By default, when you publish a survey in Survey123, a feature layer is created using the schema from the survey. Alternatively, you can choose to associate your survey with an existing feature layer.
Create a survey from a feature layer
Before creating a survey from an existing feature layer, the feature layer must be prepared for use with Survey123.
- Sign in to your ArcGIS organization, and click New survey.
- Choose the Feature services category.
- Browse to and select a feature layer.
The gallery shows layers that you have access to. Each tile includes a View item details option to open the item page and learn more about the layer or make necessary modifications.
- Click Create survey.
An XLSForm is generated from the feature layer. If the feature layer you chose has more than one layer, the survey is generated based on the first layer. To base a survey on another layer of the feature layer, you must author the survey manually and update the form_id and submission_url properties on the settings tab of the spreadsheet. For more information, see Author a survey that matches a feature layer.
If the feature layer you chose has attachments, a single image question will be created in the survey with the name <layer_name>_image. This name will not match a keyword in the attachments table and must be updated. If the existing attachments represent more than one question, you must add image questions to the survey to match each of the keywords in the attachments table.
- If the survey requires the following question types, manually add them after creating the survey:
- audio
- file
For more information, see Media questions. The feature layer must also have attachments enabled.
After the survey is created, you can publish the survey immediately or further customize it. For example, you can add more descriptive labels to the questions and arrange them in groups. When publishing a survey using an existing feature layer, a new hosted feature layer is not created for your form. Instead, the feature layer you selected will be referenced by your survey.
Author a survey that matches a feature layer
You can manually author a new survey that matches an existing feature layer, but you must update the form_id and submission_url properties on the settings tab of the spreadsheet to define a link between the survey and the feature layer's item in your portal or ArcGIS Online.
The form_id property explicitly defines the name of the layer in the feature layer that is used by the survey. For more information, see the Knowledge Base article on how to author a survey that matches a feature service.
The submission_url property is the URL of the feature layer item.
Tip:
You must provide the URL of the feature layer item, as shown above. A common mistake is to use the feature layer URL instead, which is not supported.
To create this URL, you must concatenate the Item ID with the portal Content Root. The example in the image above shows a link to an ArcGIS Online item; the link to the same item in a portal looks like the following:https://<host>:<port>/arcgis/sharing/rest/content/items/21a6c530b31a4523bdff7gg94c9c5d9a
If you need a survey that requires some but not all fields of an existing feature layer, it is recommended that you generate a survey from the feature layer (as described in the section above) and delete the questions that are not needed before publishing the survey. In this way, the form_id and submission_url properties are created automatically.