Survey123: why does updating domains fails?

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07-05-2018 07:22 AM
HélèneTouyéras
Occasional Contributor II

Our fieldcrew is extatic with Survey123, its ease of use in the field and back in the office. Their needs are growing day by day, and I am regularly requested to update existing survey designs.


The designs so far are made with Suvrey123Connect (v.3.0.58). Most fields are "Select_one" or "Select_multiple" fields, with the domain documented in the "Choices" tab of the XLS file.


I recently modified two domains:

   -Domain A: added 103 lines (pair of code and alias value)

   -Domain B: corrected an erroneous code value, that duplicated another one.


I successfully saved the spreadsheet and re-published the form. No warnings, no problem - odd, as chainging domains is supposedly a structure change that should/would/might require the webservice to be deleted and recreated from scratch.


When filling the form with S123 field app, the new values are present in form.
    -I can select from the new values in the two fields using each domain, and post my field survey.

When I export the data to a file geodatabase, both domains are incomplete: Domain A is lacking the 103 new values, and Domain B does not contain the corrected coded value (the pair code/alias is missing, supposedly because the erroneous entry meant 2 identical codes were submitted to the database, and only the first one was accepted). i.e. the correction made in the XLS form did not carry over in the webservice underlying datastructure

Can I update and the domain contents of my survey without publishing the survey design to a new survey (this breaks all maps, apps, and dashboards built upon the existing webservice)?

...If yes, how?

...If no, why did I receive no warning when publishing the survey design, and why was my webservice not deleted/recreated by the publishing process?

To be complete, the publication to a new URL is successful, with correct domain contents applied in the form and in the resulting geodatabase.

Many thanks for you help and advice!

With kind regards,

Hélène.

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8 Replies
JamesTedrick
Esri Esteemed Contributor

Hi Hélène,

Altering choice lists does not require re-publishing (in fact, you can now do this in the ArcGIS Item information page for the feature service).  When a survey is re-published, Survey123 Connect currently does not alter the domain.  You can add the domain values manually via the ArcGIS Online UI.

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HélèneTouyéras
Occasional Contributor II

Thanks for the fast reply, James!

I found the ArcGIS Online page on altering domains, but was not able to proceed: The data table displays correctly, but the "Field" button seems to reach a never-ending loop - the "loading..." graphic keeps showing, and yields no result, and does not display any field name or properties. I observed this on S123 feature services, and other, simpler feature services.

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JamesTedrick
Esri Esteemed Contributor

Hi Hélène,

Can you file a support request on the reading of the fields?  An alternative is to work at the administrative interface of the feature service; How to update Hosted Feature Service Schemas - Esri Blogs provides guidance on that.

HélèneTouyéras
Occasional Contributor II

Thanks for this link James, it looks very promising indeed!

I will also send a support request on viewing field properties in ArcGIS Online.

Many thanks again for your help!

Hélène.

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by Anonymous User
Not applicable

Hey James! Is there a blog post on how to do this properly?

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JamesTedrick
Esri Esteemed Contributor

Hi Kristy,

This should be doable via the ArcGIS Online Item Details page now, though the link in my previous comment to Hélène was originally mentioned in a blog post in the main ArcGIS blog.

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ErikaJimenez_Rivera1
New Contributor II

Hi James,

If the service comes from an enterprise geodatabase, how do I updtate the domain in the service?

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SusanEnyedy_Goldner
Esri Contributor

Hi James & everyone, Just adding my comments to testing this workflow. 

From the survey feature service details in ArcGIS Online > data > Fields > selected a field with a domain > Edit list of values > Add a new one > Save

I tested the survey right after this – this value did not get added to the list, so this step does not add the value to the form.

 

From Survey123 Connect > downloaded the survey again: but this also did not populate the choice list with the new list value …. I went into the spreadsheet > added the exact values for the new type in name & label.

 

Refresh & republish it = won’t overwrite the existing feature service and it adds the new domain values to the form.

Not sure if this is the expected workflow but it does work & I thought I would share it.

Thanks! 

Sue

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