Surveys
Collect field data with a themed form that writes straight into a live feature layer, respondents only need a link, not an account.
The builder#
The survey editor shows the question palette and question list on the left, a live preview of the themed form in the middle, and the inspector for the selected question on the right. The header carries the survey’s status pill, Draft, Live or Closed, and the Questions and Results tabs (Results appears once the survey is published). Drag questions to reorder; everything autosaves.
The nine question types#
| Type | Notes |
|---|---|
| Text | A single line. |
| Paragraph | Longer free text. |
| Choice | Options one per line; allow multiple selections; show as dropdown. |
| Yes / No | A binary choice. |
| Number | With optional minimum and maximum. |
| Rating | A star scale from 2 to 10. |
| Date | A date. |
| Date & time | A date with clock time. |
| Location | A point on a map, see below. At most one per survey. |
Every question has a label, optional help text and a Required toggle. Questions can also be conditional: show only when a previous answer matches a value of an earlier Choice or Yes/No question.
The location question#
Respondents answer via map only (click to set the point), address search only, or search and map together, with a use-my-location button. The map background is a built-in basemap or one of your org’s web maps. The answer becomes the response layer’s point geometry.
Where responses land#
Publishing a survey creates a real dataset: “{survey title}, Responses”, a point feature layer if there’s a location question, otherwise a table. One column per question. Responses are ordinary OrbGIS data: render them on maps, open them in the feature table, chart them in dashboards. Column names are fixed at publish time; you can keep editing wording and add new questions afterwards (new questions go live with an explicit Publish N new questions).
Publishing, two stages#
- Publish survey (Editor role or higher), creates the response dataset and an organization fill link any signed-in member can use. Status becomes Live.
- Publish to web (Publisher or Admin), an anonymous public form at
your-org.orbgis.se/your-survey, with a QR code. Unpublish the web form at any time without closing the survey.
A live survey can be closed (submissions rejected, data kept) and reopened later. Survey settings hold a rich-text intro, the thank-you message and a soft one-response-per-person limit.
Watching results#
The Results tab shows a live response count, a paged table of answers, a link to open the response layer itself, and, when there’s a location question, a mini-map of the latest response points. It refreshes in real time as responses arrive.