Whats New in ArcGIS Survey123 (September 2021)

IsmaelChivite · ‎09-17-2021

You may noticed that on September 16 we updated Survey123 in the Apple, Microsoft and Google Play stores. We also refreshed the Survey123 website and the doc. You did not notice? Well, now you know!

We are excited to present our September 2021 release. Watch this 2 minute video for a quick overview:

And here are some additional details:

New Address question type
Image support in the ArcGIS Survey123 field app inbox
Calculations in the Survey123 web designer
XLSForm improvements
Other enhancements

New Address question type

The user experience you choose for users to submit data, dictates the quality of the data you get. In many scenarios, an address, not a map, is the simplest and most natural way to describe the exact location of something. With the new Address question type, you will help users enter an address into a Survey123 form easier and faster than ever before.

Predictive text helps end users more quickly enter an address and boosts the quality of data by standardizing user input

When it comes to collecting the location of something, the new Address question is a great alternative to the Map question type. It can simplify and accelerate data capture, while boosting the quality of your location data.

Read these two blog posts to learn more about the new Address question:

Image support in the Survey123 field app inbox

The inbox is a powerful feature. It lets you download and edit your data in the Survey123 field app. The inbox is commonly used to support routine asset inspection workflows and to manage field work assignments.

Up until this release, records in the inbox included geometry and attributes as well as related features, but not attachments. Starting with version 3.13, the Survey123 field app let’s you dynamically download images associated with records in your inbox.

The animation below shows a hydrant inspection workflow. A hydrant record previously downloaded into the inbox is opened showing its location, attributes, and information about previous inspections. Note that the inspection log includes photos as well.

Survey123 records from the Survey123 field app inbox now support images

Support for images in the inbox has been a popular ArcGIS Suvey123 Idea for a while, so we are pleased to make a good start on this one!

Calculations and hidden questions in the Survey123 web designer

Authoring forms with the Survey123 web designer is as easy as dragging questions into your design and visually configuring their look, feel and behavior. All from your web browser! With the Survey123 web designer you can intuitively build powerful smart forms in minutes, distribute them and immediately use the collected data to support decision making.

In addition to the new Address question, this release introduces support for calculations in the web designer. Through a calculation, you can populate a question using previously entered data from your form. For example, you can take values from two numeric questions and automatically calculate their average in a third question.

A well-designed smart form uses calculations to enrich your data while minimizing user input. In the animation below, for example, a calculation is used to automatically extract the postal code from an address question. The postal code value is stored in a separate field and hidden from the user to avoid distraction.

XLSForm improvements

XLSForm is the language of smart forms. Survey123 adheres to this powerful industry standard. Survey123 Connect is a desktop application that you can download to author and publish Survey123 forms using the XLSForm specification. With every release, XLSForm support in Survey123 grows. Here is what’s new:

Dynamic lists: Use the search appearance to dynamically populate a choice list from a query to a feature layer or CSV file. To learn more, read this blog article covering dynamic lists in Esri Community.
The new body::esri:visible column lets you use an expression to control the visibility of a question while preserving its current value.
Use the body::accept column to control which file extensions can be uploaded to a file question in your form.
Guidance hints, external CSV files and input masks are now supported by the Survey123 web app.
A new URL parameter lets you force the recalculation of a question when the form is opened in edit mode in the Survey123 web app.

To learn more about XLSForm, check our XLSForm essentials help.

Other enhancements

Finally, this update brings many other enhancements including:

Survey123 & Field Maps form comparison: Did you ever wonder what smart form capabilities Field Maps and Survey123 support? Check out the Form Comparison help topic for the whole rundown.
Streamlined annotation tools user experience: Did you know you can annotate photos, maps and diagrams right from within the Survey123 field app? Even if you already know, you should check the massive UX improvements added in this release.
Enhanced web accessibility in the Survey123 web app: This update adds support for screen readers among other things, but for the details check our recently updated web accessibility conformance report and this best web accessibility best practices blog for Survey123 authors.
Survey123 report service: The creation of reports with many maps and images is now faster. We are confident you will be able to tell the difference! We also added options to help you format numbers better and to specify custom symbology for Survey123 features in the map. Check our Survey123 report syntax help.
Do you love Python? Then you will love our new ArcGIS Survey123 Tools Github repo. It includes many scripts and tools to help you automate common Survey123 tasks: cloning surveys across organizations, downloading data, automating reports and much more. Best of all? All scripts are shared under the Apache 2.0 Open Source license and the repo is open for your contributions.

Fixes

Survey123 website, web app and report service:

