PLT - How the City of Austin uses the ESRI Survey123 Connect App

During the Dam Safety 2022 Conference in Baltimore, MD, I was introduced to the ESRI Survey123 and Survey123 Connect apps. The presentation was a great introduction into the benefits of these two related apps. My presentation will use the 2022 Conference presentation as a springboard.

I propose to present a tutorial, based on how we, at the City of Austin Dam and Pond Safety Program (DPSP) have created our survey. The DPSP inspects 33 dams on an annual basis, as part of our responsibilities to our state’s regulatory agency: the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ). We moved away from a printed form to an electronic form. I will discuss the steps I took to create the electronic survey. This will include an explanation of the scripts I used in the Excel XML form generated by ESRI Survey123.

After we tested our survey, I found the need to modify it. The original form was linear, but we discovered that our inspections did not follow a linear path. For example, we might start an inspection at the outfall of dam one but start another inspection at the top of dam two. I needed to produce a survey that allowed us to select the element we wanted to inspect at any time.

With the survey completed, I then created a form that we could send to TCEQ. In the presentation, I will explain how I created the form. I will include the steps that I took to format the MS Word document in order to publish it as a PDF.