Stop newly downloaded surveys from auto-starting in the app

[abureaux]

I created an idea for this a while back.

But when I was helping someone today with an odd security issue, and I realized this is more of a bug than anything.

I have a survey where the "Sent" folder is disabled, the "Inbox" doesn't allow new submissions, and "Allow new surveys to be collected" is disabled. This means you can only edit what is already in the Inbox. However, when you download a survey, it ignores these settings and opens as a new survey, thus allowing submission that should be denied.

Now that I've clued in on this behaviour, it's rather concerning. While I don't see my staff intentionally submitting data this way as it would make zero sense, they technically could, which would introduce bad data into a very specialized workflow.

I'll be logging this one as a bug, but thought I'd point it out in case others had a similar set-up and didn't already realize that behaviour.

EDIT: Forgot to add a setting to the list. Here is a screen cap of setup:

[Lei_Liu]

Hi abureaux,

Thank you for sharing your findings. I attempted to replicate your settings but did not observe the behavior you described. Have you republished your survey after making the changes in Survey123 Connect to ensure they are applied? If you newly download the survey in the field app, it should only have the "Inbox" button available.

Thanks,

Lei

[abureaux]

I just recreated this again. This appears to be "normal" app behaviour. And considering the settings selected in Connect, 100% unintentional.

Every single time you press the "launch" button, it takes you into a black survey form that can be submitted, despite the fact Allow new surveys to be collected is toggled off.

EDIT: And in case I didn't already mention it, yes, I am using the most up to date versions of Connect and Field Apps. That said, I'd bet this behaviour has been here far longer than the current versions.

[RobertAnderson3]

This may be a silly question on my part, but have you confirmed than when you hit submit that the survey actually submits the data and doesn't just fail to send?

[abureaux]

Not silly at all! Honestly, the first time I saw this behaviour I thought "well maybe it will fail to submit and I'm just overreacting".

So I gave it a try, and indeed, you can submit. I tried to include that in my last screen shot. This is a picture of the S123 Field App's Inbox for the test survey I just set up this morning. This submission in the Inbox was sent from a survey where "Allow new surveys to be collected" was toggle off.

EDIT: And as I mentioned in my original post, this isn't a good thing. I have a very controlled survey where submissions can (or at least should) only be added by a detailed automation process. This strange workflow being possible introduces a liability that I will need to account for now.

[RobertAnderson3]

I do notice there isn't an option in the Survey123 collaborate that lists only "Update Existing"

Where as in the feature layer settings itself it shows that kind of option, I wonder what that setting looks like, maybe you could disable it from that location instead of in Connect?

It's definitely an oversight either way for data integrity though because it SHOULD work as expected in Connect.

[abureaux]

That's a discrepancy for sure.

I disabled that:

Tried again... and was able to submit.

I am using an admin account though, and there are some operations that admin accounts ignore layer settings and let you do anyway. So, I set up my personal account as Data Editor and tried again. Finally got my Send Error!

So you still need to be careful of your admin accounts, but at least Publisher/Data Editor accounts can be blocked from sending.

(I assume/hope that this option won't affect publishing new features from ArcPro or Power Automate as an Admin - but haven't tested that yet).