Select Location: Predefined Locations

[rfeuerstein]

I'm attempting to configure GeoForm to support and replace an international retail customer's PDF questionnaire for safety and security compliance. All the store locations are predefined. Is there a way to establish location by selecting from a drop down list within the "Select Location" section? Selecting by "Facility Code" is preferred over entering an address and geocoding, selecting the location manually, or using the current location function, especially when in offline/disconnected operating conditions. Any suggestions or ideas would be much appreciated. Thanks.

[driskull]

Hi @rfeuerstein . That's an interesting use case. Only thing I can think of currently, would be to add a custom locator to be able to search for the store locations.

It seems like if you are requiring submissions to be known locations you could probably just have a domain with all the store locations and you wouldn't be collecting any geographic information at all since you already know where the store locations are and could have that in a related entry. In that case, maybe the geoform isn't the correct app. Maybe you just need a form without a map?

@DerrickBurke @jeffbaranyi any thoughts?

[rfeuerstein]

@driskull, I see what you're saying about the questionable value of having a map in the form. This customer has about 1,700 retail locations globally where they need to manage oversight and resolution of critical security and safety findings. Visualizing dynamic field activity on a map and receiving alerts is a significant enhancement to current capabilities to business operations at headquarters. The strategy is that one day the user in the field will have a diagram/map of all the stores and will notate the security finding at the exact location within each and every store. It's at this point the map within the form becomes essential to the workflow.

Using a custom geocoding service in conjunction with a domain and drop down is a great idea. How would that work with the current application? Would custom development and configuration be needed to provide the proper UX for this workflow? Or would this need to be addressed in a potential future version of the app? Thanks.

[driskull]

@rfeuerstein, I see. 1700 locations is too many for a select menu or domain to handle. The filter select option we have would work but it would work best hooked up to a service. Maybe this service could be a custom locator.

Would they only be able to pick one of these locations and not click on the map? Would they only be able to set the location from this option and then not be able to change it? Would they need a map at all?

It would be possible to do this, just need more information on the use case.

I'm thinking a filter select menu that is hooked up to a locator or feature layer. https://select2.github.io/examples.html

[sirws]

@driskull, I can see a case where the user selects the name of a location (like a city or store name) and we automatically pull the location from an existing feature service, so there is no need for input on a map. I have a couple of cases that need this capability. You could use something like this: https://developers.arcgis.com/javascript/jsapi/querytasklocationprovider-amd.html to configure and pull the locations.