Survey123 Mask formatting removed from feature when edited on S123 website.

[ThomasM]

I have a survey with an input mask setup for phone numbers: "(999) 999-9999". When entered in a web form, the mask characters (the parentheses, dash, and space) are stored in the attribute table as characters. If I edit the record on the Survey123 website form, even just selecting "edit" and then submitting without making any changes, it removes those mask characters from the attribute table (even though they do show in the form). If I delete the phone number in the form and retype it in, then the mask characters reappear in the attribute table. I've reproduced this behavior on multiple surveys, and it really seems like a bug. I would like the data to be consistent (that's the point of a mask), so is there a way to prevent S123 from removing the mask characters?

[JamesTedrick]

Hi @ThomasM ,

I can see the behavior that you are describing. It does look like a bug.  While we investigate the issue, you may want to file a support case with Esri Support so that a formal BUG number can be generated and allow you to track when we have resolved this.

[ThomasM]

Thank you for the response. I have submitted a support case.

[ThomasM]

I logged this as an ESRI Support case, but their initial response was "mask is not supported in Web Forms for S123, so this is expected behavior." I countered that, if the masks show up in the Web Form and are included in the data when first entered but then removed if the record is edited (or even just resubmitted without editing anything) in a Web Form, then masks are supported, at least partially, in Web Forms and the form editing existing data on its own is a bug. They responded that they would log it as a bug. I have not yet received a BUG# for it though.

[SMDSAdministrador]

I have the same issue with mask x edit, and it's been happening since last week. We have several forms in web edit mode and with masks that never had this problem before last week.

From the tests we did on our forms, when editing a record but not editing the field with the mask, the mask for that field is lost (and the data is misconfigured). However, when editing a record and editing any information in a field with a mask (the final letter of a text, for example), the mask is "reactivated" and the data goes to the base correctly.

That is: it seems that when opening the form, the mask is "disabled" (even if it is displayed to the person filling it out) and, in this case, the data is misconfigured; but when editing the field in question, the mask is reactivated and the data is saved normally.

For now, waiting for official support for this issue.

[ThomasM]

This has been recognized by ESRI as a bug: BUG-000154240. It is currently listed as "In Review" and of severity "Medium." 

[DanielRaleigh]

I have also noticed that input masks do not seem to be working properly in the web form when published from Survey123 Connect (current version of Connect is 3.17.55). Have you had any progress on your case?

[ThomasM · Accepted solution]

The issues I was having have actually been resolved by the latest update (3.17). When I enter data into a field with a mask, all of the mask characters are stored in the entry. I can edit a feature without changing the field masked field and S123 does not remove the mask characters when I re-submit the survey.

You might check in your survey's settings that it is set to always use the latest version.

[DanielRaleigh]

Thank you, I confirmed that I am now using the "most recent" option for the Survey123 web form. I'm still running into issues on the web form that were not rectified, so I may need to make a separate post for that question.

[DanielRaleigh]

For anyone with similar issues into the future, I found that removing the "numbers" designation from the 'appearance' field fixed my issue. Once that cell was empty on the XLS form, publishing the survey prompted the phone number mask to appear on the web form.