How to collect polygon features from many people with a simple online form?

[BenChaney]

Hello,

I work at a transportation consulting firm that works over a large geographic area with dispersed offices. We'd like to develop a database of the locations of our projects, so that we can easily find relevant past projects when starting new work. I'm trying to figure out if this is something we can do using arcgis online. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

What I'd like would be a feature service that includes polygons for each project, with attributes for an identifying number and some other information. It would need to be collaborative, so that anyone in the company can contribute features. Ideally, I'd like to create a simple form that others in the company could access through a webpage to submit project info.  This page would use a "draw on the map" input to create shapes, and have some fields for the attributes.

Separately, I'd like to have a map with all features on it that could be queried by users.

I'm familiar enough with collecting features into a feature service using ArcGIS Collector on mobile, and displaying the results on a map or using the service layer in ArcMap. However, there are a few items I'm unsure about:

1) Is there a web-based method for collecting features? (something simpler and more error-resilient than editing a map through the arcgis online interface)

2) Could it be used without logging into arcgis online?

3) Could it be embedded in another webpage, possibly on an intranet?

I'm not sure if this functionality is something that's currently available in arcgis online, or if it would require arcgis server, or if I should be looking outside the esri universe.

Thank you!

~Ben

[JakeSkinner · Accepted solution]

Hi Ben,

1.  Take a look at the ArcGIS Online Edit Template application:

http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=2a9fbd75eea14c87a32d3799e00663f2

This simplifies the editing process.

2.  Yes, if you share the application and data with 'Everyone', the application can be accessed without user credentials.

3.  Yes, you could embed the application into an existing web page using an iframe.

Also, to answer you other question about having another web map/app for users to query the features, you can do this using another ArcGIS Online Template application such as the Finder app:

http://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=547a3a4462344880be61ed4083142f63

You can take a look at all the apps here.

Also, another option is the Operations Dashboard.

[BenChaney]

Hi Jake,

Thank you very much for the information! This seems like exactly what I was looking for, and I'm excited to try it out when I get time. The operations dashboard also seems like a powerful tool, and I was not aware of it's availability.

I have two slightly more advanced follow up questions that perhaps you might know about.

1) In a setup like the one described in the original post, is there a way to have some automatic geolocation or selecting from a list of pre-defined shapes.  For instance, instead of having someone draw a shape, they could select "Portland, Oregon" and it would automatically populate with the geometry of the city boundary?

2) When sharing with "everyone," is there a way to keep the map/data out of arcgis.com searches?  To put it another way, make the access "anyone with a link."

Thank you again!  I'm amazed by the speed and accuracy of your response. 

Cheers,
Ben

[JakeSkinner]

1)  You would need to customize your application in order to do this.  Unfortunately, this is not available out of the box.

2)  You may want to look at using Portal for ArcGIS.  This is essentially ArcGIS.com, but hosted locally on a server.  Data, web maps, and apps will only be accessible to those on your network.

[BenChaney]

Good info, I'll check into those.  Thanks!