World Vegetarian Day (October 1st*) Update
We are pleased to announce a new update to Survey123 for ArcGIS. It is time to refresh your Survey123 Connect (now build 1.1.18) and the mobile app (build 1.1.4).
We are actually more pleased than ever, because with this update you will get a couple of features that many of you have been patiently waiting for: Cascading selects and Repeats!
Cascading Selects: In a lot of forms you want to first let the user pick an option from a list, and then disclose another list of choices with values that are appropriate for the first selection. For example:
- Select first a province, and then filter the list of districts so only those within the selected province are shown. You could even add a third list showing the cities within that district.
Cascading selects make it easier on people using your forms and help you ensure the logical consistency of data captured. If you would like to learn more about cascading selects, have a look at the XLSForm help. You will also find sample forms in there.
Repeats: Sometimes you want to repeat a group of questions and that is when repeats are handy. Say for example you want to capture the name, age and gender of every person in a household. With this update we bring our first implementation of Repeats. Be aware that there are some limitations so make sure you read carefully the XLSForm help
The above are interesting new features, but what follows is no less important:
- Browse Photos in your mobile device: You can now browse for photos while working with image type of questions in your form. In the past the user experience for browsing photos was not standard to what people expected in iOS and Android. This one goes to Joshua and Stephen.
- Minimal appearance for Select_Multiples: This one is for bowlesgsrcx and Simon and who wanted to apply minimal appearance to select_multiple questions. Check out what it looks like now:
- Report Location Accuracy: Chris suggested we report the location accuracy while working in the map. The app will show the location accuracy as reported by your device. If you are using an external Bluetooth enabled GNSS receiver you will get correct readings in Android devices. If using iOS, keep in mind that even if your external receiver gives you sub-meter accuracy, iOS will never report you a location accuracy reading better than 5 meters.
- Other fixes:
- A required constraint prohibits submit.
- If ain't relevant don't make it required.
- Blank option for multiple choice questions should be last or first.
- Full page image cannot be opened when field appearance changed.
- Overflowing text in selects with horizontal appearance.
- Is my survey loading? Give me a sign.
- Required signature, cant submit.
The last two big ones with this update:
- Support for iOS9: We appreciate the quick feedback you provided on this one! We had issues with fonts in the Survey123 app
but those have been resolved now. - Support for Windows Phone 8 and 8.1: Starting today you can now download the Survey123 mobile app into your Windows Phone. This is our very first release in this platform so use with caution.
We are now preparing for our next update which is due on November 1st (National Bison Day)*. For this next update our focus will be on consolidating repeats and cascading selects. We will also carefully listen to your feature to help us prioritize our work.
*If you wonder why the October 1st update is released on September 24 just listen to Captain Barbossa:
“the code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than actual rules. Welcome aboard the Black Pearl, Miss Turner!”