Can Survey123 work from a shared location?

[LeonardBarnhill]

Currently, Survey123 creates the folder structure C:\Users\<user name>\ArcGIS\My Survey Designs then creates and new folder for each new survey form within the My Survey Designs folder.  This works great as long as only one person is responsible for creating and managing Survey forms.  As more forms need creation, the only option so far is to install Connect on a different computer where the same folder structure is created - this works as long as each install and user is responsible for individual surveys.  Two people cannot work on the same survey using Connect unless they share the same computer or pass the project folder back and forth - formerly called sneaker-net.

Has anyone found a way to use SharePoint or other shared network location to collaborate on the same forms without passing the folders between users as changes are made.  I realize the challenge of two people working the same form simultaneously may not be practical/possible but coud two different laptops with Connect installed be directed to use the same My Survey Designs folder to collaborate on a project?  This would also allow all creators to see all forms created by the organizatio, see if someone else has developed a form for a project, and use existing forms created by others in the organization as templates.

[DougBrowning · Accepted solution]

Nope.  This gets asked for all the time since about 2017

https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-survey123-ideas/survey123-ability-to-have-survey-stored-on-a/id... 

Listed as enhancement

https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-survey123-questions/chose-where-to-place-survey-forms-network-d...

https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-survey123-questions/survey123-connect-directory-folder-structur... 

there is an official enhancement request for media at least here.  https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-survey123-questions/can-the-media-folder-be-moved-to-a-network/...

But note even if you could you still cannot have 2 people work on the same forms.  Forms are published to your AGOL owners content.

If you look in My Surveys folder at your form you will see that the owner name is baked in as is the folder id.

We had to move accounts last year and it was a big project on the 123 forms.  We had to update these two fields for every single form (250+) by hand.

Now at my last company we had a master AGOL account that we published everything from in case someone was out or left.  (I wish less was tied to users names in AGOL I gotta say).  So you could do this but you would have to say manually copy from a network location to your machine to publish.  But would not need to update the iteminfo file.  Another idea would be to have a master user and even a master VPN machine.  That way 2 diff people could login and everything would be there in the user folder.  For us no way IT would let that happen but maybe for you.

There is also a post out there that allows you to move forms to a diff user now.  But its a project and not meant to be used all the time just a one time deal.

Hope that helps.  I would love it but I get the limitations with AGOL and its not really a 123 issue.