Survey123 Allow Photo's To Be Viewed And Added To Sent Surveys

JoshHabel

It would be very helpful to be able to view existing photo's and add new photo's to surveys that have already been sent.

Proposed Workflow

Existing data gets created by inspectors submitting surveys and assigning work to a contractor. Contractor receives work assigned through the inbox. The contractor is currently unable to view any photo's taken by the inspector or add new ones. I am proposing to allow existing photos to be viewable and to be able to add new photo's to a sent survey with ought having to use a repeat. An editor should be able to tap on the photo and have it expand to the full screen of the device with the ability to zoom and pan around also.

Josh

MarvinDavis · ‎09-18-2019

Although I'm a proponent of allowing multiple photo uploads without the need for repeats, the current workaround is making multiple (I've done 4) image fields so users can attach multiple photos. Since they don't create an attribute field, only name the photo whatever you named the image field, that should work. You just need to set a hard number on the most photos you want field workers to take.

Secondly, are you saying assignments should so in the Survey123 Inbox? Why not use Workforce for ArcGIS and configure a Survey123 form to allow users to submit assignments and assign them that way if they absolutely need to do so in the field?

Carlos_AndresCamacho_Acuña · ‎09-18-2019

también Los campos con datos y los campos de imagen deberían tener una opción que permita editar o no editar después de enviada la encuesta, esto permitiría que dos personas puedan trabajar en una misma encuesta desde la bandeja de entrada, sin cambiar los datos que el primero enviar lleno.

JoshHabel · ‎09-18-2019

Secondly, are you saying assignments should so in the Survey123 Inbox? Why not use Workforce for ArcGIS and configure a Survey123 form to allow users to submit assignments and assign them that way if they absolutely need to do so in the field?

Hi Marvin,

.

I do not have much experience using Workforce but from what I've gathered tinkering with it, it doesn't seem to work offline. If there is a way to do this in an offline environment i would be interested but i don't know what type of workflows that would create for crews or the lonewolf gis guy (me). I would say that my primary concern is connectivity, our system is very rural. Also, I am looking for a simple no frills system that is rock solid dependable for offline use and that doesn't require a lot of processing from my end. I first tried collector but couldn't get it to work for offline use. I settled on Survey123 because i have a history with it and the inbox will give my vegetation management contractors a simple method of receiving and completing their work in an offline environment. The only thing that they are not able to do is see the pictures taken from the inspectors. The other part adding pictures without needing a repeat would be a bonus but i agree with you there is a workaround, i've just never tried to use it because i try to avoid related tables whenever possible.

Josh

MarvinDavis · ‎09-18-2019

Josh,

The good news is ESRI is working on offline for Workforce. The bad news is they've been at it for a while and still haven't released it (https://community.esri.com/thread/194092-workforce-offline-use ). It resolves a lot of the issues you're having (seeing photos and receiving assignments to complete submitted by others). I think the only limitation Workforce would have in your setup would be only having one attachment (unless that has changed in a recent release).

Ignoring that for a moment and staying with Survey123, the "image" question you can add to the survey form is not a related table if it isn't nested in a repeat. All the application does is see that you are supposed to input a photo (camera or gallery), and assigns the field name (i.e. "photo1" + a globalID) as the file name, and once submitted, it is the same as any other attachment you would add directly to a layer. That means you don't use a repeat, where I know you'll struggle mightily to pull attachments from (personal experience), BUT you do need to establish a maximum number of photos that can be submitted (honestly, if it's more than 4 and your storage is not infinite, I wouldn't do more than 6-8 for sure). If the repeat is what is catching you, I recommend getting rid of it and doing what I described above. It's not ideal but you shouldn't have the related table issue.

Hope this helps.

Marvin

HélèneTouyéras · ‎10-01-2020

Hi Josh Habel,

Some of our fieldwork teams have the same workflow as your contractors: they edit existing data with Survey123 via the inbox (missing attribute completion & existing attribute update)

We need them to take pictures of the inspected field features, but Survey123 inbox does not allow to add pictures to existing features.

We have to take pictures outside Survey123 and match them to the fieldwork records...This is obviously error-prone and not efficient, but nicely vintage - welcome bakc to the 1980s .

Unlocking pictures & attachments at large for existing data update via the inbox would be a fantastic upgrade to the product.

Many thanks ESRI for forthcoming help & for taking this ArcGIS Idea into consideration!

With kind regards,

Hélène.

HélèneTouyéras · ‎02-01-2021

Hi @MarvinDavis,

I was wondering if there is any news on this ArcGIS Idea? Will the capability to add attachements to existing records be implemented, and if so, is there a broad timeline for it?

Many thanks!

Kind regards,

Hélène.

Here's another post on the same topic, https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-survey123-questions/attachments-when-editing-the-inbox/m-p/7984...

MarvinDavis · ‎02-01-2021

@HélèneTouyéras I can't speak to that. I don't work for ESRI.

The best workaround to adding attachments to existing records would be to do so at the feature service level in AGOL or Desktop/Pro. Given ESRI has improved the editing of sent surveys by field workers, I imagine if the image field is set to "multiline" that multiple photos can be added.