Force survey for assignment to be submitted

[CrazyGIS]

Hi there,

We use Workforce in combination with Survey123. Every assignment needs a survey to be filled out.
Is it somehow possible to force the field worker to fill out a survey for an assignment?
We often face the problem that assignments are completed without survey, or a survey is completed but the assignment is not, or that more than one survey per assignment is submitted.

If this functionality doesn't exist so far:
- is there a workaround?
- will it be implemented soon? Maybe as part of field maps?

Thank you for your help and feedback.

[JakeMatthys]

Great question!! 

We also face these same challenges.  Our current solution is to run QA/QC processes nightly to look for Surveys with open WF assignments, Finished WF Assignments without submitted Surveys, declined WF Assignments with submitted Surveys and sniffing for duplicate Survey submissions.  This process is after the fact and we would prefer to have a solution that enforces these business rules (1 Finished Workforce Assignment + 1 Submitted Survey = Completed Inspection) on the front end.

Another solution that we have explored has been to set up Webhooks on our surveys so that a submitted survey would fire a webhook that updates the Workforce Assignment to 'Finished', but this solution also has pitfalls, and only handles one of the conditions I listed above.  

@CrazyGIS thanks for bringing this up.  This has been a pain point that we have been living with as well.

 - Jake

[CraigGillgrass · Accepted solution]

@CrazyGIS @JakeMatthys 

Great question - this has always been a tricky area for us on the Workforce team - we've discussed various scenarios but they all have similar pitfalls to what Jake mentioned.

We do see an area to improve this; once Workforce moves into Field Maps but unfortunately, that will only be for creating/updating features within Field Maps. 

When calling out to other apps - Workforce no longer has the context to know what is happening in that other app.  Once we start looking at this when Workforce is in Field Maps, that will help us to understand how we could address this other apps; such as Survey123.

Until then, setting up a QA/QC process as Jake has outlined is the way to address this.

[AndyGeo]

Hi,
There isn't a way to force the requirement for the Survey123 form to be completed. I think the best way to address this is through training and reinforcing the need to complete the workflow the way it is setup. It's my experience that discussing with staff and consistent reinforcement of the need helps to get staff buyoff on using the tools.

Andy

[DavidRichey]

@JakeMatthys  can you describe your nightly QAQC process more fully, possibly post a script? Thanks for any breadcrumbs you can offer.

[JakeMatthys]

Hi David,

Our QA/QC processes take place in our database (we ETL surveys and assignments out of our Portal into our database every day for long term storage) so our database procedures would probably not be helpful.

But from a business logic perspective we look for a few things:

1. Survey has been submitted, and the Workforce assignment has not be 'Finished'
   1. If Assignment status < 3, email inspector that they need to 'Finish' the in Workforce assignment
   2. If Assignment status > 3, email inspector explaining that they have declined or cancelled the assignment and submitted a survey, these two actions are incongruent and a clarification needs to occur
2. Workforce assignment has been 'Finished' and no survey has been submitted
3. Multiple surveys have been submitted for the same Workforce assignment

Your application of these will differ from ours, but conceptually, this is what we are looking for.

 - Jake