|
BLOG
|
This blog post outlines a simple workflow to setup offline basemaps in Survey123 for ArcGIS with the recently released Esri Labs Tile Package Kreator tool. Our Prepare basemaps for offline use—Survey123 for ArcGIS | ArcGIS help topic describes at length all the different options available. I strongly recommend that you have a look at the documentation to complement anything you may learn in this post. The purpose of setting up offline basemaps in Survey123 for ArcGIS is to enable field users to navigate their maps even when working disconnected from a network. By default, surveys include a predefined collection of online basemaps. While you will still be able to use Survey123 in disconnected mode, by default the map preview will disappear when you go offline. That is exactly why you want to configure your maps for offline use: so you can keep using your maps while not on a network. Even if your mobile device has good cell coverage, you may want to configure your basemaps offline to avoid data transfer fees. 1) Creating Tile Package files with Tile Package Kreator Tile Package (.tpk) is an Esri file format for delivering rasterized maps for offline use in ArcGIS applications. Tile Packages can be created from ArcGIS Desktop, but a new tool recently released under Esri Labs may fit your needs and simplify the process. This tool is called Tile Package Kreator and is available in the ArcGIS Marketplace. Esri Labs projects are developed by Esri employees and are inspired by our interactions with ArcGIS users like you. Esri Labs projects are free to use but are not official Esri products. These projects do not go through the rigorous software development cycle so they are not holistically tested, documented or supported by Esri technical support. Here are some basic steps to get started with Tile Package Kreator: . Download Tile Package Kreator from the ArcGIS Marketplace. Login with your ArcGIS Online credentials (sorry, no support for ArcGIS Enterprise just yet). Select Create a new Tile Package. A list of available basemaps from which you can create your Tile Packages will be now presented. This list will show all tiled services shared with you on which the exportTiles operation is enabled. Select a basemap from which you want to create a new Tile Package. Define your area of interest. This can be accomplished by either drawing a rectangle or defining a path and distance. Try to keep your area of interest as tight as you can because the larger the area, the larger the output file will be. The path and distance option is pretty handy in cases where your area of interest follows a linear infrastructure (a pipeline or road for example), coastline or river. Set the number of zoom levels. This will determine the maximum level of detail in your offline map. The more zoom levels, the bigger the file will be, but also the more detail field users will observe. Set the name of the output file. Choose to save the file locally. Kreator can upload output Tile Packages directly to your ArcGIS Online account, but in this case we will want to save the file locally. Click on Create Tile Package to initiate the process. Tile Package Kreation will happen asynchronously, so you can go back and start other tasks. You can always look at the tasks you invoked in the past by selecting the History option in the top-right corner of Tile Package Kreator. Tile Packages can get big pretty quickly so you will want to be careful when defining the area of interest and zoom levels. Tile Package Kreator can estimate the final size of your Tile Package when you select a rectangular extent. You will see the size estimate update as you change the size of the area of interest or number of details. Typically, all ArcGIS tiled services are configured with a threshold that defines the maximum number of tiles that can be created from the service. This threshold will limit the total area and zoom levels you can extract. Technically, a Tile Package file is basically a compressed file so you can change its extension to .zip to look at its contents. You will observe that within the file there are a bunch of images and json and xml files defining the projection and tiling schema. 2) Configuring your own survey with a Tile Package The easiest way to associate a Tile Package with your own survey is to drop the .tpk file into the media folder of your survey. . Open Survey123 Connect and select your survey Open the survey file directory by clicking on the folder icon in the left vertical toolbar in Connect. Copy one or more .tpk files into the media folder of your survey Publish your survey to ArcGIS (either ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise) Now that your Tile Package is part of the survey, you are guaranteed that any user who downloads the survey will also have access to the offline basemap. There is nothing the user needs to do, other than selecting the basemap that he or she wants to use. 3) Using the offline basemap in the Survey123 field app Next you will open the Survey123 field app in your own device and download the survey. Along with it, the offline basemap will be downloaded. To use the offline basemap, simply tap on a geopoint question. Once you have the map at full display, use the top-right menu to expand the list of available maps and select the offline map which will be by default be shown last. Common questions: Why are basemaps created with Tile Package Kreator always labeled as 'Layers' in the Survey123 field app? You will notice that despite the name given to your Tile Package, the Survey123 field app will always label your offline basemap as 'Layers' in the basemap switcher. To fix this: . Once you have copied the Tile Package file into the media folder, change the extension of the file from .tpk to .zip so you can open its contents. Browse for the iteminfo.xml file within the esriinfo directory and set the <title> element to the label you want to be used. For example, if you want the title to be Esri Campus Imagery, change edit the <title>Layers</title> tag to: <title>Esri Campus Imagery</title> Save the iteminfo.xml file and change the extension of the .zip file back to .tpk so you can publish the survey aga I have multiple groups of people working in the field, each in its own area. If I create a Tile Package to cover all the areas, its size is too big. How can I handle this? You can publish multiple surveys each with its associated offline basemap. . Create a Tile Package for each area you want to cover Publish one survey per area and associate each survey with its corresponding Tile Package. Configure all surveys to work against the same feature service, so all data submitted is merged into a single feature service. Have field users download surveys corresponding to the areas they are going to work on. Can I control the default basemap shown in the map? What about reducing the number of basemaps in the list? You can take full control over the list of basemaps presented to users in the survey. For example, you can choose to only show the offline basemaps, or to drop or add additional basemaps to the list. You can also control which basemap will be selected by default. The Prepare basemaps for offline use—Survey123 for ArcGIS | ArcGIS help topic describes these settings at length these. Since Tile Package Kreator is not an Esri product, how can I submit enhancement requests and issues? Tile Package Kreator is an open source project. You can submit enhancement requests, issues and even contribute to the source code through Github. Is Tile Package Kreator supported by Esri? No. You need to refer to its Github repo. Can I use Tile Packages created in ArcGIS Desktop with Survey123? Yes. Can I use Tile Packages in Survey123 in a projection other than Web Mercator Auxiliary Sphere? No. Is Esri planning to add support for Vector Tiles in Survey123 for ArcGIS? Vector Tile support is sitting in our back-log at the moment, although we do not have a specific deadline at the moment for it.
