Latest Contributions by IsmaelChivite

You may noticed that on September 16 we updated Survey123 in the Apple, Microsoft and Google Play stores. We also refreshed the Survey123 website and the doc. You did not notice? Well, now you know! We are excited to present our September 2021 release. Watch this 2 minute video for a quick overview: And here are some additional details: New Address question type Image support in the ArcGIS Survey123 field app inbox Calculations in the Survey123 web designer XLSForm improvements Other enhancements New Address question type   The user experience you choose for users to submit data, dictates the quality of the data you get.  In many scenarios, an address, not a map, is the simplest and most natural way to describe the exact location of something. With the new Address question type, you will help users enter an address into a Survey123 form easier and faster than ever before. IsmaelChivite_0-1631898946239.gif   Predictive text helps end users more quickly enter an address and boosts the quality of data by standardizing user input When it comes to collecting the location of something, the new Address question is a great alternative to the Map question type. It can simplify and accelerate data capture, while boosting the quality of your location data. Read these two blog posts to learn more about the new Address question:   Working with the Address question type in the Survey123 designer Survey123 Tricks of the Trade: Addresses, and the XLSForm geocode appearance   Image support in the Survey123 field app inbox   The inbox is a powerful feature. It lets you download and edit your data in the Survey123 field app. The inbox is commonly used to support routine asset inspection workflows and to manage field work assignments. Up until this release, records in the inbox included geometry and attributes as well as related features, but not attachments. Starting with version 3.13, the Survey123 field app let’s you dynamically download images associated with records in your inbox. The animation below shows a hydrant inspection workflow.  A hydrant record previously downloaded into the inbox is opened showing its location, attributes, and information about previous inspections. Note that the inspection log includes photos as well. IsmaelChivite_0-1631899424388.gif   Survey123 records from the Survey123 field app inbox now support images Support for images in the inbox has been a popular ArcGIS Suvey123 Idea for a while, so we are pleased to make a good start on this one!   Calculations and hidden questions in the Survey123 web designer   Authoring forms with the Survey123 web designer is as easy as dragging questions into your design and visually configuring their look, feel and behavior. All from your web browser! With the Survey123 web designer you can intuitively build powerful smart forms in minutes, distribute them and immediately use the collected data to support decision making. In addition to the new Address question, this release introduces support for calculations in the web designer. Through a calculation, you can populate a question using previously entered data from your form. For example, you can take values from two numeric questions and automatically calculate their average in a third question. A well-designed smart form uses calculations to enrich your data while minimizing user input. In the animation below, for example, a calculation is used to automatically extract the postal code from an address question.  The postal code value is stored in a separate field and hidden from the user to avoid distraction. IsmaelChivite_1-1631899425354.gif       XLSForm improvements   XLSForm is the language of smart forms. Survey123 adheres to this powerful industry standard. Survey123 Connect is a desktop application that you can download to author and publish Survey123 forms using the XLSForm specification.  With every release, XLSForm support in Survey123 grows. Here is what’s new: Dynamic lists: Use the search appearance to dynamically populate a choice list from a query to a feature layer or CSV file. To learn more, read this blog article covering dynamic lists  in Esri Community. The new body::esri:visible column lets you use an expression to control the visibility of a question while preserving its current value. Use the body::accept column to control which file extensions can be uploaded to a file question in your form. Guidance hints, external CSV files and input masks are now supported by the Survey123 web app. A new URL parameter lets you force the recalculation of a question when the form is opened in edit mode in the Survey123 web app. To learn more about XLSForm, check our XLSForm essentials help.   