Problem with public survey

[JamesMacKay3]

Hi, I’m new to Survey123 and trying to set up a survey with five requirements:

• It must be public, no AGOL credentials required
• It must be able to collect data in the app while disconnected, submitting it later
• Users should not be able to see other users’ submissions
• It must contain a photo
• It must contain location

I haven’t had any luck with the public aspect.  Despite reading this blog post and other doc, changing feature layer settings, trying steps in different orders, whenever I attempt to submit data the app asks for AGOL credentials.  Perhaps what I’m trying isn’t possible but I think it’s much more likely that I’m just overlooking something.

After authoring and publishing the survey, I go to the main feature layer’s settings and set them accordingly:

• Editing: “Enable editing.” Is turned on, the other three settings are turned off.
• What kind of editing is allowed?:  Add features
• What features can editors see?:  Editors can’t see any features
• What features can editors edit?:  Disabled
• What access do anonymous editors have? The same as signed in editors
• Export Data: False

I then went to the field worker service and where applicable made those settings match, then from the Collaborate tab in Survey123 made the survey available to Everyone (Public).  When I attempt to submit a survey from the app, it still asks me for AGOL credentials.  (I also tried making the survey public first, then changing feature layer settings.)

If anyone has any ideas about what I’m overlooking I’d definitely appreciate it.

[JamesTedrick]

Hi James,

Can you run an AppStudio log and then attempt to submit - see Troubleshoot—Survey123 for ArcGIS | ArcGIS  and ignore the console loading symbol (this is easiest with Windows, Mac, or Android).  The log will be in C:\Users\ArcGIS\AppStudio\logs (~\ArcGIS\AppStuio\logs in macOS/Android).  If you can provide me that, I can possibly figure out why you are seeing a security challenge.

[JamesMacKay3]

Hi James,

There are in fact two issues which may be related.

First, when I attempt to download and unpack a survey, it consistently hangs during unpacking.  The spinner hangs indefinitely.  I've reproduced this with over 15 new surveys created in both the Survey123 website as well as Survey123 Connect, and on four different devices (Android, iOS and Windows).  Closing the app while it's spinning indefinitely and re-opening allows use of the survey, however.

The second issue relates to anonymous submission from the app.  I can submit through the web form and the REST API without authentication so I don't believe it's an AGOL privileges issue.

Here are two log files, the first generated when trying to download and unpack and the second generated when trying to submit a record:

Survey123forArcGIS-20180416-174130.log - Google Drive 

Survey123forArcGIS-20180416-174307.log - Google Drive 

Also, here's the link to the most recent test survey (it's basically empty, just trying to get these issues sorted before investing any time in constructing a proper form):

https://survey123.arcgis.com/share/5cfb768198f64799ba73e45804b22363?open=native 

Thanks,

James

[AnthonyRyanEQL]

James,

With your submission as an anon user, do you have a photo attachment in your survey? Only asking because I found with my public survey with anon user is with a photo attached it doesn't send the data but will send data when no photo is taken or attached.

[JamesMacKay3]

Ultimately getting a photo attached is one of my requirements but for now I'm testing without a photo, only field is a single-line textbox.

[AnthonyRyanEQL]

Interesting you are having these issues with such a simple survey. Interested to see what James Tedrick comes back with. Good Luck

[JamesTedrick]

Hi James,

I've done some testing on the form.  I was successful in downloading the form via link and submitting when I was already logged in.  Resetting to a logged out state, I experienced the same hanging issue you experienced on downloading the form.  There is a fairly subtle error - essentially, the web site is not providing a piece of information about the form (the organization from which it was published); the application then attempts to find it via the person signed in.  

Re-publishing this survey from Survey123 Connect should solve the issue.  I think this is also producing the prompt to login on submittal as well; there is a further step in the app configuration that may not be reached because of the error.

[JamesMacKay3]

Hi James, I was able to reproduce what you found - I tested downloading/unpacking while logged in (which went smoothly), logging out, filling out the survey then submitting anonymously and it worked, so it does seem the failure to submit anonymously is directly linked to the unpacking issue.

Unfortunately I tried republishing from Survey123 Connect (I only made a label change) and still experienced the indefinite unpacking problem.  I also tried publishing a new survey from Survey123 Connect - using one of the templates without any changes - with the same results.

Also, I don't know if logging in to download the form will be an acceptable workaround, the end goal is to allow users without AGOL accounts to enter data - unless there's an alternative way to download forms?  For example, is copy/pasting forms directly into the "My Surveys" directory a supported workflow?

[JamesTedrick]

Hi James,

We've identified a fix, which will be incorporated into 2.8 (mid-May release).  We plan on making available beta version via the Esri Early Adopter Community soon

[JamesMacKay3]

Great, thanks!

[JohnMarino]

Thanks, James. We just discovered that it appears we are experiencing the same problem and wonder if you or anyone know of any workarounds in the interim.

EDIT 5/8/2018: In case anyone else is reading this prior to the next update of the Survey123 app being released, the current workaround I have at the moment is to:

1. Sign-in to Survey123 using any ArcGIS Organizational Account
2. Open the URL of the public survey (be sure to include the ?open=native parameter to the end of the URL) and select "Open in the Survey123 field app"
3. The survey should download into Survey123 successfully
4. At this point you can sign-out of the ArcGIS Online account from within Survey123 and the survey should work and have the ability to upload data anonymously

Hope this helps. I realize that it still requires an ArcGIS Online account initially, but this has been the only way I have found that this works for the issue that I am encountering.