This is moreso me describing my current planned workflow, and seeing if either anyone has a better suggestion, or if anyone is interested in me destiling how I do this. I'm happy to share the "how" on any part of my workflow, but I don't currently have a timeline on completion as I just started the "document merge" portion. I'm also super interested in ways other people integrate Esri with their enterprise workflows.
The problem: For our environmental consulting branch, we have staff go collect field data using S123, and then this generates field notes and partially fills in a report template. But this work also involves extensive hisorical sections. The biggest problem comes from varying workflows: Some staff want to write historical sections prior to the site visit, and some after. As a result, I need a workflow that allows me to merge two word files at any point in the process. We also need a way to track project progress, view spatial data, reduce the time users spend searching for project content.
My current plan is to solve a bunch of problems at once:
- Power App to display all "Phase I ESAs" (Code name: The App). The data for The App would be populated by and sync'd to our Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) and Accounting app (basically SQL) using Power Automate.
- When a new project is added, Power Apps would extract the Provice/State and call Survey123 to generate a province-specific template. Most likely going to save these in One Drive.
- The App would also sync up with our H&S data (more S123 forms) to show if a given project has completed the H&S requirements, as well as if/when site visits are scheduled (a separate Power App)
- Users would locate their project in The App and download their blank template, and work on it from their desktop. Then, they'd upload it whenever they want. (Minor note. I did quickly consider Word Online, but dropped that concept almost the same time it crossed my mind. Desktop app is the only way to go, but that isn't a bad thing.)
- Users would go complete field work at their leisure, then submit S123 field notes. Power Automate would then grab whatever is uploaded to The App for that project, generate the S123 Report, and then merge the two documents into one.
- Plan is currently to inlude an on-demand button (or maybe just trigger it automatically), so if users upload the background content after the site visit, the two files are still merged properly. After the files are merged, the users can then pretty much do whatever they want with the file.
- I would also ensure field notes (S123) are stored in such a manner that they cannot be tampered with, and historial field notes are maintained.
- Additionally, after the site visit, all features captured in S123 will be added to a web map. The App will link the selected project to this project point in the web map.
- Add an option... somewhere... so we can kick off future workflows if we ever need to go back to a property in the future (e.g., Phase I ESA Update).
To do this, I'm leaning on both Esri's Survey123 (primarily) and Experience Builder as well as Microsoft's Power Automate and Power Apps (and most likely One Drive for file storage - but anything could work).
