Batch Edit & Submit Survey123

[JoshSmithWCWD]

Hey everyone! 

We received what probably sounded like a simple request earlier today from an end user. After brainstorming with our team earlier this morning, we think it's actually unsupported and not possible but we wanted to ask here to see if anyone else has a solution or potential work around.

Scenario:

One of our field departments will go into the field to inspect assets. Once an asset is inspected, they submit a Survey123 form in the mobile app. The survey is actually launched through a hyperlink in the Field Maps pop-up where the asset's facility/asset ID is carried over to a field in the survey. They then answer another question or two and save the inspection to their outbox. Once they get to the office at the end of the day, they send all of their surveys from their outbox in the Survey123 app.

Request:

To be able to select multiple assets and create & edit the survey123 forms all at once. Most of the time, the values in the fields are all the same except for the facility/asset id field. So each survey would need to keep the correct facility ID value. 

Again, we don't think this is supported, but we wanted to ask here. We do see how much time this could save people, so we just want to make sure. We're on Enterprise 11.2, if that makes a difference with Experience Builder versions and Web Apps being an option as well. 

Thanks in advance for any help! 

[DougBrowning]

Experience Builder does have edit multiple now I think in the edit widget.  But note if you skip 123 then none of the calcs will fire!  That may be fine for a status type field but be aware.  There is a 123 widget also but I do not think it can do multiple at once.

Map viewer has a edit multiple as well.  Again now 123 logic will run.

Also ArcGIS for Excel you can link to the service and edit many records fast right in Excel.  But of course again no 123 logic will fire.

Dashboards can now edit also.

Hard to tell more without know the workflow or why you need to edit these vs a better workflow.

Hope that helps

[JoshSmithWCWD]

Hey Doug, thanks for the super quick response. 

I guess the request really comes down not to edit the surveys, but to create them all at once. Some of our power users will submit up to 100 inspections a day, and the only field that changes in value is the facilityID field. Their original idea was to select all of the assets they inspected that day and submit all surveys at once, instead of up to 100 individually. We would just need to keep the facility IDs of each one they selected as individual survey submissions.

[DougBrowning]

Then no cannot do that.  You can edit a previous and resend.  You could also use a repeat for this.  Maybe one form per date and then a repeat with the ID in it.  This repeat you can make a feature class then just use that layer in all your maps or reporting skipping the top level totally.  Then each "form" is just a plus button, pull in the master values, set facility id and done.  Could be pretty fast that way and data looks the same in the end.  But I do wonder if all the data is the same what is even the point of collecting it lol.  Plus no GPS tracking to make sure they even went there (but in a repeat you could add that actually). 

You could also prepopulate all the fields but the ID.

Field Maps I think has edit multiple now but not sure it has create multiple.  I could see in Field Maps you prepopulate all the inspection locations then they can mark them off as they go or select all and edit them all.  But again pretty easy to just fake that data.  Almost sounds like they do it all on paper then just create records at the end.

[MaximilienRIOT]

Hello,
It is indeed possible to edit multiple entities at the same time from the Experience Builder editing widget. However, I think that the version of Experience Builder in ArcGIS Enterprise 11.2 is too outdated. To get around this, you can install Experience Builder Dev Edition, which will have the latest Experience Builder features. Everything is detailed here: https://developers.arcgis.com/experience-builder/guide/install-guide/
In my opinion, this is the best option for achieving your goals.
Best regards.

[Neal_t_k]

@JoshSmithWCWD Just wanted to add the "copy to a new survey" functionality may provide an in between, while they would still have to submit individual forms, coping a previous entry updating select fields and submitting would definitely be faster. 

https://support.esri.com/en-us/knowledge-base/how-to-copy-and-edit-existing-survey-records-in-a-new-...

[abureaux]

This is a good solution. But I will add a warning: Depending on your field of work, this may not be acceptable. Basically, if you "copy" a previous assessment, you can no longer guarantee that the form was filled out accurately, which may be an issue if you end up in litigation. If this isn't a risk/concern for you, then have at it.

In my field (Environmental/Property consulting and remediation), litigation is always a risk, so this wouldn't work. But I also get similar requests from time to time for similar functionality from our various groups. In my case, Experience Building (as @MaximilienRIOT mentioned) is the best solution. However, every use-case can be slightly different and mileage may vary. 

[TylerGraham2]

You could set the survey up so that you select your facility location and then each individual asset is inspected as a repeat and you would set the assetID for each repeat. That way they just open the form once and work their way through it. You could set up a csv table and use pulldata to populate the fields that are the same or Search() Appearance if you need to select responses that might be different. The bonus is if you use a repeat, the repeats are still individual records in their own table so you would still be able to work with each asset as its own record for reporting or analysis.