Working on the map

The map toolbar lets one tool own the map at a time — move the camera, select items, or add entities directly on the map.

The map has a toolbar down its left edge. Only one tool is active at a time; choosing a tool deactivates the others. Each tool also has a keyboard shortcut.

Map tools

• Pan / rotate camera (h) — the default. Drag to pan; shift + drag to rotate. Use this to move around and frame an area.
• Select entities (q) — drag a rectangle to box-select everything inside it. Hold shift while selecting to add to the current selection instead of replacing it. The selected items appear in the Selected Items panel.
• Place point entity (w) — click on the map to place a new point entity.
• Draw polygon entity (e) — outline a region to create a new entity with that shape.
• Layers (r) — open the layers pane to manage saved-query layers.

Adding an entity

Entities that have a place in the world — a site, a building, a zone, an asset — can be added straight onto the map.

1. Choose Place point entity (w) and click the entity's position, or choose Draw polygon entity (e) and click each corner of its outline, then double-click to finish the shape. A polygon needs at least three corners; a status bar at the top of the map counts them as you go.
2. Fill in the New Entity card that opens:
   • Object Class — what kind of thing the entity is. This decides its colour on the map and which workflows can use it.
   • Name — how the entity is listed in the hierarchy, cases, and reports. The card does not insist on one, but an entity created without a name is listed by its ID, so always enter it.
   • External ID and External ID Type — optional. Use them when the entity is already tracked under an identifier in another system, so the two can be matched up.
3. Click Create. A confirmation appears and the entity is added to the map and the hierarchy, ready to inspect or include in a workflow order.

While you are still placing a point or drawing a shape, press Esc or click Cancel in the status bar to abandon it. Once the New Entity card is open, click Cancel on the card instead; Esc does not close it. Nothing is saved until you click Create.

A new entity starts at the top level of the hierarchy. To place it under another entity, see Assign a parent entity.

To change an entity afterwards, open its detail panel and click the Actions (⋯) button at the top. Edit changes its name, external ID, and parent, and Set Location lets you click a new position for it on the map.

For a worked example that adds a whole site, see Setting up a new site for monitoring and reporting.

Basemap

Buttons at the bottom left of the map switch the basemap between Dark, Satellite, and Streets. Satellite is the easiest to work from when you are finding a site by eye or tracing an outline. Satellite imagery is not live, so something built recently may not appear on it yet.

Locating items

Opening an item from another surface — a grid card, the entity tree, or a detail panel — can recentre and zoom the map to that item and briefly pulse its location so it is easy to spot.

Opening the current view in the editor

When you zoom in far enough, an Open in Editor button appears over the map. It opens the Assessment Editor loaded with everything inside the current map view and date range, so you can move straight from spotting something to assessing or labelling it.