Updating Survey and Publishing with a Different Schema

[Chris_Anderson]

I am in the process of developing a survey to allow sea turtle nesting surveyors to catalog sea turtle nesting disorientations around the state of Florida. The goal is to allow the surveyors to catalog a disorientation while on the beach instead of filling out the usual field data sheet and submitting them for data entry. This is a big undertaking with the potential of 1,000+ surveyors using this tool. Our team is doing its best to test the survey and account for all possibilities, but it is inevitable that we may need to modify the survey based upon user feedback. I know changing the survey without changing the schema is not a major issue (except for getting all the surveyors to update the survey), but what if I have to make a schema change? Is there any way to republish the survey without overwriting the existing data or publishing a separate survey with the new schema? This goal is to have all the responses in one database, not two. It will already be a herculean task to get all the surveyors, permit holders to follow directions; we don't want to make things a lot worse by adding more complexity to the processes.

Any help you can provide is greatly appreciated.

Chris Anderson

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission

[BrandonArmstrong]

Hi Chris,

Great to hear about the sea turtle project that you'll be managing with Survey123.

As you mentioned, it is a best practice to test and ensure that the schema of your survey is appropriately setup, prior to publishing to 'production', however, we do understand that sometimes there are changes that need to be made after the fact.

Please refer to the chart outlined in the help documentation linked below, which provides a list of changes that can be made to a published survey that should not cause loss of data...

Publish your survey—Survey123 for ArcGIS | ArcGIS 

As you will see, there are a number of updates that can be made that should not affect the data that has already been collected.

Brandon

[JamesTedrick]

Hi Chris,

Several improvements have been made in the publishing process to reduce the need to republish the feature service.  At this point of time, the following conditions will require republishing:

• Changing the field (not question) type or length of a question.  This can be worked around by simply giving the question a new name so that it does not attempt to change the original field.
• Adding an image or audio question to a table that does not have either.  This can be worked around by manually enabling attachments on the layer via the ArcGIS Online/ArcGIS Enterprise Item Details page before adding the questions
• Adding a new repeat (table).  No workaround to prevent republishing at this time.
• Adding a geopoint question to a repeat that does have one.   No workaround to prevent republishing at this time.

In terms of ensuring data is not lost, the best practice would be to download the existing data as a file geodatabase; after the republishing occurs, append the existing data into the new feature layer; the ArcGIS Online append process would be the first append tool to try - Manage hosted feature layers—ArcGIS Online Help | ArcGIS .

[VictoriaDavis1]

I'm trying to change the schema of one field from a date to an integer. I tried doing so and got an error. I tried making it hidden and adding a new field and that also gave me an error prohibiting me from publishing. i tried what you suggested and changing the type and the name as a workaround with no luck. I also have a results and view layer created for public view which makes creating a new survey annoying. Is there any way this can be changed so that schema can be updated as clients have additional requests?????