Other enhancements   Finally, this update brings many other enhancements including:   Survey123 & Field Maps form comparison: Did you ever wonder what smart form capabilities Field Maps and Survey123 support? Check out the Form Comparison help topic for the whole rundown. Streamlined annotation tools user experience: Did you know you can annotate photos, maps and diagrams right from within the Survey123 field app? Even if you already know, you should check the massive UX improvements added in this release. Enhanced web accessibility in the Survey123 web app: This update adds support for screen readers among other things, but for the details check our recently updated web accessibility conformance report and this best web accessibility best practices blog for Survey123 authors. Survey123 report service: The creation of reports with many maps and images is now faster. We are confident you will be able to tell the difference! We also added options to help you format numbers better and to specify custom symbology for Survey123 features in the map. Check our Survey123 report syntax help. Do you love Python? Then you will love our new ArcGIS Survey123 Tools Github repo. It includes many scripts and tools to help you automate common Survey123 tasks: cloning surveys across organizations, downloading data, automating reports and much more. Best of all? All scripts are shared under the Apache 2.0 Open Source license and the repo is open for your contributions.   Fixes   Survey123 website, web app and report service:   BUG-000141535 When the language and region are set to Deutsch - German and Schweis in ArcGIS Online, the basemap is missing when adding a map point element in the ArcGIS Survey123 website. BUG-000139232 Removing and adding a new rule in Survey123 Web Designer after saving and returning to the survey design results in rule corruption. BUG-000136446 The editing mode of a read-only dateTime question is displaying incorrect date on the ArcGIS Survey123 Data tab. BUG-000136255 Unable to change the post-submission screen text in the Survey123 web designer for surveys created in ArcGIS Survey123 Connect. BUG-000135538 Setting a rule based on a choice which includes a greater than or less than symbol (> or <) corrupts a Survey123 survey in the Survey123 web designer. ENH-000124334 300 Pixel image size restriction on media image of note type question on Survey123 web form. BUG-000137634 When logged into the ArcGIS Survey123 web app with an ArcGIS Online account assigned the ‘Viewer’ role, few attachments do not display the related survey information. ENH-000137084 Improve performance and loading time for Analysis tab in Survey123 Web App BUG-000141844 The long text in the individual response does not wrap correctly BUG-000135544 Label issue on 2 buttons of the ArcGIS Survey123 website. BUG-000135151 Hidden questions from Connect are not shown in Analyze tab ENH-000124712 Allow user to create hidden question types in the Survey123 web browser designer. BUG-000136526 Reverse geocoding with a custom geocoder fails in the ArcGIS Survey123 web app. BUG-000136503 There are issues submitting the required DateTime question in the ArcGIS Survey123 mobile browser. BUG-000136079 In the Data tab in ArcGIS Survey123 web designer, renaming photos does not work and reverts to the previous name after submitting the changes. BUG-000138673 jr:choice-name() function yields 'TypeError: Cannot read property 'previousElementSibling' of undefined' when used on cascaded selection question & mode=edit for the URL parameter BUG-000125125 The pulldata() function fails for web form surveys if Portal for ArcGIS is configured with IWA BUG-000126788 Cannot access itemsets.csv on Portal with IWA BUG-000140054 The ArcGIS Survey123 web app fails to load a form with a large CSV file when open in a browser on a mobile device. BUG-000137706 BUG-000137670 Language switcher not changing the result of pulldata("@property",'language') or jr:choice-name BUG-000138683 Multiline appearance is not available in the ArcGIS Survey123 web form for an Image question with a Count-Selected constraint. BUG-000138319 Relevant expressions using the selected (${questionName}, 'answer') syntax are not honored when "Select One" values have spaces in them BUG-000140240 Support the new body::esri:visible column to hide a question ENH-000131088 Allow Survey123 WebApp to toggle between repeatable collection of questions specified under 'Repeat' ENH-000120355 Include the ability to utilize Input Masks into the Survey123 Web Application ENH-000138218 Allow geo point symbology to be customized in ArcGIS Survey123 feature reports BUG-000135518 The Event Data is not passed as a Dynamic Field through the Survey123 Connector DE-000004525 BUG-000136604 When generating a report on the Survey123 website for a survey response with many maps the tasks fails with the message: "An error occurred when printing. " ENH-000136451 Enhance Survey123 website feature report tool to allow more than 10 minutes for printing each object or add the capability to change the waiting time to avoid timeout errors in surveys with a large number of related records. BUG-000140099 Survey123 feature report export jobs do not complete if there are too many records exported at once even if the same dataset/quantity of records could be exported all at once in previous versions of Survey123. DE-000004656 DE-000004304 BUG-000129586 Generating the feature report fails when the records have a large number of photo-enabled related records. DE-000004394 BUG-000138738 When printing a report, if the survey is complex and survey data is large enough, the error message "An error occurred when preparing. " will be raised   Survey123 Connect   BUG-000113652 Republish hangs when you have added questions only to a repeat or nested repeat BUG-000116136 Survey123 Connect for ArcGIS sends an empty payload for the /addtodefinition and /updatedefinition calls if the server responds with a 301 or 302 during the publishing process, which results in empty hosted