Guided tour

Surveys, forms, polls, and questionnaires are basically the same thing: a list of questions. Questions, however, are an excellent means of gathering information for decision-making and taking action.

ArcGIS Survey123 is a data-gathering solution that allows you to create, share, and analyze surveys in a few steps.

For tutorials on how to use Survey123 using real-world examples, see Tutorials.

Create and publish a survey

To create and publish a survey, install Survey123 Connect on your Windows desktop computer. Then, complete the following steps:

  1. Start Survey123 Connect.
  2. Click New survey.
  3. Sign in to your ArcGIS organization.
  4. Provide a title for your survey.
  5. Click Samples.

    The categories on the New Survey dialog box present additional templates you can use to create a survey. The available categories depend on the settings chosen by your organization administrator.

    • Blank—Authoritative Survey123 templates that include data validation and reference worksheets to help you get started with XLSForm.
    • File—Choose a spreadsheet that is saved on your machine or network.
    • Organization > Templates—Templates shared in your organization. Organization administrators can specify the group whose form items are made available as templates for organization members. For more information, see Organization survey and settings management.
    • Organization > Feature services—Create a survey from an existing feature service, including your own feature services and those that are shared with you.
    • Organization > Surveys—Surveys shared directly with you, or shared to a group or organization of which you are a member. This category is not visible by default; an organization administrator must enable it. For more information, see Organization survey and settings management.
    • Esri > Templates—Templates for various uses and industries.
    • Esri > Samples—Surveys that demonstrate XLSForm functionality and features.
    • Community—Templates designed by Survey123 users and shared publicly. For more information, see the Survey123 Community page.

  6. Choose the Basic Form sample.
  7. Click Create survey.

    A survey is created and opened. In Survey123 Connect, a preview of the survey you just created is displayed.

  8. Click the Publish button Publish.

    Your survey is available for download and use in the Survey123 field app.

Download an existing survey

You can also download surveys that you've stored in ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise. This can be useful if you're working on more than one desktop machine or for downloading surveys created in the Survey123 web app.

When you're signed in to Survey123 Connect, any survey not saved on your machine is displayed with a download button in place of the menu button. Select anywhere on the survey's gallery item to open a message asking whether you want to download this survey to your machine.

Download button on a survey not saved on your machine

Surveys saved on your machine are displayed with a menu button in the lower right corner of the survey's gallery item. Select this button to open a menu with the options to save a copy of your survey, open the survey's folder on your machine, replace the local copy of a published survey with the published version, or delete the survey. Replacing your survey with the published version can be useful for syncing changes to your machine or reverting unwanted changes. If the published version of a survey is more recent than your local version, an Update button appears in the upper right corner of your survey's gallery item. Select this button to update your local survey copy to the most recent version.

Menu and update buttons on a survey saved on your machine

Use a survey

To use a survey, install the Survey123 field app on your device or desktop. Then, complete the following steps:

  1. Start the Survey123 field app.
  2. Sign in with the same ArcGIS organizational account you used when you published your survey.
  3. Choose Download Surveys.
  4. Choose the survey you just created.
  5. Select OK once the download is complete.
  6. Select the back button to return to the gallery of surveys on your device.
  7. Choose the survey you just downloaded.
  8. Choose Collect.

    Your new survey appears, and you can complete the survey questions.

  9. When you've completed your survey, select the Submit button in the lower right corner.

    If your device is online, the Send now, Continue this survey, and Save in Outbox options are available.

  10. Choose Send now.

    Your survey data is ready for viewing.

View results

To view the results of your survey, complete the following steps:

  1. Open the Survey123 website. Sign in to your ArcGIS organizational account.

    Using ArcGIS Online

    Go to https://survey123.arcgis.com and click Sign In.

    Using ArcGIS Enterprise

    Go to https://survey123.arcgis.com?portalUrl=https://host.domain.com/webadaptor (where host, domain, and webadaptor are replaced by information about your portal) and click Sign In.

  2. Choose the survey you just created.

    The survey you submitted appears on both the Overview and Data tabs.

Copy or delete a survey

To create a survey based on an existing survey in Survey123 Connect, click the menu button next to its name and click Save as. Provide a title for the new survey, and click Create survey. Survey123 Connect copies the existing survey and opens the copy, allowing you to use the existing content as the basis for a new survey.

To delete a survey from Survey123 Connect, click the menu button next to its name, and click Delete. To confirm your action, click Press and hold to delete to delete the survey and all files stored locally in the survey folder.

Caution:

If your survey has been published, deleting it also deletes the survey folder from your ArcGIS organizational account. This includes any previous data and items that exist in the folder, such as feature layers, web maps, dashboards, and exports. Related items in folders other than the survey folder are not deleted. If you created your survey using an existing feature layer located in a different folder, it is not deleted. If any items in the survey folder have delete protection enabled, these items are preserved, and the folder is not deleted. (If your survey has not been published, only the local folder and its contents are deleted.)

If the recycle bin is enabled for your organization, deleted items are sent to the recycle bin in your ArcGIS account. The recycle bin supports restoring items so you have time to recover data from content that was deleted by mistake. If you don't want to send deleted items to the recycle bin (to avoid storage credits, for example), select the Delete permanently option.