Lose all data after minor edits in survey and re-publishing

[deleted-user-sNUdtFrn2yEY]

I re-created a survey in the Survey123 Connect XLXForm that Ismael Chivite helped me with at GeoConX 2018 Conference and everything worked great with all the calculations, but when I went back in and made a very minor edit to the survey (which I anticipate I will need to do in the future). When I went to republish I was given the warning that I may lose my data and I proceeded. I did lose all my data, so with that being a reality what does Esri recommend as a Best Practice when you make minor edits (add a new question) to an existing survey and how can you ensure that you DO NOT lose your data?  Should you create a new survey and the merge the data. We are also looking to bring in the survey data into an Operations Dashboard reporting field errors in a more timely and proactive way.

Any advice, tips and best practices from Esri would be very helpful.

Thanks in advance for your help and I look forward to hearing back from Esri.

BR Colleen 

[JamesTedrick]

Hi Colleen,

Please refer to Publish your survey—Survey123 for ArcGIS | ArcGIS for what changes to a survey require republishing - if you experienced republishing outside of what is listed, please let us know.  In terms of keeping data safe, the first step would be to back up the data by exporting the data into a file geodatabase or other format.

[deleted-user-sNUdtFrn2yEY]

James -

Thanks for responding to my question and including the link.

Best regards,

Colleen

[deleted-user-sNUdtFrn2yEY]

James -

What I changed in the XLSForm was the text Type field length from 399 to 499 characters and changed it's Appearance from the default to multiline. When I went to republish it warned me I would lose my data. 

Best regards,

Colleen

[JamesTedrick]

Hi Colleen,

Thanks for the description. Unfortunately, changing the field length via Survey123 will require the republishing of the service (as the field needs to be re-created).  An alternative would be to, in ArcGIS Online:

1) Add a field to temporarily store the existing values

2) Calculate the values from the existing field to the temporary field

3) Delete the existing field

4) Create a new field with the same name as the original field and with the new length

5) Calculate the values from the temporary field to new field

[deleted-user-sNUdtFrn2yEY]

James -

Thanks so much for your input, very helpful!!

Best regards,

Colleen Madigan Schelde