feature layers. BUG-000135737 ArcGIS Survey123 Connect and the ArcGIS Survey123 field app crash when creating a survey or opening an existing survey with reverse geocode on some Windows devices BUG-000137194 - A white screen displays in ArcGIS Survey123 Connect with VMware SVGA 3D 8.17.2.2   Survey123 Field App   ENH-000110614 - Support adding image attachments during the editing process Repeat groups now honor the w parameter when arranged in a grid-theme. If you use a repeat in a theme-grid, ensure you specify a 2 parameter. ENH-000112172 View/Add image attachments to existing features while online ENH-000121761 In Survey123 for ArcGIS, allow the option to preserve the Exif (exchangeable image file format) metadata containing location information for the annotated images. BUG-000138199: Provide a mechanism for strings that can be parsed as numbers to remain strings BUG-000136248 'Send' (outbox) and 'Empty' (sent folder) buttons on certain devices don't always work BUG-000138281: The ArcGIS Survey123 field app locks users out of Active Directory when accessing a survey with a linked web map over a Portal for ArcGIS connection using Integrated Windows Authentication (IWA) BUG-000138406 - Using the OpenStreetMap Daylight Esri Street Style (Beta) layer in a linked map causes ArcGIS Survey123 to crash on Motorola Moto G6 and E6 devices BUG-000130821 ENH-000126229 Table-list appearance not working when style is set to pages and using field-list BUG-000138381 Survey123 failing to submit when moved to background BUG-000137976 Issue when uploading images to Image question on iOS 14 BUG-000127404 When selecting the drop-down list for an auto-complete question on Android, the keyboard momentarily appears ENH-000128920 Survey123 login sequence- requests with improper user-agent More resources and next steps   To learn more about what’s new in this and previous releases, check out the What’s new help archive.   You can also find more Survey123 content in the ArcGIS blog. We are already working on our next update. Join the Survey123 Early Adopter Community to get access to the latest version of the software, read documentation on upcoming features an participate in the early adopter user forums. ... View more

    In many cases, an address is the most natural and accurate way to specify the location of something. Knowing where things happen is important as we all know.  It is not a coincidence that we see ourselves often entering an address when completing a form. Now, working with addresses has its own challenges: How do you avoid typos? How can you tell the postal code was entered correctly? How do you add address data into a map reliably? The address question type in Survey123 is specifically designed to help you collect addresses with confidence and map your survey responses without effort. Survey123 web app address autocomplete.gif   In this blog, I will describe how you, as a survey author, can get the best out of the address question in Survey123 web designer.   If you use Survey123 Connect to design your surveys, I suggest you read Survey123 Tricks of the Trade: Addresses, and the XLSForm geocode appearance. Why an address question   Addresses deserve their own question type! Here is why the Address question rocks:   Streamlined data entry: The autocomplete feature of the address question helps respondents enter information faster. It can’t get easier than autocompletion as you type! Better quality data: Backed by the ArcGIS World Geocoding service, or your own ArcGIS locator, the address question validates user-entered data on the fly, reducing typos and inconsistencies. Survey results automatically mapped: The location of addresses entered in Survey123 can be automatically added to a map, helping you visualize and geographically analyze survey responses. No post processing needed! Data normalization: Using calculations in your form design, you can easily extract address information into multiple fields: postal code, country, latitude and longitude, geocoding score, etc. Web accessibility: The address question is compatible with screen readers and keyboard navigation, making your online surveys more web accessible.   Getting started   The address question type is available in the Survey123 web designer. To get started, add this question into your survey design as shown in the animation below. Survey123 web designer address question (Short).gif   After you set the label of your question and optionally its hint, an important decision to make is what data you want to submit:   Address text and point geometry: Stores the address entered by the user as text and it also adds the address location to a map. This option is great if you want to view and analyze survey responses geographically. Storing the location of an address as provided by the ArcGIS World Geocoding service is subject to ArcGIS Online credit consumption as described in the Credits by capability section of the ArcGIS Online help. Address text only: Stores the address entered as text. If you plan to collect multiple addresses in your form, or if you are already collecting a location through a map question, you will want to choose this option.   