BUG-000141535 When the language and region are set to Deutsch - German and Schweis in ArcGIS Online, the basemap is missing when adding a map point element in the ArcGIS Survey123 website.
BUG-000139232 Removing and adding a new rule in Survey123 Web Designer after saving and returning to the survey design results in rule corruption.
BUG-000136446 The editing mode of a read-only dateTime question is displaying incorrect date on the ArcGIS Survey123 Data tab.
BUG-000136255 Unable to change the post-submission screen text in the Survey123 web designer for surveys created in ArcGIS Survey123 Connect.
BUG-000135538 Setting a rule based on a choice which includes a greater than or less than symbol (> or <) corrupts a Survey123 survey in the Survey123 web designer.
ENH-000124334 300 Pixel image size restriction on media image of note type question on Survey123 web form.
BUG-000137634 When logged into the ArcGIS Survey123 web app with an ArcGIS Online account assigned the ‘Viewer’ role, few attachments do not display the related survey information.
ENH-000137084 Improve performance and loading time for Analysis tab in Survey123 Web App
BUG-000141844 The long text in the individual response does not wrap correctly
BUG-000135544 Label issue on 2 buttons of the ArcGIS Survey123 website.
BUG-000135151 Hidden questions from Connect are not shown in Analyze tab
ENH-000124712 Allow user to create hidden question types in the Survey123 web browser designer.
BUG-000136526 Reverse geocoding with a custom geocoder fails in the ArcGIS Survey123 web app.
BUG-000136503 There are issues submitting the required DateTime question in the ArcGIS Survey123 mobile browser.
BUG-000136079 In the Data tab in ArcGIS Survey123 web designer, renaming photos does not work and reverts to the previous name after submitting the changes.
BUG-000138673 jr:choice-name() function yields 'TypeError: Cannot read property 'previousElementSibling' of undefined' when used on cascaded selection question & mode=edit for the URL parameter
BUG-000125125 The pulldata() function fails for web form surveys if Portal for ArcGIS is configured with IWA
BUG-000126788 Cannot access itemsets.csv on Portal with IWA
BUG-000140054 The ArcGIS Survey123 web app fails to load a form with a large CSV file when open in a browser on a mobile device.
BUG-000137706 BUG-000137670 Language switcher not changing the result of pulldata("@property",'language') or jr:choice-name
BUG-000138683 Multiline appearance is not available in the ArcGIS Survey123 web form for an Image question with a Count-Selected constraint.
BUG-000138319 Relevant expressions using the selected (${questionName}, 'answer') syntax are not honored when "Select One" values have spaces in them
BUG-000140240 Support the new body::esri:visible column to hide a question
ENH-000131088 Allow Survey123 WebApp to toggle between repeatable collection of questions specified under 'Repeat'
ENH-000120355 Include the ability to utilize Input Masks into the Survey123 Web Application
ENH-000138218 Allow geo point symbology to be customized in ArcGIS Survey123 feature reports
BUG-000135518 The Event Data is not passed as a Dynamic Field through the Survey123 Connector
DE-000004525 BUG-000136604 When generating a report on the Survey123 website for a survey response with many maps the tasks fails with the message: "An error occurred when printing. "
ENH-000136451 Enhance Survey123 website feature report tool to allow more than 10 minutes for printing each object or add the capability to change the waiting time to avoid timeout errors in surveys with a large number of related records.
BUG-000140099 Survey123 feature report export jobs do not complete if there are too many records exported at once even if the same dataset/quantity of records could be exported all at once in previous versions of Survey123.
DE-000004656 DE-000004304 BUG-000129586 Generating the feature report fails when the records have a large number of photo-enabled related records.
DE-000004394 BUG-000138738 When printing a report, if the survey is complex and survey data is large enough, the error message "An error occurred when preparing. " will be raised

Survey123 Connect

BUG-000113652 Republish hangs when you have added questions only to a repeat or nested repeat
BUG-000116136 Survey123 Connect for ArcGIS sends an empty payload for the /addtodefinition and /updatedefinition calls if the server responds with a 301 or 302 during the publishing process, which results in empty hosted feature layers.
BUG-000135737 ArcGIS Survey123 Connect and the ArcGIS Survey123 field app crash when creating a survey or opening an existing survey with reverse geocode on some Windows devices
BUG-000137194 - A white screen displays in ArcGIS Survey123 Connect with VMware SVGA 3D 8.17.2.2

Survey123 Field App

ENH-000110614 - Support adding image attachments during the editing process
Repeat groups now honor the w parameter when arranged in a grid-theme. If you use a repeat in a theme-grid, ensure you specify a 2 parameter.
ENH-000112172 View/Add image attachments to existing features while online
ENH-000121761 In Survey123 for ArcGIS, allow the option to preserve the Exif (exchangeable image file format) metadata containing location information for the annotated images.
BUG-000138199: Provide a mechanism for strings that can be parsed as numbers to remain strings
BUG-000136248 'Send' (outbox) and 'Empty' (sent folder) buttons on certain devices don't always work
BUG-000138281: The ArcGIS Survey123 field app locks users out of Active Directory when accessing a survey with a linked web map over a Portal for ArcGIS connection using Integrated Windows Authentication (IWA)
BUG-000138406 - Using the OpenStreetMap Daylight Esri Street Style (Beta) layer in a linked map causes ArcGIS Survey123 to crash on Motorola Moto G6 and E6 devices
BUG-000130821 ENH-000126229 Table-list appearance not working when style is set to pages and using field-list
BUG-000138381 Survey123 failing to submit when moved to background
BUG-000137976 Issue when uploading images to Image question on iOS 14
BUG-000127404 When selecting the drop-down list for an auto-complete question on Android, the keyboard momentarily appears
ENH-000128920 Survey123 login sequence- requests with improper user-agent

More resources and next steps

To learn more about what’s new in this and previous releases, check out the What’s new help archive. You can also find more Survey123 content in the ArcGIS blog.

We are already working on our next update. Join the Survey123 Early Adopter Community to get access to the latest version of the software, read documentation on upcoming features an participate in the early adopter user forums.