Field Maps Differences between ArcGIS Online and Enterprise Portal

[ZachBodenner]

I have a feature service that I published to my Enterprise Portal's (10.8.1) federated hosting server, and I wanted to experiment with replacing the Survey123 Form published along side it with the smart form capabilities of ArcGIS Field Maps. I installed the ArcGIS Field Maps software on my Portal's server so I could access the web based manager. Looking around ESRI's documentation, I was led to believe that there was a bit more customizability with the smart (calculations, default values, etc). However, in Enterprise a lot of these functions seem to not be available? I copied the published service over to my AGOL site and opened up Field Maps there to find that these capabilities are present in AGOL. (See attached images) The AGOL version even has an entire section for customizing how the app even collects data. So I guess my question is, am I missing anything? Will these capabilities be added to future enterprise portal versions? It strikes me that the Enterprise version of the Field Maps smart form is barely better than a regular pop-up-based attribute editor, while the AGOL smart form is everything I need. Why would ESRI release this app without something as essential to a smart form as a default value?

[RobertBorchert]

A sad truth is that Enterprise seems to be the unwanted puppy of ESRI.  What you see in AGOL is generally doing to be versions ahead of what we get in Portal.  Would advise not  upgrading to 10.9.1 at this time. Just saying. 

[ZachBodenner]

It seems a little strange to me that Enterprise being under-developed would the case when it feels like the kind of integrated system ESRI is always pushing for and tends to make a lot of sense for organizations with a lot of users (like the municipal government I work for). 

As a follow-up do you have any other specific reasons that you advise against upgrading to 10.9.1? I don't currently have any plans to, but have you experienced a lot of frustration with it?

[RobertBorchert]

The first issue I noticed was Dashboards. 

Thumbnails are no longer visible for attachments.  Which is a HUGE issue for several of our apps.

The Forms you configure for Field Maps will lose all settings if you have the Web Map open in New Map Viewer and save the web map.  

I have also created several web maps with the New Map Viewer.  Close the tab, make changes to the form, open the web map up and we get a warning message that the web map was created or updated in Map Viewer Classic.

The work around for the above issue was to create a web map, save it and then configure the form. save the form. open the web map back up and get the error message and save it again. then go back and reconfigure your form.

[RobertBorchert]

I am also perplexed.  Enterprise seems to lag behind AGOL by 1 to 3 years. 

On the above issue with thumbnails I contacted support and they were able to reproduce it with their data and filed it as a bug. 

The answer left me with the feeling that the support person left me confused. 

He said Enterprise can only display the attachments as a list.  I have always use Details to display attachments. He said another workaround is to upload the attachments as hosted and display them as a list or gallery. 

We are stuck right now for our many dashboards display attachments to directing people to use Dashboard Classic

[ZachBodenner]

That sounds very frustrating, sorry you're going through it. I have not really utilized dashboards much at all, so I image that I might not have noticed the difference. That said, it's especially concerning that Enterprise lags that far behind considering the planning involved in upgrading from one version to the next (thus extending that lag even further). 

Trying out Map Viewer vs Map Viewer "Classic" in AGOL, I did run across the issue of no custom configuration saving or even attempting to converted when switching between the two. Ultimately I think that would be okay if it weren't so easy to do accidentally. 

Anyway it kind of sounds like the answer to my initial question is "because." I will accept my fate. 

[CraigGillgrass]

Hi @ZachBodenner 

"So I guess my question is, am I missing anything? Will these capabilities be added to future enterprise portal versions? It strikes me that the Enterprise version of the Field Maps smart form is barely better than a regular pop-up-based attribute editor, while the AGOL smart form is everything I need."

Yes, these capabilities will be included in future enterprise releases.  This topic in our doc explains the differences between Online and Enterprise and I think will start to answer some of your questions.

https://enterprise.arcgis.com/en/portal/latest/administer/windows/choosing-between-an-arcgis-online-...

"Why would ESRI release this app without something as essential to a smart form as a default value?"

- To clarify this point, you can set the default value for the fields in your form, but this is controlled on the Templates tab, no the Forms tab.  The Templates tab allows you to define different default values based on the type of feature or Template.

Craig

[ZachBodenner]

Thanks Craig, I've definitely read through that document a couple of times in the past. I understand the differences on that level pretty well, the ting I find frustrating is the very different functionality in a lot of applications based on whether they're accessed through Enterprise or AGOL. Field Maps is not the only thing where I've run into noticeable differences, and while I do understand that AGOL is updated automatically and more frequently, our organization chose to kick off our Enterprise usage at 10.8.1 when it was the newest release and it already feels like it's been left in the dust in some ways. All part of the process I suppose - it's not like I'm mad about it, I just run into unexpected road blocks like this Field Maps Issue. 

When it comes to Templates tab in Field Maps though, I'm not able to actually make any edits ("Templates are read-only"), which I find unusual as well since I am the user that built, published, own, and is editing the web map in Field Maps. Templates should not get schema-locked just for being part of a feature service that references an underlying geodatabase, right?

[CraigGillgrass]

Hi Zach, they might be - can you edit the Templates in Map Viewer Classic and set Default Values there? That will tell us if this is a Field Maps specific bug or larger issue.

Craig

[ZachBodenner]

Can you be more specific about the templates in the map viewer? We're using 10.8.1 Enterprise, so only Map Viewer Classic is available anyway, but as a referenced service layers, I don't know that there are any templates available in the online environment. In theory I could stop the service, set the default value in the sde feature class, and then republish the service, but I need some dynamic defaults (todays date, etc).