What is new in Survey123 (July 3, 2020)
We are happy to announce a new update to Survey123. This update only touches on the web components of Survey123 (Survey123 website, report services and the web app) and it is available in anticipation to our official 3.10 release, which will be available later in July or early August, including updates to Survey123 Connect, the field app and the documentation.
[Added August 6,2020]: Survey123 3.10 for the field app and Connect is available. Check https://community.esri.com/groups/survey123/blog/2020/08/07/whats-new-in-survey123-august-2020 for details.
The main driver for this early update is to bring to you a number of important fixes into the Survey123 web app, but since sometimes it is hard to decouple fixes from new features, you will find in this release some extra juice. One important note to make is that new features in this update are not officially documented. The documentation will come in just three weeks in late July, along with updates to other components of Survey123 like Connect and the field app.
Enough preamble, here are the highlights:
Survey123 Reports (Price reduction and increased capabilities)
Survey123 includes out of the box functionality to help you generate high quality documents from records submitted from the Survey123 web or field apps. This is extremely useful when you need to present your Survey123 data following strict formatting guidelines, for example when mimicking legacy paper forms or to comply with legal documents. If you are not familiar with Survey123 reports, check the https://community.esri.com/groups/survey123/blog/2019/07/23/understanding-survey123-feature-reports blog post and our Feature report templates—Survey123 for ArcGIS | Documentation help topic.
With this update, the price of this ArcGIS Online premium service drops from 2.5 credits to 0.5 credits per report. We are aware that this was an important aspect for many of you and we want to thank to all of you that took the time to discuss with Esri staff your use cases and reasoning behind your request. We also want to thank all your comments and community discussion at the Reduce Excessive Credit Cost of Survey123 Feature Reports ArcGIS idea thread.
Additionally, you can now try new expanded report template syntax, allowing you to include in your reports summary and statistics sections. This is a significant shift for the report capabilities and here is why: So far, the Survey123 report syntax allowed you to create 'feature reports', that is, a report representing a single survey record. Say for example you use Survey123 to perform routine asset inspections. When using feature reports, your reports include information about a single inspection: The date, status, comments, photos, a map of the location of the inspection and potentially data from related records such as all the incidents found. In feature reports, one report represents a single survey record.
Using the new summary section syntax in report templates, you can now create reports that include many survey records. For example, you could create a single report that includes all inspections ever performed, or all inspections in the last week. In a summary report, one report can include many survey records. Summary sections are generally shown as tables. In the following animation you can see a typical workflow where a summary section is used in a report to present a collection of survey records. The report is done against all water hydrants inspected in the past 18 days and it breaks down inspections in color coded tables (summary sections), one for each condition assessed.
Below is a still screenshot of the report. In it you will be able to appreciate that a small section is included at the beginning with some statistics: Number of hydrants inspected and hydrants that need maintenance. That is, of course, a statistics section, which is also part of the new report template syntax that this update includes.
The new statistics and summary sections bring quite a bit of flexibility to your reports. Best of all, you can combine them all in a single report with a feature report section too.
Back to the early discussion about the price, it will be worth clarifying how summary and statistics account for the price of your reports. Essentially, a report in Survey123, regardless of how many summary and statistic sections are included in it, will always cost 0.5 credits. In the event that you include additional feature report sections, the cost will increase at a rate of 0.5 credits per survey record included. For example:
| Report including | ArcGIS Online credits |
|---|---|
| 1 feature report (one survey record) | 0.5 credits |
| 1 summary section (as many survey records as you want) | 0.5 credits |
| 4 summary sections (as shown above in the example) | 0.5 credits |
| 1 feature report + n summary sections + n statistics sections | 0.5 credits |
| 5 feature reports (5 survey records) | 0.5 * 5 = 2.5 credits |
Photos and maps, can only be included within a feature report section.
To help you get started with the new report template syntax, we have added the capability to auto-generate sample report templates with summary and statistics sections as shown below. We will also be releasing a dedicated blog with details on this new syntax in the next few days.
Enhancements to Survey123 designer
Survey123 designer lets you visually create your own smart forms. With this update we are introducing the new Ranking question type. The Ranking question allows users to compare items within a list and sort them in order of preference. Based on the order selected, each item gets a numeric score.
The main use cases for this type of functionality originate in online surveys. For this reason, this question type will not be initially supported in the Survey123 field app.
To avoid bias in responses, the ranking question can be configured to arrange the choices in the list randomly. This can easily be done right from within Survey123 designer.
Management view for ArcGIS administrators
If your account has administrative privileges in your ArcGIS organization, you will find a new 'Organization' tab in the Survey123 website. This new view, will let you easily find and manage any survey published in your organization. You will be able to update the surveys, change their sharing, etc.
Other fixes and enhancements
Last but not least comes a list of various fixes and other enhancements included in this update. It is a long list, and it includes work in very critical areas. As I described earlier in this blog, this is really the main driver for this update, to bring to you as quickly as possible the many fixes and enhancements listed here:
- BUG-000120594 - Support for nested repeats in the Survey123 web app
- Web Accessibility: Support keyboard navigation in the Survey123 web app (except for ranking question type).
- ENH-000123510 Send related (repeats) record information to webhook providers.
BUG-000131124 A user within a Portal for ArcGIS Organization with a username of 20 or more characters long of only numbers for example,12345678901234567890, is prompted with the following error message, "Unable to publish Details: For input string: "12345678901234567890" when publishing a survey in the Survey123 Web Designer".
BUG-000126461 Unable to generate a stakeholder view layer when the source of the survey is a hosted feature layer view.
BUG-000126792 Attributes in a field created in Survey123 Connect for ArcGIS 3.6.1.137 using the select_one question type that reference a list_name with True and False choices do not populate in Feature Reports exported from Survey123 for ArcGIS.
