Setting up field maps for the first time

[morinville-esri]

Hi, 

I have never set up ArcGIS field maps before and having trouble with the forms in Field map designator. I am wanting to create a map so that infrastructure people can go out to the field and map all the signs within a town. I created feature datasets and put in three different shapefiles within them and exported it to ArcGIS Online as a webmap. I have figured out how to put in dates but not sure about expressions using Arcade. I currently have most of the fields set as strings and want a drop down menu to pick peoples names or a yes or no option. Also trying to figure out how to auto populate the GPS coordinates too. 

[KerriRasmussen]

Hello,

Congrats on setting up your first map in Field Maps! First I would like to share this resources page with tutorials, documentation, blogs, videos and more. As for Arcade, what kind of expression(s) are you trying to write? Arcade is awesome and can really help extend your forms. If you want to learn some common use cases for Arcade in Field Maps, check out this Webinar.

You mentioned wanting drop down menus for peoples names. You can use the GetUser Arcade function which will fill out a person’s name automatically. Or if you would like to stick with the drop down, that can be done in either ArcGIS Pro or ArcGIS Online by creating a domain on that field. You would also need a domain for a yes/no option as well. In the Field Maps Designer, you can either set that yes/no field to a combo box (drop down), a radio button (select one), or a switch (2 options, on/off, yes/no, etc).

And lastly, you can populate your GPS coordinates using Arcade as well. This blog by Doug Morgenthaler and Aaron Pulver has some great sample expressions for common calculations.

I hope these resources help.

Kerri

[morinville-esri]

Thank you for all of the resources they have been a lot of help. I have ran into another issue that I am wondering if its how I set up the shapefile within a feature class in the beginning. When I was making the shapefile I didn't know about dominions and just set everything to a text field but after messing with forms and creating radio boxes and combo boxes, when I click on a point I only see the original attributes that I have set for the shapefile. When I go to edit it I can see all the forms and the correct ordination of it. So my question is do I need to create dominions within the shapefile in ArcPro before I create forms in Arc field maps designer? I went in to the table within field maps and edited it and now I can see the attributes to some but not to new forms that I created in field maps. 

Heres a screen shot of the issue that I am facing with the attribute table open and the point highlighted but showing different fields. 

Additionally I went into ArcPro and took a look at the domains and it seems to of create a new domain every time I edited it within field maps as there is multiple domains for most of the attributes. Should I delete the domains that I am not using and would that make the ones currently in the forms on field maps show up? 

[KerriRasmussen]

Hello,

I’m glad to hear the resources have been helpful. When you’re creating new Feature Classes in ArcGIS Pro, that is the time to add domains, before publishing to ArcGIS Online (or ArcGIS Enterprise). You can create the Feature class first, then create the domain(s), then right click on the Feature Class and open the Data Design>Fields and add those domains to the fields you created them for (also it’s important to name the domains, so you can easily identify them). The domains are tied to the fields, if they are not showing in Field Maps, then you may consider opening a support case with Esri tech support.

Before you decide to delete any of the domains, be sure that you aren’t using them at all in any of your Feature Classes. Domains in ArcGIS Pro are stored at the database level, so if any of the other Feature Classes in that database use that domain and you delete it, you can cause other issues. So be careful before you delete anything. With all that being said, by deleting domains, that would not cause others to display. You need to tie the domains to a specific field (attribute) and then the domain will display properly, you can only have one domain per field, so you would need to list any and all options in that domain that you want available for that field.

One more small note, when you are creating your Feature Classes look beyond the defaults. Text is a wonderful thing, but try using some of the other data types to create better data architecture. For example, if you have a date field be sure to use the date data type, same goes for numbers. It will improve the precision and accuracy of your data and help you avoid bad data. Also, if you are trying to do some calculations on some numbers, but they are in a text field, it’s going to be more work later on.

I hope this helps, please let me know if you have additional questions.

Thank you,

Kerri