Future of Workforce for ArcGIS?

[JamieKelly1]

In future versions of workforce for ArcGIS, with regard to Survey123 integration, are there any plans:

1.)  To have the ability to pass the value of workOrderId to survey123 for ArcGIS?

2.)  Add custom fields to the assignment layer and have the ability to pass the values of those fields to survey123?

3.)  Allow administrator to set which survey123 form is opened based on assignment type?

These are all features we would love to have here in our organization.  We are working on a system that integrates Workforce and Survey123 into an existing piece of software we use for building inspections.

Here is the process in a nutshell:

 -  When a user creates an inspection and assigns it to an employee in our existing software, we have automated the creation of an assignment in workforce.  We set the workforce assignment workOrderId field equal to our inspection_id.

-  The mobile user receives the assignment as per usual, and then to begin their inspection we take advantage of the integration with survey123 (allowing the user to open survey123 from the assignment information screen in workforce).

-  It would be great here, if we could open the electrical inspection form for an electrical inspection assignment type, or open the concrete inspection form for a concrete inspection assignment type.

-  If we could automatically fill out the inspection_id when the survey123 form opened, then we would have a relationship back to the inspection request from the completed inspection.

[KylePyne]

I just wanted to add my input as far as additional scenarios where a custom field could be useful.

We are currently testing Workforce/Survey123 for underground line inspections. A lot of the data is gathered pre-inspection and needs to be pushed to the technician such as address, contractor name, phone number, yard line type, contractor qualifications, etc. All of this information then needs to be inputted into the survey123 form for record keeping/importing to geodatabase. We can use the notes in Workforce to convey this data but that leaves the surveyor manually copy/pasting data into the individual questions which can be cumbersome. 

Also, more data may be inputted from the office into the survey123 inspection after it has been completed and there does not seem to be a simple way to get to the created survey from workforce.

Another useful option would be (once the assignment is complete) a link to the corresponding survey would appear.

I am looking forward to the 1st and 3rd features above being implemented!

[CraigGillgrass]

Hi Kyle,

Thanks for your feedback on this issue.  Can you go into more details on the use case for linking to a survey from a completed Work Assignment?  Is this for the Worker, the Dispatcher or another user in the organization?

thanks,

[KylePyne]

Sure! In our scenario, the dispatcher will need to see the related inspection survey so they can follow up with the corresponding contractor/customer and give them details on the passed or failed inspection. Workforce has a great interface for immediately viewing the surveyors attachments and notes, but to view the actual details of what was completed the dispatcher must go into Survey123 and sort through the surveys to find the corresponding one. 

Not to mention if the surveyor accidentally types an incorrect date/address/etc in their survey, the dispatcher will have a more difficult time trying to locate the corresponding form in Survey123. This is simplified now that the work order ID is transferred over to the survey, but it would be great if a link was sent alongside the surveyors notes that opened up the submitted survey.

In the future we would like to use Workforce/Survey123 to dispatch other jobs such as meter installs/service connects/leak calls but those will also require multiple fields the dispatcher will need to quickly view, and going through the Survey123 portal may become quickly cluttered and/or time consuming, especially since Workforce already does a fantastic job at organizing and displaying all the assignments.

I hope this makes sense and I am not looking at the Survey123-Workforce relationships all wrong.

[MarkBennett]

Hi Graig,

I am aware that the next release of WF/Survey123 integration may already have the ability to pass the WO-ID and location information to from WF to Survey123. I'd like add a few cases for adding other values as well in the future. 

Background: We are using WF for small utilities who can not afford expansive mobile WO system. 1. We use WF for day-to-day operations and create hundreds assignments every week. Therefore, we backup closed assignments monthly and remove them from the active WF projects. 2. WF contains very limited number of fields, we are going to use survey123 for collect more information in the field. Here are some functions that we want:

1. Add a Feature/Facility ID field in the Assignment feature class. Most assignments, if not all, is related to a feature/asset. All of our assets layers has a feature ID field. If the feature ID is passed to assignment, the accumulated assignments data will be very helpful for assets management analysis. The Location field is currently use to store the "assignment address" for field workers.

