Latest Contributions by BrandonA_CDPH

@DougBrowning  - Thank you so much for your numerous contributions and advice you have given the community. I have a couple of heavily used scripts that are a direct result of your examples and advice (and countless other tidbits here and there). Seriously would not be able to do some of the things I do without you. ... View more

Thank you, Miguel.  I appreciate the confirmation that there isn't a real clean way of doing this. I will assess further if the workarounds will work for this project. Seems like something easy to implement, but I'm no computer programmer, so maybe it's not as straightforward as it seems.   Brandon PS If changing the order of fields in a feature service without republishing the service is something you also want to see, please go to this link and vote up the idea. While you're there, add in your own use case. The more we can say this is something we need, the more likely it is to get implemented. Thanks. Change order of Feature Service Fields - Esri Community ... View more

Is there a way to reorder the fields in the feature service itself? I export the table as an Excel for further processing. I recently had to add a field and it put it at the end, making the next step much mor difficult for the user.   Thanks. ... View more

I'm posting a reply to hopefully bring the back to the top and get some assistance.  I keep poking around online, in my xlsForm sheet, asking around my groups - I can't figure out what's going on. Any advice (no matter how obvious it seems) would be appreciated. ... View more

This would be very useful for me as well. Specifically, when using "grid" layouts for surveys, I sometimes design multiple surveys for different uses (mobile vs desktop vs dashboard). Another use case is significant updates. I have a group of users who can be "change averse". When publishing a major update/change in a form, I will copy the old form and use URL parameters to have it feed the same feature service as the new form. This allows for the old form to be used while training and troubleshooting happen with the new form. It would be better if I could hide one of the versions from the Download Surveys list and provide the QR or link to specific users. In both cases, the users for both version of the form are the same, so group controls don't solve the problem. ... View more

To add to what @abureaux was suggesting, if this question is "yes", does that mean they only need to fill in the second survey, or does the first one need to be filled in as well? I don't have a solution to automatically open the survey, but I do have a possible workaround. One thing I have done with my surveys is a "gateway" question. Below this question, I put the rest of the survey in a group. The answer to the gateway question(s) triggers the relevant for the group and (inversely) triggers a note with a link to the second survey. Then the only choice they have is to click the link and go to the second survey. For an example, let's say you have two surveys: Survey1 (the main one) and Survey 2 (the secondary one). Survey 1 has Question X that, if yes, requires the user to fill in Survey 2. - I think this is your scenario. The workflow goes like this: the survey goes along until Question X . After question X, there is a note with a link to Survey 2 (and some calculated URL parameters) - with a relevant statement [QuestionX='yes'] All questions after Question X are in a group. That group has a relevant statement that says [QuestionX="no"]. The answer to question X determines if they see the link to Survey 2 or the rest of Survey1. If the first survey still needs to be completed either way, then Question X could just trigger the note. You could then have a second "gateway" question that is simply "Did you fill in Survey 2?" - if yes, the rest of the form shows, if no it hides the rest of the form with a default of "no" and a relevant statement that only shows this queston if Question X = 'yes'. This would mean that if Question X is yes, they have to return to Survey1, verify that Survey2 was completed, then Survey 1 continues.  On a side note, I will sometimes have these "gateway" questions in fields with Bind::esri:FieldType = null. this way I don't clutter up my data with unnecessary fields, but that's a choice. I hope that all makes sense to someone beside me. 🤓 To hopefully help, I attached a simplified sample that does what I'm describing. Good luck and happy survey authoring! ... View more

I'm also interested to see what others think on this.  Sounds like we have had similar paths into the field. Once in a while I consider something like GISP or one of Esri's technical certifications. Then I wonder what it would actually do for me. I guess I haven't really found a good reason where I am to go through the process of a certification. ... View more

This would be great for my workflows as well.  We collect operating hours for licensed businesses. It would be great to have that as a single field per day, instead of 14 fields. I can also see this useful for things like a range of distances or measurements (numbers instead of time).  I'm thinking about our workflow where we have to take multiple temperature measurements and report the high and low temperatures. This is currently through a text box, but if it was a numeric range in one field, that would really enhance our dashboard and other charting. We could automatically flag and mark certain entries based on max, min, and range much easier than the text field currently used. ... View more

My experience with VDI has been less than optimal. I ran into issues with our IT not being able to allocate the graphics memory to the virtual machine. They kept increasing the amount of processing power I was allocated, but the software would lag, crash, and freeze any time I did anything with graphics (like try to modify a layout). After some research and trial and error, it was an issue of graphics processing power, and I was issued a laptop instead. This was a few years ago and things may have changed.  Also, I'm not an IT person, so I don't know if this is a limitation in all VDI systems or just ours (or even just our IT being unwilling). ... View more

@Courtney360 - First of all, if "everyone has the capability", why are there so many companies looking for GIS consultants? 😄But, besides that...   My wife is a handmade goods artist. Not sure if it provides the kind of coverage you need, but she uses ACT (Artist and Craft Show Liability Insurance | ACT Insurance). They have really reasonable rates for general liability insurance for "makers" (and, if you ever want to produce map art and show it - they provide additional insureds for shows). I have a gov job right now but have been exploring the consulting field. I am curious to hear more about what others,like yourself, have found in the insurance space. ... View more

Yes, as Jesse pointed out, I too had a "non-GIS" route to my GIS role.  In short, my schooling is in microbiology. I used maps but didn't really have a clue what GIS was in school.  I wandered through biotech and taught high school for a time. Then, I sort of fell into my current team in foodborne illness outbreaks (wait, where's the GIS?) We were using maps and there was some basic use of ArcMap, but nobody really dedicated to using and improving GIS skills. I saw the geospatial data we were collecting and realized it was really cool and we could be doing some powerful stuff with it. So, between field work and investigations, I taught (continue to teach) myself GIS. When the opportunity comes up, I take a class here and there, but largely self taught. It was total chance that I even got my first job in this Unit and even stranger that I found and have honed in on GIS. I look forward to hearing other "origin stories" of us unlikely GIS superheroes. 👨‍💻 ... View more