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How to add the what3words Locator to ArcGIS Online and Survey123
This tutorial will take you through the steps required to add the what3words ArcGIS locator to ArcGIS Online followed by the steps to create a survey and open it in Survey123.
Further information on the features of the locator can be found here.
Setting up the locator in ArcGIS Online takes a few minutes. Once set up it will be available across the ArcGIS Online suite.
Follow this tutorial or watch this video to set up the what3words ArcGIS Locator within ArcGIS Online and add it as a Utility Service.
Getting started with Dazi, GIS Technical Account Manager at what3words:
To use what3words in Survey123 go to https://survey123.arcgis.com and create a new survey
Add a new Address field question type. It helps users complete an address as they type.
You can now configure your address question with the what3words locator. Give the question a label, e.g. what3words Address. To choose your organisation locator, click on Edit as it is shown on the image.
Note: the what3words locator must be shared within the organisation to be seen here.
You can choose your what3words locator or a combination of different locators shared within your organisation. After you have checked your what3words locator, click OK to go back to the form.
You can configure your address question type by choosing:
- a hint
e.g. filled.count.soap, - a default value
filled.count.soap, - what data to submit, address text and point geometry, or only address text.
- a locator or multiple ones;
- the number of results per locator (note: we recommend having only 3 results)
- a type of validation
- to cache the answer
Note: Only one map or address question can submit geometry to the survey. If some multiple questions or maps want to store the geometry, an alert message will pop up to allow you to choose only one question.
When you are happy with your configuration of the address question, click on Save.
You can add a new Map field type and give a label to it. Now the Map field allows you to choose the locators shared within the organisation. Choose what3words locator or a combination of the locators available to you.
With the Map field, you can also use an expression to calculate the answer. On the calculation section, you can click on Edit. Select a source Question, select the type of question in our case what3words Address and decide to extract data on Match location.
When you are happy with the rest of your configuration for this Map field, click on the Save button.
When you are happy with your fields, you can click the Publish button and make this survey available to all your collaborators to use on the field.
Open the Survey123 mobile app, log in using your ArcGIS Online login and open your survey.
Select the Address question, and it will then be possible to search for a 3 word address in the input field.
Once a 3 word address has been selected, a map marker will be added to the Map field and the geometry point will be captured since we have added the expression: Extract match location from what3words address, the what3words address is our address question.
Once you are happy with your results, you can click on the Tick button on the bottom right of your survey and publish the results of the live survey.
You can see that you will be adding to the survey the what3words address and the coordinates of the point.
You can also select the Map question, and it will then be possible to search for a 3 word address in the search field.
You can also press and hold the map to get the 3 word address when you have selected only one locator.
To view the data that you have collected, go back to your live survey on the Survey123 desktop app, go to the Data tab and click on your records, and you will see the what3words address and its geometry point with the map.
Survey123 provides another way to save the 3 word address. It is possible to create a calculated question which will save the 3 word address by reverse geocoding the point to obtain the address.
This can be done using Survey123 connector for ArcGIS.
Add a Singleline Text input field
When creating your Survey you will need simply to add
- a
Mapfield to extract thegeopoint - a
Singleline Textinput field to save the 3 word address calculated from the geopoint.v
Install Survey123 connector for ArcGIS
If you don’t have ArcGIS Survey123 Connectalready installed on your computer then download it HERE and install it.
Once you have installed it, log in ArcGIS Survey123 Connect using your ArcGIS Online account.
To view all of your surveys you need to click on the Sync button (as shown in the screenshot).
Then click on the Survey that you have just created.
Open the survey using the XLSForm
Once the Survey is open on the Survey123 connector, you will be able to open your Survey as an XLS file (in your preferred spreadsheet tool such as Excel) by clicking on the XLSForm button.
From within the XLS, you can configure things like field selectors and add custom logic such as calculated fields.
Click XLSForm now open your survey on your preferred spreadsheet tool.
From within the XLSForm you will see the Map field and the Singleline text input field that you have just added.
To add a calculation to the Singleline text input field, scroll over to the calculation column of the spreadsheet.
Against the Singleline text input field, which in our case is the what3words address input field, add the following:
- If the what3words Locator IS your default geocoder then you can simply add
pulldata("@geopoint",${_map},"reversegeocode.address.Match_addr")where_mapis the name of your Map question described on the XLS form as a geopoint. - If the what3words Locator IS NOT your default geocoder then add
pulldata("@geopoint",${_map},"reversegeocode.address.Match_addr","replace with proxy URL of Locator")where the${_map}is the field name of the Map question and"replace with proxy URL of Locator"are the proxy URLs of the what3words Locator that you added and stored credentials against in your ArcGIS Online Content. There’s more information about this step and obtaining the proxy URL HERE.
Then save your XLSForm.
Update the survey from XLSForm
Once the XLSForm had been saved in your preferred Spreadsheet tool go back to Survey123 Connector and click the Update button (as shown in the screenshot).
Now you should see that the updated file is being imported and validated.
Once the import is complete, the survey will have been updated and you will need to publish the changes to see them in the app.
Using in the Survey123 app
Open the Survey123 app and make sure you are still logged on to your ArcGIS Online account.
You will now see the new calculated field in the survey. Once you have specified the location in the Map question you will see that the field has been populated with the 3 word address.
