Requiring a Photo in Field Maps

[Tom_Laue]

Can you require capturing a photo in Field Maps, as you can in Survey123? If not, is this a planned future capability?

I’d really like to use Field Maps for a portion of my workflow but I need to require a photo be taken. I'll have to use Survey123 until this capability is added.

[Anonymous User]

@Tom_LaueThere are plans to support in-line attachments. However, we have not committed to making these require-able.

Can you describe your use-case for requiring a specific photo?

Do you need to require just one photo, or multiple photos?

Do you work offline?

Are you collecting new features or editing existing features?

What are your expectations if a photo already exists for a feature?

[Tom_Laue]

Hi @Anonymous User  – thanks for the quick reply!

This is for a street cut restoration workflow which has field crews visit a site on two different occasions…

I am using Survey123 for field crews to complete their initial street restoration form including taking a picture of the initial restoration.

Another crew will go out later to complete the final restoration and click the existing point (preferably in Field Maps) and fill in the final restoration width, restoration length, restoration notes (optional) and take a final picture.

So all points will ultimately have 2 photos (initial and final photo). 

Trying to edit existing records with Survey123 is not easy but doable.  I’d rather the second field crew work exclusively in Field Maps since they can see the points they need to visit in the map.  I can hide all the fields except the ones they need to fill out and make those required for them, but I can’t require them to take a picture which we need for our records.

I don’t expect any offline editing.

[BillHeigh]

Hi guys,

I am also interested in this capability. Our use case would be for electric meter change-outs. We currently use paper for out readings and in readings (almost always zero these days). But having a picture of the reading would be good verification and would save time in the field.

We might also require a picture for our joint use communications attachment requests. We currently rely on the inspectors work flow to take pictures of any violations, but they are only human and sometimes get distracted. We also perform pre-attach inspection and then post-attach inspections and their attachments sometimes fail to meet our standards or code violations. It would be a nice feature for the inspectors to get reminded if they forget for whatever reason.

Thanks, Bill~

[Tolo__AdamTolo]

For us it is also a requirement for proof of maintenance and restorations of assets.

I guess it would be good to be able to setup two photo "fields". Where you could attach 1 or more photos for the "initial photos" field and then be able to capture 1 or more photos "final photos" field.

Or something along those lines.

[AriLukas]

I am interested in this as well. Has there been any progress towards this capability?

Thanks, Ari

[LauraBoagey1]

This would be a great addition. We require this too.....

[CraigM]

Yes! This is very important to any workflow. For ours, it would be inspecting trees or having contractors show their completed work to reduce the need for site inspections. 

[tbearb]

I'll add here as well that having an option of setting photo capture as required in Field Maps would be ideal for our organization. Our use case is when a water meter is changed out or has maintenance conducted on it. We have a related work history table that serves as a running log and having those historical photos is necessary. 

[BlairMcclenathan]

For a workflow we would greatly appreciate this functionality as well, we are currently working on locating all water valves within our municipality and require photos for every future collected.