... View more
01-30-2017
10:56 PM
|
13
|
30
|
29581
|
|
POST
|
Hi Brian. The idea of being able to see all the data that a field user has collected, right from the mobile device, has come up in several occasions. One feature we are currently looking at implementing consists on adding a 'map view' option to the Survey123 folders (Sent, Drafts, Outbox etc). Would this do what you are looking for?
... View more
01-30-2017
08:17 PM
|
1
|
2
|
1731
|
|
BLOG
|
Hi Terry. Information in this thread may be useful:https://community.esri.com/message/662807-re-make-a-new-question-dependent-on-an-image-capture Essentially, the expression string-length(${imageQuestion})>0 evaluates to true only if a photo has been selected or taken. You can use the expression in the relevant field.
... View more
01-30-2017
07:52 PM
|
2
|
0
|
20259
|
|
POST
|
What about something like this? Also attaching XLSFile. You can use string-length to validate if a photo has been taken. If so, you ask if more photos are needed etc and set relevant statement to hide or show the next image question... then the same pattern can be repeated.
... View more
01-30-2017
07:49 PM
|
5
|
2
|
5955
|
|
POST
|
Hi! Thanks for your feedback. This is in our back-log at the moment. Please if not already vote for and comment on this idea: https://community.esri.com/ideas/12210
... View more
01-30-2017
12:36 PM
|
0
|
3
|
5043
|
|
POST
|
Hi. The original issue with garbled text should have been addressed with the 1.10 release (https://community.esri.com/groups/survey123/blog/2016/12/20/international-human-solidarity-day-release-110 ). If you can reproduce this problem with version 1.10, please let us know the details. Survey123 Connect updates: Starting with the next update of Connect, you should start getting notifications. We added a check in 1.10 so whenever we update the software you will see a warning when you start Connect. Thanks for pointing this out. It has been an enhancement request some people asked for. Ismael
... View more
01-29-2017
09:47 PM
|
0
|
0
|
1254
|
|
BLOG
|
Hi Dan, We will progressively add more functionality into the Survey123 Web Designer. At the moment, you can try the Survey123 Connect option highlighted in the screenshot below, which will launch your survey in a web browser. For this option to be visible, you must have Survey123 Connect version 1.10 or newer and also have your survey published. If you find any issues using your surveys authored in Connect from a web browser, please report the specifics so we can fix the problems. Once you are happy with your survey, you can embed it within an html iFrame or link to it from your own web site, like these guys did.
... View more
01-29-2017
07:54 PM
|
0
|
0
|
28225
|
|
POST
|
Hi Bob, the latest version of Survey123 for ArcGIS now supports format-date. To get the date formatted as you originally requested, you will want to use something like this: format-date(${myDateQuestion},'%Y/%m/%d %H:%M'). You can add this expression to a calculation column for example, and keep the output in a text, note or hidden question. I updated the original https://community.esri.com/groups/survey123/blog/2016/04/17/dates-and-time-in-survey123-for-arcgis post with details on the new format-date function. I hope this helps! Ismael
... View more
01-29-2017
07:45 PM
|
6
|
13
|
28284
|
|
POST
|
Hi. It looks like this could have to do with the way data is imported and interpreted in ArcGIS Online. ArcGIS Desktop is reading the geodatabase domains and presenting to you the code descriptions that Survey123 created. ArcGIS Online, on the other hand, is reading the values, rather than the descriptions. The Survey123 Web Designer hides much of the complexities of building choice lists: We only ask you for the description of your values in the list. For the values, to avoid issues with non-ASCII characters we create corresponding values of choice_0, choice_1 etc So essentially, the descriptions read the way you want it, and the actual values in the database are more cryptic. Very often nobody cares because the clients display the descriptions but in your particular workflow somewhere in the process the descriptions are lost and Online ends up showing the internal values. I think that if you simply take your File Geodatabase and publish it as a Feature Service, you will end up having properly created domains in ArcGIS Online (and you will see the descriptions rather than the values). I am afraid adding your File Geodabase to My Content directly is somehow losing the domains. If these internal values annoy you, you can alternatively download your survey into Survey123 Connect and edit the values in your choice list manually. In this manner, even if you look at the values directly, rather than the description, they will make sense to you.
