Publish a street-trees map

Prepare the project folder

Create one folder for the project and its data:

street-trees/
+-- street-trees.qgs
`-- trees.geojson

In QGIS, make trees.geojson the layer people will maintain. Set its display field to the field that names a tree, and style it with a categorised renderer on species: that becomes both the map styling and the first useful filter in Groundwork. Pan and zoom the canvas to the area the map should open on, then save the project as street-trees.qgs, keeping the .qgs format, with the GeoJSON file beside it.

Put the folder in Dropbox

Copy the whole street-trees folder into Dropbox, keeping the .qgs and .geojson files together. Use a private Dropbox folder and add each editor to it as a member. A public folder link is useful for viewing, but it cannot save edits back to the folder.

Create the map in Groundwork

Open Groundwork, click the map name at the top of the right-hand panel, and choose Create new map. On the workspace page that opens, choose the Dropbox tile, sign in if asked, and pick street-trees.qgs from the folder. The map opens on the view you saved the project with, drawn with your QGIS styling, and takes the project file’s name — street-trees. Rename it to Street trees from Rename in the Settings menu.

Check what opened

Confirm the tree points draw on the map and the Data panel lists the same features. Open one feature and check its title reads the species you set as the display field. If a layer is missing, the styling is wrong, or the titles are wrong, fix the QGIS project first and reload the map: Preparing data in QGIS has the detailed checks.

Configure the shared view

Use the layer menu to set the fields people should receive, open the filter panel if the shared map should start on a subset, choose the sort order, and move the map to the area it should open on. Configuring the map covers each setting.

Copy the share link

Open the settings menu in the workspace header and press Share. Tick Require sign-in to open when recipients need the editing tools and the folder grants them access; leave it unticked for a view-only handover. Then copy the link.

Check it, then send it

Open the copied link in a private browsing window: it opens exactly as a recipient gets it, with the Dropbox sign-in gate first if you required one. Then send the link. The User Guide walks your team through everything from there.