The importance of locators   The autocomplete feature of the address question is critical to ensure the best experience for the respondent and the highest quality possible for your data. The smarter you can make the autocomplete behavior, the happier respondents will be and the better data you will get. Address questions are powered by either the ArcGIS World Geocoding service or your own locator. They both provide a well-known collection of addresses that will be used to support the autocomplete feature in the form.  In the animation below, the locator has been configured to find addresses anywhere in the world. Note that as the user starts entering the address, the list of candidates includes addresses from various countries. Address_World_Geocode_Locator.gif   In the next animation, the same address is entered but the list of candidates is restricted to the city of Redlands. This is because the locator is configured to only look for addresses in Redlands, California. Address_World_Geocode_Locator_View.gif   Restricting your locator to limit address candidates within your area of interest is always a good practice. A more accurate list of candidates is a first step toward better quality data.   Configuring locators   Address questions leverage your organization's geocoding service. If you want the Survey123 address question to filter addresses by country or area, you need to configure your organization's geocoding service accordingly. In many cases, administrators use the ArcGIS World Geocoding service. If that is the case, you can create a new locator view to tailor the geocoding behavior. As soon as you configure your organization to use that locator view as the geocoding service, your Survey123 address questions will start limiting addresses accordingly. To configure your organization's geooding service check this help topic. Please note that the use of the ArcGIS World Geocoding service for the purpose of finding addresses to store their location in a feature layer is subject to ArcGIS Online credit consumption.  Check the credits consumption by capability section in the ArcGIS Online help. Calculations   While it is great to collect complete addresses as text in a single field, you may want to split out and store certain address properties separately such as the country, city or postal code. Having this information in separate fields gives you extra flexibility to query your survey records and create live dashboards and maps. Using the Survey123 designer, you can add new questions to your form and automatically calculate them to persist these address properties. Here is a step-by-step quick guide to show you how it's done. Say for example, you want to extract the postal code out of the address and store it in a separate hidden question: Add an address question to your survey. Add a text question. Change the label to postal code. Look for the Calculation property and click the Edit link. Extract the postal code from the address question and save your calculation. Go to the Other properties section of the text question and check the option to hide it from the survey. The animation below shows the steps as well. Survey123 web designer calculation address postal code.gif     You can use this technique to extract the latitude, longitude, country code, city, postal code, the geocoding match score, the match address, and the user input text.  Most of these properties are self-explanatory, but here are some additional details: Match score: This is a number between 0 and 100 describing how well the entered address matches an existing address in your locator. If the match is 100, the match is perfect. It is good practice to keep this score as an attribute in your survey results to understand the quality of data entered. Match address: This is the text representation of the address that best matches the user-entered text. User input text: This is the text that the user entered in the form. If the user selects an address from the list of candidates presented, the user input text will be replaced with the match address and have a score of 100. If the user does not select an address from the candidate list, the user input text will be different to the , and the score lower than 100. I really like to use calculations as described above. They help keep the survey design simple for end users, and at the same time generate a great data model.   Wrapping up and sharing some additional thoughts   If you ever need to collect an address, you should consider the use of the address question. While you can collect address information using plain text questions, the address question will keep your survey design simpler, will improve and accelerate the user experience of respondents, and will help you collect better quality data.   In cases where you currently use a map to collect a location, the address question could also be a great alternative. While maps let you collect location data, when it comes to defining a location through an address there is nothing simpler and better than just typing the address.  If you worry about web accessibility, the address question is a better option than the map question type. Having said this, you will not always be able to replace a map with an address question; sometimes, people need to pinpoint a location away from an address in a map. In some counties there is not a good address system in place, etc. There are plenty of good uses for the address question.  I encourage you to experiment with it to learn in more detail everything it can offer to you. ... View more

