Enable image upload in hosted feature service or use specified fields in Crowdsource app?

LeaHarper2 · ‎09-14-2016

Hi all! I'm trying to figure out a solution for an app-building issue I've come across.

Let me start with saying that the end goal is to have an easily accessible app to collect specific information and image uploads to go along with that information. We want users to have the ease of adding data as a guest or through logging in via some social outlet (and we would like to review and approve that data, if possible, before its posted).

The two apps I've looked into are the GeoForm and the Crowdsource story map. Here are the challenges I've faced with both of these:

1. Geoform. If you were to use ESRI's Developer to create a feature service for use in an app, you have the ability to enable attachments for data, such as images. I'm building a GeoForm app using a feature service that I hosted onto ArcGIS Online from ArcCatalog, but I cannot figure out how to enable attachments on the form. I created a new field for raster data and updated the old feature service, assuming that would allow for image uploads but to no avail. Is there a way for me to make this work?

2. Crowdsource Story Map. Is it possible to use the feature service in the Crowdsource app? This would be ideal as we want easy access to the information of the project, but we want specific information only (the fields and domains of the feature service). I haven't seen a way for me to change the preset fields of the story map to allow me to do this.

*Note: I've built the feature service in ArcCatalog so that I can have domains for drop-down menus and radio buttons in apps like GeoForm. To my knowledge, that can't be done in Developer.

Thank you for any input/solutions you may have for me! Every bit helps.

KellyGerrow · ‎09-14-2016

Hi Lee,

You can enable attachments on your feature services before or after you publish them. This documentation will help to get the feature layer set up to accept attachments:

Enable Attachments on a published Feature Service

Manage hosted web layers—ArcGIS Online Help | ArcGIS

Enable Attachments before Publishing through ArcGIS Desktop

Enabling attachments—ArcGIS Help | ArcGIS for Desktop

Once you have a layer with attachments available in your selected web map, options to expose this feature through geoform will be visible.

-Kelly

View solution in original post

AllisonMuise1 · ‎09-14-2016

Have you looked at Crowdsource Reporter and Crowdsource Manager?

Reporter is the public-facing application for submitting information/attachments. It supports social sign-ins as well as anonymous access. To collect photos, simply enable attachments on the feature layer. Reporter is a group app, designed to support multiple maps shared with a group in AGOL/Portal which can help your users organize their submissions into buckets. It also works very well with a single map shared to the group if you have a simple data structure.

Manager is the back-end application for reviewing submissions. It works with GeoForm as well if you choose that as your front-end.

Here is documentation on both apps:

Crowdsource Reporter | ArcGIS for Local Government

Crowdsource Manager | ArcGIS for Local Government

LeaHarper2 · ‎09-15-2016

Thank you, Allison! I can't quite figure out how to have Crowdsource Manager work for GeoForm and I can't find anything in the documentation about it. Are you familiar with how that would work?

AMuise-esristaff‌

AllisonMuise1 · ‎09-15-2016

leavargas Manager is a separate application that can be used to review and update the attributes of data collected in applications such as GeoForm, Crowdsource Reporter, Survey 123, and Collector. It works the same with data from any source as long as it is stored in an editable AGOL/Portal/Server service, so even though the documentation doesn't mention GeoForm specifically, the steps apply just the same.

In general, you'll want to :

Create a group in your organization.
Create a Manager app by sharing the group and choosing the Crowdsource Manager template. Learn more about creating apps from groups. I suggest accepting the default configuration to start with, but you can always come back and edit it later.
Add the layer used for data collection to the map, save the map, and share it with your new group. This way, you can set popups (which are used for editing/display permissions), filters, symbology, etc for your data managers independent of what your data collectors need to see and access.
Open the app. If there are features in the service, click one from either the table or the map to open the report details and any non-image attachments in the lower left panel. Clicking the pencil on this panel will allow you to edit the attributes. If the data contains a related table, you will also have access to a tab in this panel to review & edit that content, and if the feature has any photo attachments you will see a tab to review that content as well.

These are the very basic steps covering very basic functionality. The doc goes into a lot more details on the app configuration options as well as tips for setting up the maps and layers to expose more capabilities. These all apply regardless of the source of the data.

KellyGerrow · ‎09-14-2016