Groundwork
Your organisation’s map, kept up to date by the people who know what’s happening on the ground.
Something new, something changed, something nobody ever recorded: out on the ground, the ranger, the planner and the asset engineer see what the map doesn’t yet show. Groundwork makes each of them the custodian of that data — a simple app for keeping their own information accurate, published straight from QGIS. Anyone who can read a map can use Groundwork.
The people who know the ground should be trusted with the record
Every organisation's map depends on knowledge that lives in the field — the engineer who found the cracked culvert, the ranger who mapped the weed outbreak, the planner who walked the site. Too often that knowledge sits in an inbox or a spreadsheet, waiting for someone with GIS software to enter it, and the map falls quietly behind. Desktop GIS is too much to ask of busy field staff, and the GIS team becomes the bottleneck nobody wants to be. Groundwork closes that gap: each custodian gets exactly the layers they're responsible for, in an app anyone can use, and their knowledge lands straight in the organisation's live data.
From QGIS to the field in three steps
There is no server to stand up and no second configuration to maintain. What your team sets up in QGIS — how each layer looks, what its fields mean — is exactly what your staff see, because Groundwork reads it straight from a Dropbox or OneDrive folder.
Configure in QGIS
Set up the project and choose the layers to open for editing, using the QGIS tools you already know. Symbology, field aliases and display names all travel with it — the more you set up in QGIS, the more Groundwork already knows.
Publish
Share it through Groundwork — no data migration, and no separate database to maintain.
Custodians take it from there
The people you trust with each dataset open the app and update it directly. Changes go straight to your live source.
Made for domain experts, not GIS technicians
A focused workflow
You know what you're recording — Groundwork puts your data front and centre and offers only the tools you need, with no GIS interface to wade through.
So simple it explains itself
No dense menus or hidden modes. A glance at the screen is enough to know what you're looking at and what to do next.
Edits go straight to your live data
Changes write directly back to your source — no shuttling data in and out of yet another cloud service to keep in step.
No lock-in
Groundwork speaks open standards — WFS and GeoJSON — and reads your QGIS projects directly. Your data stays in formats you control, never trapped in one vendor's platform.
Build your forms in QGIS Coming soon
Control exactly how each field behaves and what values it accepts — defined in QGIS, applied in the app.
Microsoft sign-in for teams
Connect to your organisation's accounts so the right people have access. Available on the Teams plan.
Every dataset deserves a custodian — yours already work here
A custodian is simply the person who knows a dataset best and is trusted to keep it right. In most organisations that person already exists — they've just never had a way to make the change themselves. Across your organisation, dozens of people are responsible for keeping some slice of spatial data accurate: the asset they maintain, the site they inspect, the patch they manage. If you look after the trees, the tree register should be yours to update. Groundwork gives each custodian just the data they own to keep current.
Asset & infrastructure defects
Footpath trip hazards, damaged signs, drainage pits and playground equipment — logged by the engineers and maintenance crews who look after them.
Parks, trees & open space
Tree registers, new plantings, removals and reserve condition, kept current by arborists and parks officers.
Environmental monitoring
Weed and pest infestations, revegetation sites and watercourse health, mapped by environmental officers and scientists.
Planning & development
Development-application sites, heritage and zoning notes recorded on the ground by planners.
Public health & compliance
Food-premises and pool-barrier checks, septic systems and abandoned vehicles, captured by environmental health and local-laws officers.
Emergency management
Flood markers, fire-hazard sites, and sandbag and evacuation points, maintained by emergency-management officers.
Waste & amenity
Illegal dumping, graffiti, and litter and bin assets, tracked by waste and compliance teams.
Community & cultural assets
Public art, memorials and heritage sites, looked after by cultural-services staff.
Cemetery management
Plots and interment records, kept accurate by cemetery administrators.
And when something temporary needs to go on the map — an event footprint, or a road closure to publish to the public — that's data you can publish too.
What it means for your organisation
More gets done
Field changes are captured as they happen, not queued behind the GIS team.
Less double-handling
Knowledge is captured once, at the source — not written down, emailed and re-keyed.
Next to no training
Groundwork keeps map editing focused, familiar, and free of GIS clutter.
Fewer specialist licences
Keep heavyweight GIS software for the specialists who actually need it.
Decisions run on current data
The map reflects what's true today — not last quarter's export.
Knowledge that stays
What your staff know becomes part of the organisation's map — visible to everyone who needs it, and still there when people move on.
Expertise, formally recognised
Each dataset has a named person accountable for it — so the map isn't just current, it's authoritative, and staff take visible ownership of the part they know best.
Simple plans
Free forever
$0
For getting started, and for teams happy to run on a shared Dropbox or OneDrive folder.
- The full editing app
- Bring your own Dropbox or OneDrive
- Configured entirely in QGIS
Teams
Pricing on enquiry
For organisations that need Groundwork wired into their own systems.
- Everything in Free
- SharePoint document libraries
- Live WFS servers, including QGIS Server
- Microsoft sign-in