    In many cases, an address is the most natural and accurate way to specify the location of something. Knowing where things happen, is important as we all know.  It is not a coincidence that we see ourselves often entering an address when completing a form. Now, working with addresses has its own challenges: How do you avoid typos? How can you tell the postal code was entered correctly? How do you add address data into a map reliably? The geocode appearance in XLSForm is specifically designed to help you collect addresses with confidence and map your survey responses without effort.   Survey123 web app address autocomplete.gif    In this blog, I will describe how you, as a survey author, can get the best out of the geocode appearance in Survey123 Connect version 3.13 or newer.    Why the geocode appearance    The geocode appearance turns an ordinary text question into a great user experience for collecting address information. This is why the geocode appearance is worth your consideration: Streamlined data entry: The geocode appearance adds an autocomplete experience on top a text question.  It can’t get easier than autocompletion as you type! Better quality data: Backed by the ArcGIS World Geocoding service, or your own ArcGIS locator, the geocode appearance standardizes user entered data on the fly, reducing typos and inconsistencies. Survey results automatically mapped: The location of addresses entered through the geocode appearance can be automatically calculated, helping you visualize and geographically analyze survey responses right away. No post processing needed. Data normalization: Using calculations in your form design, you can easily extract address information into multiple fields: postal code, country, latitude and longitude, geocoding score, etc. This enriches your data while keeping your survey design clean. Web accessibility: If used in the Survey123 web app, the address question is compatible with screen readers and keyboard navigation, making your online surveys more web accessible.    Getting started   Apply the geocode appearance to a text question in your XLSForm design to get started. If you cannot find the geocode choice in the list of appearances, you can type it in directly.   IsmaelChivite_0-1631948408814.png   Next save your changes in the XLSForm to trigger a design preview update in Survey123 Connect. You will now see that your text question has address auto-complete capabilities. That’s not all, it is just a start!  You can try your new form in the Survey123 web and field apps. Note: If you set the geocode appearance of a text question and the Connect preview does not show any change, it is likely that the version of Survey123 Connect you have is prior to version 3.13. The importance of locators   Address auto-completion is powered by either the ArcGIS World Geocoding service or your own ArcGIS locator service. They both provide a well-known collection of addresses that is used to support the predictive text feature in the form.  The smarter you can make the autocomplete behavior, the happier respondents will be and the better data you will get. In the animation below, the locator has been configured to find addresses anywhere in the world. Note that as the user starts entering the address, the list of candidates includes addresses from various countries. Address_World_Geocode_Locator.gif    In the next animation, we enter exactly the same address, but the list of candidates is restricted to the city of Redlands. This is because the locator is configured to only look for addresses in Redlands, California.   Address_World_Geocode_Locator_View.gif     Restricting your locator to provide candidates just within your area of interest is always a good practice. A more accurate list of candidates is a first step towards better quality data.    Configuring locators   When the geocode appearance is set, Survey123 automatically leverages the utility geocoding service of your ArcGIS organization. To better control the candidates shown by the geocode appearance, it is recommended that you configure your organization geocoding utility service to search only for specific types of locations within your area of interest. You can also configure your organization’s geocoding service to use multiple locators. If your organization’s geocoding service uses the ArcGIS World Geocoding service, you can create a new locator view to refine the candidate search. For example, you can filter addresses by country, geographic extent, etc.  Changes in your organization’s geocoding service configuration  are picked up by Survey123 when the form loads. You do not need to republish your survey for the changes to take effect. Additionally, you can also use the bind::esri:parameters column of your XLSForm to specify the item ID of the ArcGIS locator service or locator view to be used. If you do this, the organization’s geocoding service configuration will be ignored, and the specified locator service will be used instead. The screenshot below shows how to use the geocode bind::esri:parameter to work with a specific locator service.    IsmaelChivite_0-1631912008109.png     Ah! One more thing: If you decide to create your own ArcGIS locator using ArcGIS Enterprise, enable the suggest operation in your service. Otherwise, the geocode appearance will not be able to provide the autocomplete experience without further configuration steps. As of this release, the geocode appearance cannot work against locator packages. Only locator services are supported.   