ArcGIS Instant Apps do not honour read-only field settings from the published feature service

[sblazeycov]

Until now, marking a field as "Read Only" in the aprx (Data Design > Fields > check the Read Only box) worked great.  Any published maps used in Portal Web Maps, Field Maps, Web Mapping Applications, etc, honoured that setting.

Today I learned that Instant Apps do not honour that setting.  I used a published feature layer as usual, whose InfrastructureID field was marked "Read Only" in the aprx.  However, in my Sidebar Instant App, the field was still editable.  I tested editing it and saved, and my changes saved.

After some Googling I learned you can make changes in the Web Map in Portal, by clicking the layer in the layer list, then clicking the "Forms" widget.  Start configuring a form for the layer -- click "Convert pop-up" to begin.  Then select the field (in my case, InfrastructureID) and scroll down on the right side until you get to the "Logic" section where you can uncheck the "Editable" box.  You have to repeat this for every layer and every field in your web map that you want to be Read Only.

It would make more sense for any fields that are marked Read Only in the aprx to default to not-editable, and then optionally users can use this forms setting to enable editing if they want to override it. 

Edited to add screenshots, and to add that we are using ArcGIS Enterprise 11.3.
I intended to post this to ArcGIS Ideas so I will do that as well.

[SarahMcDonald_Esri]

Hi @sblazeycov 

Thanks for reaching out about this. I had a chance to look into this more. Can you confirm that on the layer in Portal that the field is not editable? You can confirm this by going to the layers item details page > Data > Fields > click on the field and confirm that it is not editable.

I just confirmed this on my end, and when I did the field was working as expected in Sidebar without using the editing smart forms in map viewer. 

Thanks!
Sarah

[sblazeycov]

Hi Sarah,

Thanks for the reply.  Yes, I can confirm that on the layer in Portal the field is not editable:

[SarahMcDonald_Esri]

Hi @sblazeycov 

Can you share a screenshot of your Sidebar app where the field is editable? As I mentioned above, I was not able to reproduce this behavior on my end. I tested this in ArcGIS Online and in Enterprise 11.3. 

Thanks!
Sarah

[sblazeycov]

Sure thing: 

I just tried setting up a new web map and a new Sidebar instant app using the same data, and that one did not allow me to edit by default.  So perhaps this was a glitch in the matrix?  I think I applied all the same configuration settings to the new test layer (e.g. popup title, field visibility).

I am hopeful this was a one-off glitch.  I'll have to go back and check some of my other Sidebar apps to see if any others have editable read-only fields.

Thanks,
Stephanie

[sblazeycov · Accepted solution]

I checked a few of my other Sidebar Instant Apps and their read-only fields are non-editable by default.  I seem to have found an anomaly with this one, but I can't think of anything I would have done differently in the map or app configuration. 

One possibility is that I initially published the aprx with the read-only setting not set on the InfrastructureID field, then I went back and changed it to read-only and republished.  Then perhaps it didn't update properly in Portal?  I don't know, I'm just trying to think of any other possibilities.  It is interesting that the two layers in this map that have read-only InfrastructureID fields were both editable by default.  At least that isn't the case in the other maps I just checked. 

Thanks for looking into it.  I guess I will mark this as resolved and comment again if it happens on future maps.