2. We like the following value passed from WF to Survey123 and here is why:

    a. GlobalID: We can use it as "key" to created relationshipClass between assignments and detailed information table.

    b. WOID:

    c. FeatureID: If possible, we can use it to relate to assets feature class, such as meters/accounts, valves, hydrants, etc...

    b. AssignmentType: Although this information is already in assignment layers itself, pass assignmentType to Survey123 could allow us to take advantage to "conditional appearance" of fields in Survey123. Different type of assignment may require different set of information to collect in the fields. For example, account relation assignment need worker to collect meter reading; new installation need to record part's serial number, leaking repair needs to collect leak-type and severity and amount, Hydrant flushing need ... . Auto-fill of assignment type will be very very helpful to simplify the survey interface!!

    c.  Because each user have different requirements, is it possible to make the auto-fill/pass-value a configurable process in the set-up? In that configuration, user can select and map the fields for auto-fill. Or have the option, if the field name and type in the survey table match the field name and type in the assignment, the value will be passed over.

needless to say it again: the WF and Survey123 are great! And you and your team are very helpful!

Thanks,

Ming

[CraigGillgrass]

Hi Ming,

I am aware that the next release of WF/Survey123 integration may already have the ability to pass the WO-ID and location information to from WF to Survey123.

The next release of Workforce will have this ability, we're finishing up the release now.

WF contains very limited number of fields, we are going to use survey123 for collect more information in the field.

If Workforce allowed additional fields to be added, viewed and edited in the Dispatcher and Mobile apps - would this help?  If it does help; what fields would you add?

We have an issue in our backlog to add the ability to also pass other fields from Workforce to Collector and Survey123.  FeatureID (ObjectID) and GlobalID are both in the issue.  WorkOrderID we will support in our next release. 

AssignmentType is not something we plan to pass.  We already allow the App Integrations to be applied at the Assignment Type level; from your description I think this would help to solve the issue.

    c.  Because each user have different requirements, is it possible to make the auto-fill/pass-value a configurable process in the set-up? In that configuration, user can select and map the fields for auto-fill. Or have the option, if the field name and type in the survey table match the field name and type in the assignment, the value will be passed over.

Who is the user in this example?  Is it the Project Owner, Dispatcher or Worker?

Craig

[MarkBennett]

Graig,

"If Workforce allowed additional fields to be added, viewed and edited in the Dispatcher and Mobile apps - would this help?  If it does help; what fields would you add?"

------ Yes, it will help! If the value of some of these fields can be passed from the attributes of the identified feature, if will be even better. For us, the FeatureID is "Must have". Other possible field could be accountNumber, MeterReading, etc.

"We already allow the App Integrations to be applied at the Assignment Type level;"

------ Does this mean that different survey can be open based on the AssignmentType?

"Who is the user in this example?  Is it the Project Owner, Dispatcher or Worker"

-------- Project Owner.

Thanks and looking forward to next release!

Ming

[CraigGillgrass]

Ming,

"If Workforce allowed additional fields to be added, viewed and edited in the Dispatcher and Mobile apps - would this help?  If it does help; what fields would you add?"

------ Yes, it will help! If the value of some of these fields can be passed from the attributes of the identified feature, if will be even better. For us, the FeatureID is "Must have". Other possible field could be accountNumber, MeterReading, etc.

Ok, this is something we've discussed for a future release; I do not have a timeframe for it yet, but it is something we're considering.

"We already allow the App Integrations to be applied at the Assignment Type level;"

------ Does this mean that different survey can be open based on the AssignmentType?

Yes, this is possible with the released version of Workforce today.

"Who is the user in this example?  Is it the Project Owner, Dispatcher or Worker"

-------- Project Owner.

Ok, this will be possible with the release we are currently working on.

Craig

[ErickPoundFDNY]

Has there been any movement on the addition of custom fields to the assignments layer? We are looking to begin using Workforce for emergency management assignments and may need to add additional fields. We have currently skinned this cat by just concatenating the fields and placing them in 'notes' but that's far from ideal. Thanks for any updates.

[CraigGillgrass]

Erick,

The ability to expose other fields to the Web and Mobile apps is still in our backlog and in our roadmap, but has not been assigned to a release.

Can you expand on what you're using these fields for and how you're using them in the Notes field right now?  Is this to pass information to another app, such as Survey123 or Collector?

thanks, Craig

[CraigGillgrass]

Hello,

With the Workforce release that is happening tonight we will be adding the ability to pass any field to any of the apps such as Survey123, Collector or Field Maps.

Please let me know if you see any issues with this.

thanks,

Craig Gillgrass

esri