BUG-000127161 The Basemap Gallery does not honor the custom sorting settings configured in the Basemap Gallery settings of the organization when a survey is accessed from the Survey123 for ArcGIS website. ([Design, web app] Refine the map list for geo questions to respect org settings)
BUG-000129766 Public-facing survey's service URL exposes the survey's data, even if the survey's sharing settings are set to private. (Restrict permissions on public surveys)
BUG-000131590 Pasting an image in the note's description of Survey123 Web Designer fails to publish the survey, returns the error message, "Invalid protocol: data"
BUG-000130588 Survey123 for ArcGIS website fails to show the note in preview mode when a note includes '%' and returns the following error message, "Error Initializing Form - URIError URI malformed." (Percentage sign % in group description or note question which is inside group and page cannot be Previewed)
ENH-000123861 Create options for summary of data in report for survey123 ([Report] Support summary report or summary section inside a report)
BUG-000127719 [Data]Edit in Individual Response with calculation may change original value after loading
BUG-000122381 Unable to view the hosted feature layer of a survey in ArcMap, published to ArcGIS Enterprise from Survey123 website.
BUG-000130716 The owner is unable to view any data and receives the message, "An error occurred while loading the page. Some features may not work" in the Data tab in the Survey123 for ArcGIS website when choosing 'Only add new records' in the 'What can submitters do' section. ([Data] Error message "An error occurred while loading the page. Some features may not work." raised during loading the page due to lack of Query capability in the survey layer)
BUG-000130065 Individual response: map cannot display correctly when the survey has a geopoint question has a default map which the spatial reference is neither geographic (4326) nor web mercator (3857)
- BUG-000108603 When adding a geopoint question to a survey using the Survey123 for ArcGIS web designer, it is possible to select a non-web mercator basemap for the question, even if the basemap is not compatible with the survey.
BUG-000105581 A Survey123 for ArcGIS survey created on survey123.arcgis.com web hub which includes geopoint question with a user defined home location does not zoom to the correct location in the Survey123 field app; instead it zooms to the 0,0 origin point. (On publish, write Survey123 App - compatible survey settings)
BUG-000109078 BUG-000110137 Default map of Geo Point question from website will not work on Survey123 app
BUG-000130365 Select_One question records the first choice clicked in a repeat, instead of the final choice selected (select_one in a repeat cannot reflect the selected status in UI as expected)
BUG-000130473 If a page does not have a label, any Single Choice question in it cannot work
BUG-000127417 With Integrated Windows Authentication (IWA) portals, the geopoint question in Survey123 for ArcGIS gets stuck in Loading state on Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer browsers.
BUG-000125138 Signature attachments submitted via webform are not visible in AGOL
BUG-000131123 A user within a Portal for ArcGIS Organization with a username that is 20 or more characters long of only numbers (ex. 12345678901234567890) is prompted with the error message, "You cannot submit records to the survey since you are not Submitter or the Owner" when accessing a Survey123 form in the web.
BUG-000130565 When taking a survey in the web browser created in Survey123 Connect for ArcGIS and a question has the 'minimal' appearance chosen and 'readonly' set to yes, the user is still able to select an answer for the survey (Read only minimal questions can still take value)
BUG-000130090 Geopoint question with the 'read-only' parameter enabled does not capture the latitude or longitude when filling the survey through the Survey123 for ArcGIS web app. (Read-only behavior of locate in Geopoint question)
BUG-000127924 When a 'View' URL is configured from a Survey123 web form which has pages, it does not show the questions.
BUG-000126498 In Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS, an embedded web form fails to reflect edits performed on a geopoint structured using the relevant fields and calculations in an Excel form.
BUG-000125101 The error message, "Error Initializing form.... Failed to load data from" is returned when opening a survey in the Survey123 for ArcGIS website that has been configured with a JavaScript extension in Survey123 Connect to pull data from an existing feature service.
BUG-000124744 HTML markup codes appear at the start of the published survey in Survey123 for ArcGIS.
BUG-000128852 Survey123 feature reports fail to generate when feature layer name contains accented character (example: é)
BUG-000125498 The bit.ly link that is generated by Survey123 will generate a 404 error response when navigating through the browser intermittently.
BUG-000131376 Adding a new signature to a survey via web using the edit URL does not save the changes if using a mobile device.
BUG-000130958 In the Survey123 for ArcGIS web app, the today() function in the calculation column of an XLSX survey file does not return a value if it is a hidden field with an 'esri:field:type' set to DATE.
- BUG-000131141 The Analyze tab shows incorrect field in the ArcGIS Survey123 website when using a survey published from Survey123 Connect.
- BUG-000132326 The error "Error occurred when querying data from the feature layer. Pagination is not allowed unless ''supportsPagination'' is true." is returned when running ArcGIS Survey123 feature reports. (Pagination error occurs when generating a report that has attachments for a survey in ArcGIS Enterprise 10.8).
- BUG-000132135 Some publicly shared ArcGIS Survey123 surveys prompt a sign-in window when opened through the website (Regression 3.10: Public surveys that use one of 6 old basemaps from Survey123 Connect prompt for sign in if there is also no webmap in the org's basemap group with the same name).
Next steps
Officially, our 3.10 update is scheduled for July 23, 2020. On this date we will update Survey123 Connect, the field app and also include further work in the Survey123 website, web app and report services. We are furiously working towards having everything ready for you on that date. If you want to know what is coming, I encourage you to join our Survey123 Early Adopter Community. You will be able to download the Beta version of the software and provide feedback to the team. Additionally, we will share more information about the 3.10 release at the Esri User Conference.