Frequently asked questions about ArcGIS Survey123 are listed below.
- How do I create an ArcGIS organization?
- How do I create a group in an ArcGIS organization?
- What is the Survey123 website?
- What browsers does the Survey123 website support?
- What is XLSForm?
- Where are my surveys stored?
- What ArcGIS role do I need to use Survey123?
- Can I share my survey with users outside my organization?
- Can Survey123 work offline?
- Can I enable my organization's shared theme in Survey123?
- Does Survey123 support the High Efficiency Image Compression (HEIC) format?
- How can I integrate Survey123 with ArcGIS Workforce?
- Does Survey123 include support for command line parameters?
- What bar code formats does Survey123 support?
- Does ArcGIS Survey123 consume ArcGIS Online credits?
- How can I use data captured with ArcGIS Survey123 in other ArcGIS apps?
- What accessibility standards and guidelines does ArcGIS Survey123 conform to?
An ArcGIS organization in either ArcGIS Online or ArcGIS Enterprise is required to create surveys in ArcGIS Survey123, as well as for people to respond to surveys that aren't public. For information on starting an ArcGIS Online subscription, see Activate subscription or Manage trial subscription. To learn how to configure a new ArcGIS organization, see the Learn ArcGIS lesson Set up an ArcGIS organization.
Groups can be used to share an ArcGIS item, including surveys and their results, to a specific set of users. For information on creating groups, see Get started creating groups for ArcGIS Online or Get started with groups for ArcGIS Enterprise.
The Survey123 website is the core of ArcGIS Survey123. In the Survey123 website, you can manage your surveys, control who can contribute to them, and view and understand the data submitted to your surveys. You can also create surveys with the Survey123 web designer. The Survey123 website is a web browser-based application and is available at survey123.arcgis.com for users with an ArcGIS organizational account.
For information on the platforms Survey123 supports, see System requirements.
XLSForm is a specification that describes how to define a form using a spreadsheet. It is a widely adopted standard and is described at length at xlsform.org.
XLSForm allows you to specify the questions that will be present in your form, how they are presented to the user, and how to validate the responses.
Numerous data collection tools use XLSForms as their input. XLSForm spreadsheets that you create are translated into an .xml file following the XLSForm standard, that is then used in data collection tools.
Using Survey123, you can bring your own XLSForms into ArcGIS.
A survey is composed of multiple ArcGIS items. For each survey, Survey123 creates a folder in your ArcGIS account named Survey-SurveyName that contains the following:
- Form item—Contains the survey that can be opened in the Survey123 field app and web app.
- Feature layer—Stores the responses to the survey. For surveys created from an existing feature layer in Survey123 Connect, a new feature layer is not created. Survey123 references the existing feature layer from its source location. A survey may also have hosted feature layer views named SurveyName_form and SurveyName_results (previously named SurveyName_fieldworker and SurveyName_stakeholder, respectively). For more information, see FAQ: What are the form and results hosted feature layer views used for in ArcGIS Survey123?
- Web map—Contains the survey's feature layer. By default, a web map is created when a survey is published from Survey123 Connect. You can choose not to create a web map during the publishing process. For more information, see Publish options. A web map is not created for surveys published from the Survey123 website.
The following minimum privileges are required to publish a survey:
- Create content
- Publish hosted web layers
- Share maps and apps
Typically, this is the Publisher role, but you can also create a custom role in your organization that contains only these privileges.
The following minimum privileges are required to use a survey:
- Use maps and apps
- Join groups
- Edit features
Typically, this is the User role, but you can also create a custom role in your organization that contains only these privileges.
If a survey's submission settings are set to public, no ArcGIS account login is required to complete and submit the survey.
For more information, see ArcGIS requirements.
Yes. Surveys continue to work in the Survey123 field app while disconnected.
If you've included a geopoint, geotrace, or geoshape question in a survey, be sure to also include an offline basemap. For details, see Prepare basemaps for offline use.
Questions that reference hosted data or a hosted service will not work when offline. For example, the search appearance, geocode appearance, and Javascript functions that reference hosted data or services will not work when offline.
Yes. The Survey123 web designer allows a survey designer to use the organization's shared theme for their survey in the Appearance pane. In addition, an administrator can apply the organization's shared theme to Survey123 Connect and the Survey123 field app by enabling the Shared theme setting on the Organization page of the Survey123 website. For more information, see Organization survey and settings management.
ArcGIS Workforce works with ArcGIS Survey123, allowing dispatchers and mobile workers to communicate as they complete assignments. You can integrate with Survey123 to provide mobile workers a clean transition between updating their assignments in Workforce and capturing data in Survey123. To do so, create a survey, and configure Workforce to open that survey. For details on configuring Workforce, see Integrate other Esri apps. You can also learn more about Workforce through its resources.
The following command line parameters are supported by Survey123 Connect and the Survey123 field app. Use two hyphens before these parameters, for example, --show maximized.
- show maximized—Opens the window as maximized on desktop platforms.
- show fullscreen—Opens the window as full screen on desktop platforms.
- show minimized—Opens the window as minimized on desktop platforms.
- show normal—Opens the window as neither maximized, minimized, nor full screen.
- locale localeCode—Overrides the system language with the language defined by the locale code. For example, locale fr uses French translation files. This can be useful when testing your app in different languages.
- renderingEngine—Only supported on Windows desktop. This sets the graphics rendering engine. Supported values are default (that uses OpenGL and falls back to ANGLE if OpenGL encounters errors), opengl, and angle.
In the following example, Survey123 Connect will be launched in Spanish:
C:\Users\Username\Applications\ArcGIS\Survey123Connect\Survey123Connect.exe --locale es
Survey123 supports the following bar code formats:
- QR
- Code 39
- Code 93
- Code 128
- EAN 8
- EAN 13
- UPC A
- UPC E
- UPC EAN Extension
- Aztec
- Codabar
- Data Matrix
- ITF
- MaxiCode
- PDF 417
- RSS 14
- RSS Expanded
The default bar code question format is QR. To scan other codes, select them from the menu on the bar code scanning page.
Note:
Code 39 and PDF 417 bar codes cannot be selected in conjunction with other bar code types. Survey123 can only scan for these bar code types individually.
ArcGIS Survey123 consumes ArcGIS Online credits for storage, geocoding, and when printing reports. See the Credits Overview page for more information on storage costs in ArcGIS Online. Publishing, sharing, and viewing the results of a survey do not consume credits otherwise.
ArcGIS Survey123 uses ArcGIS feature layers. In ArcGIS Desktop, you can download your data, perform analysis, edit locally, and push the data back into your feature layer. Using ArcGIS Field Maps, you can edit data captured in Survey123. In ArcGIS Pro, you can edit your data directly, and you can use Web AppBuilder, Dashboards, or Experience Builder to present web maps that include data collected with Survey123.
Esri is continually improving accommodations for people with disabilities and situational limitations. Survey123 includes desktop, web, and mobile apps, each with its own accessibility capabilities and limitations.
For more information about conformance, see the Accessibility Conformance Report for Survey123.
For guidelines on making your surveys more accessible, see the Web accessibility best practices for Survey123 authors blog post.