highly recommend not upgrading any of your users to 25.2 at this point and until they fix the issues that the new version clearly causes (and hopefully get new dev tester staff and new management that would not have allow this to roll out).

[JeffShaner · Accepted solution]

Hi Jen. 

The 25.2.x iOS and Android releases are a major update and thank you for reaching out and asking this question. We've had this update to Field Maps in beta for the past 12 months as we've migrated from the 100.x version to the 200.8 version of the ArcGIS Maps SDK.

As you will see from the posts and comments, it has been turbulent and we are working very hard to fix and patch issues as quickly as possible. We've released 2 patches on Android and one on iOS so far and we are not introducing any new features now until the Q1 2026 update to ArcGIS Online. 

Where we can, we are trying to provide affected customers with workarounds and be as transparent as possible on the issues and fixes. 

So to your questions...

• Can I still have users leverage the 25.1.0 version and there will be no disturbance in the force Oct 23rd?  
  Yes. 
• Are you advising Users to upgrade Field Maps 25.1.x to the recent 25.2.0 before the October 22 AGOL platform upgrade?
  Consider timing that makes sense to you and your field staff. The 25.1.0 version will continue to work after the October 22nd release of ArcGIS Online. New capabilities, like tasks, will require updating to 25.2.x.
  

Some considerations:

1. After a user updates, they will be required to sign in. Moving from 100.x to 200.x we were unable to migrate identity and need to prompt. What I would recommend is that you put in place a process for update where you avoid a situation where the app updates when they are at home or in the office, they get to a remote location and then start the app and are forced to sign in without any connectivity. Have them open the app, sync any changes while connected and then update. 
   • We have identified an issue with offline content from ArcGIS Enterprise that is specific to Android devices as well so a best practice would be to remove any offline map areas and download fresh when you complete the update to be safe. 
   • With ArcGIS Enterprise, we did not migrate the previous Portal URL used from the last sign in either and if they decide to cancel the sign in they will have to enter the URL again. Consider that either you can push the PortalURL via an MDM setting or provide a QR code generated from an app link that they can scan so they don't have to type it in.
2. We updated our system requirements for iOS and Android. If you have users that can't find the update in the store, it may be that their device no longer meets the system requirements.
3. Features that include true-curve segments are no longer editable in the Field Maps mobile app. If a field user selects a feature in a layer that is editable, but can't edit the feature, it likely has a true curve segment. We don't want to densify your true curve segments with an update. We're considering supporting attribute-only edits in the future.

4. Barcode entry now requires that the form input type be set to barcode. You will need to update your forms in Field Maps Designer if you have not already selected barcode as the input type.

As I mentioned above, there are several issues that we are working on patching as well. At this time, we're commenting on the initial community blog post with updates on progress as that is where most of the comments originated.

[JenFrazer_USFS_NR-GISS-IRIN]

Just wanted to say thank you @JeffShaner  for responding with this answer. I greatly appreciate it. 

[ChrisStiwinter1]

Just an FYI here:

We are in Enterprise 10.8.1 and have a field maps solution that was capturing barcodes for our field install crews.  The field in the form was "text-box" and had a QR code button to initiate scanning.  Of course with the upgrade it removed the QR button from the barcode form and field crews could no longer scan the barcode and populate multiple attributes in the form.   

It appears the fix is to upgrade to Enterprise (which is on our schedule, we are just not quite ready yet).  So in the meantime we tested our own fix of using ago assistant to update the items .json file and change the input type on the form from "text-box" to "barcode-scanner".  This seems to correct the issue on the mobile side and the field crews are now able to scan the barcodes again and all the attributes are populated as before.   

Note: this does seem to 'upset' the form in field maps designer and you may have issues changing the form using designer; but for us, it allowed the field crews to continue working and collecting large amounts of data every day until we can get our enterprise upgraded.  When we do upgrade enterprise I don't see where we would have any issues based off this change since this already exists in future versions.