Survey 123 - syncing inbox deletes synced inbox records of a seperate survey

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08-05-2019 09:36 PM
TerrestrialEcology_1
New Contributor

Hey,

I'm having an issue when syncing 3 of my surveys, in the Survey123 field app.  I have 15 surveys in total that run concurrently for data collection in the field. We sync the surveys and inboxes at the end of each day so each team has the data collected from the other team.

When I sync the inbox of one survey (of the 3 problematic surveys), there are no issues, however when I sync the inbox of either of the other two problematic surveys, it wipes the synced records in the inbox I just synced. In other words, syncing the inbox of any one of these three surveys will wipe the synced inbox of the others (we are only able to have one of the three survey inboxes synced at any time).

This is only affecting the 3 surveys in question, the other 12 surveys I have are fine and are not wiped.

The surveys themselves are working fine and the Inbox is enabled etc.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. 

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2 Replies
BrandonArmstrong
Esri Regular Contributor

Hi,

How is the inbox being used in this scenario?  It sounds like you have all 15 surveys referencing the same feature service?  Are the field workers editing existing records by using the inbox?  Are they offline at time of collection?

If the field workers are editing the same records using the inbox, the last one to submit their records from the inbox will overwrite the previous.  I suppose more info would be helpful.  For instance, 

Scenario 1

Field worker 1 - edits records 1,2,3 from inbox and waits to submit (records waiting in Outbox)

Field worker 2 - edits records 4,5,6 from inbox and waits to submit (records waiting in Outbox)

This should not cause an overwrite of data once records are "synced"

Scenario 2

Field worker 1 - edits records 1,2,3 from inbox and waits to submit (records waiting in Outbox)

Field worker 2 - edits records 1,2,3 from inbox and waits to submit (records waiting in Outbox)

The last field worker to submit wins in this scenario.

Let me know if this makes sense, and if possible please provide more details related to your workflow.

Best,

Brandon

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TerrestrialEcology_1
New Contributor

Hi Brandon,

Field workers create new records, and edit existing records whilst out in the field. They will not edit the same record concurrently as in Scenario 2. They can be online and offline, but we work under the premise that they are offline when collecting, and both teams will sync the surveys in the field app when they meet up at the end of the day to ensure everyone has sent all the records from their outboxes and refreshed all their inboxes, i.e. as in Scenario 1 above. 

The individual records within the surveys inbox are fine. The issue arises in the following way after all records have been sent in all outboxes:

  • I refresh the inbox of my 'Targeted Searches' survey and the inbox has all records. I then refresh the inbox of my 'Avifauna Census' survey and the inbox has all records. However when, I return to the 'Targeted Searches' Survey the inbox is now empty. 
  • If I then refresh the inbox of 'Targeted Searches' the 'Avifauna Census' inbox is now empty. 
  • This only occurs between 3 surveys, the two mentioned above as well as a third survey 'SRE Collection'. 
  • Example scenario: If I refresh the inbox of 'Targeted Searches' and then refresh the inbox of my 'Weeds' Survey, the inbox of 'Targeted Searches' has all the records and is not emptied. The issue only occurs when two of the three surveys listed in the bullet point above are involved. 
  • I have just tested the follow: refreshing inboxes in the following order 'Targeted Searches' -> 'Weeds' -> 'SRE Collection' and refreshing the inbox of the 'SRE Collcetion' Survey, even after 'Weeds' (a non problematic survey), causes the inbox of 'Targeted Searches' to become empty.

Hopefully this makes the issue a bit clearer. It's hard to explain, without physically showing the issue. So I apologise for the confusion.

In regards to Feature Service, I am building and editing surveys that were originally built by someone else. How could I check if these 3 surveys are using the same feature service?

Cheers,

Steph 

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