(a rather important) field in Survey123 inspection not always visible on Survey123 site and resulting feature reports

IngridMans · ‎09-07-2021

This is a rather perplexing one...I have one particular question (text field) on an inspection built with Survey123 Connect that sometimes 'disappears' from view when on the Survey123 site. When this happens, there is nothing included for that particular field/question on the feature report. I am the survey owner, and initially it appeared to only hide a couple fields from on of my inspectors, but now it sometimes hides it from me as well. Leaving the survey page and then re-navigating to it (i.e. refresh) seems to have helped once, but this will be problematic for inspectors needing to generate feature reports.

LeonardBarnhill · ‎09-07-2021

Truly perplexing. To help, more information is needed. Created in Connect, I assume the form is available from the site but individual questions seem to vanish intermittently? Does this mean once the question vanishes it will return on refresh but will consistently be gone in future openings of the form?

What version of Connect is used to create the form?

Is this form being opened in the Survey123 app on a mobile device or opened on the Survey123 website? If a Survey123 app, which version is used on the mobile device? What operating system is used on the mobile device?

Is this being published via ArcGIS Online organizational account or via your Enterprise Portal?

When you view the data on the Survey123 beta website, are all questions presented or are some intermittently vanishing? If these were answered in the field, are the answers for all questions present? If some questions are missing, do they always return when the form is refreshed? When questions are missing, have you tried creating a Draft report to see if they publish even when missing from the screen?

If possible, could you share the XLSForm and your report template to help with troubleshooting the problem.

IngridMans · ‎09-08-2021

Thanks for the questions. Some additional details:

Survey was created in Connect version 3.7, originally published a little over a year ago (circa June 2020)
Published and used on our AGOL org account (we do have Enterprise as well, but including photos in feature reports was too crucial to not keep in AGOL)
Form is opened on the Survey123 app on an iPad/iOS, and the settings are set to always open in the app.
I, the survey owner, am seem to have pretty consistent view/access to the problem field (summary comments {summary_com} which is a basic text field type). The reports I generate come out fine and include all necessary data from the entry.
The primary inspector reviews/edits survey results as needed on the Survey123 website in the Data tab and generates feature reports. He cannot see the summary comments field on a selected feature in the feature details on the right hand side. But if he clicks the pencil to edit the entry, the Comments field appears (and includes whatever data had been submitted). After closing the editor, the comments field goes away again.
'Missing' fields are also not visible in the table for the inspector.
If a field is hidden for the inspector on the data tab on Survey123 website, it also comes out blank for resulting feature reports.

Anonymous User · ‎09-07-2021

Hi @IngridMans,

Just to clarify further (once you answer all of @LeonardBarnhill great questions!) when you say "not always visible on Survey123 site", do you mean the data/responses for that question/field is not always displayed in the Data tab of the Survey123 website? If so do you see the column in the Data tab table with no values, or the entire column is missing?

If you open the feature layer in AGO in Data table view or Map Viewer, do you see that question/field and all the data in it?

Also what is the data type (text, integer ,date etc) of the question that is missing, does it have lookup values (choice lists) or is it calculated etc?

Regards,

Phil.

IngridMans · ‎09-08-2021

One strange this I now notice (and have no idea how it came to be this way): the feature layer's _stakeholder view on AGOL does not include the problematic fields. No clue why..... at any rate i'm updating the view definition to include those fields and am feeling rather confident this should resolve the issue.

LeonardBarnhill · ‎09-08-2021

You may be on to the solution. Let us know if this does not work.

Anonymous User · ‎09-08-2021

Hi @IngridMans,

Yes I believe this is the problem. Those fields need to selected on, if you want them to be display in the Data tab, edit tab or feature reports in the Survey123 website for those that have access via the stakeholder view. If you are the owner or author of the survey, then you will always see the fields, as your login would not be using stakeholder view, and for other users, if they are fieldworker etc, it all depends on which views have which fields selected on.