Survey123 Tricks of the Trade (Live): Automate Reports

[IsmaelChivite]

On July 6, 2023 we recorded a Tricks of the Trade session covering Survey123 report automation with Microsoft Power Automate. Thanks to all attendees!   In this post you will find the recording, resources and Q&A.

Highlights

Survey123 includes a report service. With it, you can create beautiful PDF reports including maps, photos, tables and more. Build your own reports for compliance, to document the work you do, to share information with stakeholders in a format they are familiar with or simply to create high quality printable documents.

If you are not familiar with Survey123 reports, check this recording first.

Using the Survey123 connector for Microsoft Power Automate, you can automate report generation. This webinar demonstrates how you can trigger reports when a survey is sent, and on a schedule.

Recording

Slides

Find the slides at the bottom of this post (They are attached in PDF format) or click here.

Q&A

• Where is the  April session recording covering the Reports intro? Here. 
• What is the price of Microsoft Power Automate? You can try Microsoft Power Automate for free for a limited period of time. Standard subscription pricing available here.
• Is the new Create Report action Premium? No. The Survey123 connector (including all its triggers and actions) is not a Premium feature of Power Automate. However, report generation consumes ArcGIS Online credits (unless you are creating reports from ArcGIS Enterprise).
• What if I don't have Microsoft Power Automate? How can I automate reports? You can use the Make.com connector to automate reports. Additionally, you can use the Survey123 REST API from Python or any other tool that works with REST APIs. FME Server is a good example of such a tool.
• Can I use the Survey123 Connector and Power Automate with ArcGIS Enterprise? Yes. Check this Esri Technical Article for details.
• Why my flow fails stops working after 2 weeks? Because the Survey123 connection expires after two weeks. Refresh the connection in Power Automate to keep it going. The team is working to address this problem.
• Do I have to upload PDF reports into OneDrive before I can include them as an attachment in an email? Yes, unless you can find another way to do it! 🙂 If you worry about having the files in OneDrive, add a Delete File action at the end of your flow, once the file is attached to the email message.
• How do I refresh my Survey123 connection in Power Automate? In Power Automate, go to Data -> Connections -> Survey123. Click on switch account and re-enter your credentials again.
• Can I automate reports in Make.com? Yes, the report action is available in Make.com. The only thing missing is the WHERE parameter, which you will need in case you want to schedule your reports. We are planning an update to the Make.com connector soon to include the WHERE parameter.

[RobertAnderson3]

I'm glad to see some official comment on the 14 day timeout for the Create Report function on here, I'd been dealing with this but didn't see it noted in any documentation as a limitation.

I really, really hope that that timeout can be resolved quickly as it's a pain point for sure.

It happened to timeout while I was on vacation and since it was tied to my account, it caused problems. We were wondering if my colleague signed in with their credentials (we're both AGOL Organization Admins) if it would have worked or if things would break?

[phess_luckstone]

For your first demo, I followed everything you had mentioned.  The pdf uploads to my one drive and opens perfectly from there, however when I try to open the attachment in the email. I get this error.  Any ideas?

[phess_luckstone]

Just in case anyone follows this post and gets the same error as mine, I had to change the attachment content to body. This has fixed the broken/empty attachment in the email.

[ChaselWood]

Is there an applicable work flow for generating a report once a field has been changed to a certain status? Say we are QC'ing field data in the office and want to automatically set the report to generate once the "Approval Status" field is set to "Approved". We have Survey123 form layers being edited in an Online Experience for approval. 

[RobertAnderson3]

Are the edits being done by submitting Survey123 forms or are they editing the data directly?

You would need to use a Condition in the Automate flow, then set it to run only if it's Approved. Similar can be done using the ArcGIS connector if editing the data directly but I'm less familiar with that connector.

[ChaselWood]

The data is edited in an online Experience after submission, so looks like the ArcGIS Connector will be the path taken. Thank you!

[RobertAnderson3]

No problem! There is a trigger "When a record is updated in a feature layer" that would be what to use I assume, can also find the forum section for the ArcGIS Automate Connector here: https://community.esri.com/t5/arcgis-for-power-automate/ct-p/arcgis-for-power-automate

[MichelleWilliamsERM]

Thank you for ALL this goodness. 

At 14:50 minutes, you add a piece of code that gets covered by the black bar, would you add it here for us? I'd love to get the UTC transformed. I've tried a few things, but they aren't quite right. 

[Lucas_Halphen]

Hello.  I followed the steps as indicated on the video.  But the process stops at the 3rd step.  There is an error, it seems that the source URL is not found. Do I need to request our IT dept. to allow connection with OneDrive, Pwr Auto and S123? 

The S123 that I am using has a template and a webhook. 

Another question: ¿ I wonder how you put a long string of ${variable_name] into such small table boxes without expanding (or keeping the column size as needed)?

[MichelleWong58]

I am trying to access the demo video but it is indicating that something is wrong. Is there a youtube link somewhere?