Extracting address properties with calculations   While it is great to keep the complete addresses as text in a single field, you may want to split out and store separately certain address properties such as the country, city or postal code. Having this information in separate fields will give you extra flexibility to query your survey records and create live dashboards and maps. Using the pulldata("@json") function you can extract properties from the address entered by the user and store them separately in other fields. Here is an example:   IsmaelChivite_1-1631948491740.png   The exact properties you can extract from the address depend on the locator used by the geocode question. In the example above, I show just a few of the many properties you will find when using the ArcGIS World Geocoding service. If you use a custom locator service, the properties present may vary. To figure out what exact properties you can extract I like to display the json output of the geocode operation by using this calculation: string(pulldata("@json", ${address})). To explore the output in detail, make sure you set the expression in the calculation column of a text question using the multiline appearance. Just in case the json string is too long for the default length of a text question, you will also want to set the value of the bind::esri:fieldLength to 9999999   IsmaelChivite_2-1631948737624.png   Use Survey123 Connect to enter an address and see what the json looks like. From there, you will quickly see what properties you can extract. To finish this section, I want to give you extra details about a few properties that you will always find regardless of the locator you use: Score: The score property describes the quality of the entered address. A value of 100 means that the user entered an address that matches 100% an existing address in your locator. If the user starts typing an address and selects a candidate from the list, then the user entered text will be replaced by the candidate and you will get a value of 100. If the user ignores the candidates and enters an address that is not listed as a candidate the score will be lower. Address: The address property shows the address that more closely matches the user entered address. This is also known as the match address. searchText: This property shows the text the end user entered. If the score property is 100, the value of the searchText will be the same as the address property. Otherwise, it will be different. The pulldata("@json") expression as shown above gives you great flexibility to enrich your GIS records with important information you can use later to measure the quality of your addresses or to more easily query survey results.   Using address properties to create data validation rules   You can also use pulldata("@json") to build data validation logic in your form. For example, you can build a rule to prevent a user from submitting an address if not within a city, as shown below:   IsmaelChivite_3-1631948867931.png   Similarly, you can choose to reject addresses below a threshold geocoding score. Storing the location of an address as a point geometry   Sometimes, you may want to store the location of the address as a point to automatically show your survey results in a web map, dashboard or analyze your survey results geographically. Working with some Survey123 users we have found out that compared to a map question, the geocode appearance can help significantly improve the quality of the location data you collect.  To many survey respondents, it is much easier to enter an address than to pinpoint the location in a map. If you are collecting locations of well-known addresses, the geocode appearance will generally produce better location quality data than a  geopoint question type. An extra advantage of the geocode appearance is that it is more web accessible than a map. To turn an address into a location, you use a pulldata("@json") to calculate a geopoint. Here is how: IsmaelChivite_0-1655740846164.png You may want to set the appearance of the geopoint question to hidden, if you want to hide the map from the user, or at least set it to read-only to avoid inconsistencies between the point and the address. Well… or not!  That is up to what you really need. Please note that the use of the ArcGIS World Geocoding service for the purpose of finding addresses to store their location in a feature layer is subject to ArcGIS Online credit consumption.  Check the credits consumption by capability section in the ArcGIS Online help. Additional resources   In this blog I wanted to share some basic tips around the geocode appearance in XLSForm. In truth, there is more to it. You will find more information in the geocode section of the appearance help topic. We also added a specific geocode XLSForm sample in Survey123 Connect. I strongly recommend you have a look at it. You will be able to copy-paste many of the useful expressions I described above.   IsmaelChivite_0-1631912998482.png   In addition, the sample also includes more configuration options I did not describe, particularly using the body::esri:style XLSForm column. I will let you discover those on your own. Enjoy the journey. ... View more