HOW TO

Create Survey123 for ArcGIS surveys that connect to non-federated ArcGIS Server services

Last Published: April 27, 2022

Summary

This article describes the requirements and provides the steps to create surveys in ArcGIS Survey123 that connect directly to existing feature services from ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Server.

Procedure

By using the submission_url property in an XLSForm, surveys that connect directly to existing feature services from ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Server can be created.

The minimum requirements for the feature service are:

  • The feature service must be archive-enabled, nonversioned data. Refer to ArcGIS Server: Prepare data for offline use for more information.
  • The server must not use web-tier authentication (for example, it cannot use IWA or PKI authentication).

Additionally, the following conditions apply if the survey contains repeats:

  • When working against feature services with related tables, the relationships must use a GlobalID field in the primary layer, and a GUID field in the secondary layers or tables. The names of the fields are irrelevant, but the types must be honored. This rule also applies to attachments.
  • GlobalID fields used in the relationships must be indexed and set in the database to contain non-nullable and unique values.

To work with non-federated feature services, some additional configuration is required.

  • The service must be secured.
  • The service must be registered in an ArcGIS organization with credentials saved in the item (see below). This creates a proxy service in the ArcGIS organization, which is used as the submission_url in the survey.

To create the proxy service, complete the following steps:

  1. Copy the URL of the secured service in ArcGIS Server. Ensure the URL directs to the FeatureServer endpoint. For example:
http://arcgis-sydneyserver-1447957614.ap-southeast-2.elb.amazonaws.com/arcgis/rest/services/Assets/FeatureServer
  1. Log in to an organization in ArcGIS Online, browse to My Contents, select Add Item and choose From the web.
  2. Paste the URL of the service from Step 1.
  3. Enter the credentials, and save the item.
  4. Once the item is saved, copy the ID of this new service to add to the survey. The ID can be found at the end of the URL on the address bar. For example:
https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=9afc43dab85349b595b815582609fbdc
  1. When creating the survey, on the Settings page of the XLSForm spreadsheet, paste this ID into the submission_url column. The submission URL must be formatted as follows:
https://www.arcgis.com/sharing/rest/content/items/<ID>

For example:

https://www.arcgis.com/sharing/rest/content/items/9afc43dab85349b595b815582609fbdc
  1. Enter the name of the layer of the feature service into the Form_ID column on the Settings page.
  2. Enter questions and choices as needed for the survey.
  3. Publish the survey, and use it in ArcGIS Survey123.

After the survey is published, the security of the original feature service is changed to public. Share both the form and the proxy feature service to users.

Article ID:000014793

Software:
  • ArcGIS Survey123 Connect

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