Center geopoint / geotrace / geoshape map on coordinates without recording point

1855
4
08-12-2020 07:58 AM
Status: Open
DataOfficer
Occasional Contributor III

Currently in Survey123 it is possible to use the pulldata function to populate a geopoint question with the point location without user input. It would be very useful to be able to use a simple mechanism to set the center (and potentially extent) of the map (for geopoint, geotrace and geoshape questions) so that the user does not have to navigate to the correct location before adding the relevant point/line/polygon.

As a use case and example, we have survey forms designed for volunteers carrying out wildlife surveys. As part of the form structure, they select the survey site which they have surveyed from a predefined select_one list. Hidden questions then pull in the site centroid coordinates from an external csv, which is currently used to display a geopoint map as a visual sense check they have selected the correct site name. Users then go on to add species observations using geopoint questions in a repeat. When they click on the geopoint question, it defaults to the default location set in Connect. It would be far preferable to be able to set it to default to the selected site centroid based on the site selection they made earlier in the form, but without registering the centroid as an actual point (or part of a line or polygon).

Obviously this is more critical for desktop operations, where the user is not in the field (whereby they would usually rely on their device's gps location).

4 Comments
AndrewEdmonds1

I use a hyperlink in a user-clicked feature's pop-up in an external web map to open a survey and pass the lat/long coordinates through the URL parameters.

This focuses the geopoint map in the survey on the associated feature from the web map (which is great!).  I'd like the passed coordinates to also focus the geotrace map in the survey, as well.  +1 for   @DataOfficer's submitted idea.

Aurelija_RutaViluckyte

I agree, this is a very useful idea and hopefully will be soon implemented!

ChrisRoberts2

Definately something that I would find very helpful!

IanGallo

This would also be helpful for our operations.