... View more
01-27-2017
11:16 PM
|
1
|
1
|
2455
|
|
POST
|
Hi. This typically happens when your survey uses an old XLSFile template which is not including the new appearances. We have not found a good way to automatically upgrade your own XLSFiles used in Connect before putting your own work at risk, so this upgrade needs to happen manually. Here are the steps to add new appearances to the list: Go into the Types worksheet in your XLSFile Look for the appearance section Insert a new row somewhere in between the existing appearance values. Do not add the new row at the very end or beginning of the existing appearances In that row type the value of the appearance that you are missing Go back to the survey worksheet and the option should now show Alternatively, if you know the appearances by heart you can disable Excel validation formulas to make the lists completely disappear.
... View more
01-27-2017
11:02 PM
|
1
|
0
|
799
|
|
POST
|
Hi. To set the default value of a time question to the current time, you can use the expression now(). You can also calculate the number of minutes or hours elapsed between two moments in time, right from your mobile device. You will find some information about this in the https://community.esri.com/groups/survey123/blog/2016/04/17/dates-and-time-in-survey123-for-arcgis blog post. For example, you can calculate the time elapsed in minutes between two Date/Time objects by using this expression: int(${TimeLunchEnds} - ${TimeLunchStarts}) div (1000*60) The result of the calculation above can be shown to the user in the form or alternative be hidden from the user (but still stored in the database). As described in the blog post referenced, Date/Time calculations use EPOCH time (milliseconds since 1970). This is the case for Survey123 for ArcGIS version 1.x We are currently working on version 2.0 where the time calculations will be done in Decimal Time. We will write in depth about this change in a couple of weeks. If you happen to build a calculation with Date/Time using EPOCH operations (as above) you will want to stay tuned for this change to Decimal Date in 2.0.
... View more
01-27-2017
10:55 PM
|
3
|
2
|
7422
|
|
POST
|
Hi Carl. Most likely it will be possible to recover this data. Essentially you will want to bring your sqllite and attachments folders into a desktop and use the desktop version of the app to inspect these drafts. It may be best to open a Tech Support incident so one of our analysts can help you through the process. Alternatively you can also follow steps in this help topic.
... View more
01-26-2017
12:22 PM
|
0
|
1
|
1206
|
|
POST
|
I am guessing you could do something like this: Q0: Take a Photo (image question) Q1: More photos? (yes no question. Default to NO) Q:2 Take Photo 2 (use relevant statement to show only if Q1 is yes) Q3: More photos? (yes no question. Default to NO) (use relevant statement to show only if Q1 is yes) Q:4 Take Photo 3 (use relevant statement to show only if Q3 is yes) etc
... View more
01-26-2017
12:19 PM
|
2
|
6
|
13751
|
|
BLOG
|
Hi Selin Ozdemir The behavior above can explained as follows: you downloaded the survey into your device while it was public, but then you unshared it. This caused the app to freeze while trying to access a Form and Feature Service which are no longer available (since they are secured). This is a good catch. We will want to pop a proper message to the user rather than just hang on 'getting service information'. BUG-000101764 is specific to Portal for ArcGIS and it was addressed in 1.10.25. The sympton is the same but the source of the problem was different (and addressed). Thanks for reporting this glitch. I will add this to the back-log so we can think about how to better handle the problem.
... View more
01-24-2017
08:17 PM
|
1
|
0
|
28225
|
|
BLOG
|
Hi Will. Sorry to hear about the problem with geopoints. We need to look at this issue in more detail because our initial testing shows no issues with geopoint in Portal. If you do not mind, please post your XLSForm so we can have a look. If your XLSForm contains confidential information, please open a Tech Support incident. Also some additional details we will need: Version of Portal for ArcGIS in use? Version you used to publish the survey to Portal (if you remember)? And just to be sure although I imagine it is 1.10.25, what is the version (build number) of the Survey123 app?
... View more
01-19-2017
11:33 AM
|
0
|
0
|
3262
|
| Title | Kudos | Posted |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 03-03-2021 09:03 AM | |
| 1 | 04-01-2022 12:48 PM | |
| 1 | 03-22-2022 08:44 AM | |
| 1 | 08-26-2021 02:43 PM | |
| 1 | 10-30-2019 10:15 PM |
| Online Status |
Offline
|
| Date Last Visited |
a week ago
|