Troubleshooting
Quick fixes for common problems.
The link won’t open
Check you copied the whole link. A link cut short in an email or chat message is the usual cause. If Groundwork reports a problem with the map’s data instead, that’s for your administrator to fix; the message says what’s wrong, so pass it along.
I’m asked to sign in and it doesn’t work
The map only opens for people who have been given access to its data. Make sure you’re signing in with the work account your administrator set you up with, and if that still doesn’t work, ask them to check you’ve been given access.
If you signed in with the wrong account, a personal one instead of your work one, Reset app in the settings menu clears the sign-in so you can open the link again and choose the other account. It also clears your maps, bookmarks and settings on this device, so save anything you still need first.
I can’t see the edit or add controls
Some maps are shared view-only, and then the editing tools don’t appear at all. If that’s the case, ask whoever sent you the link. They can send a new one that lets you edit.
Otherwise: check your layer isn’t hidden, because a hidden layer’s feature list and edit controls are tucked away until you show it again. Finish or cancel any drawing or editing already in progress, since most other controls pause while one is active. If your map has more than one layer, check the right one is active; the layer name at the top of the right-hand panel shows which.
Features are missing from the list
A control above the list may be narrowing it. The count reads “N of M” when one is. Turn off any lit controls above the list: press the bookmark, Nearby or lit Filter button again, or clear a field filter from the filter panel.
A message says my save couldn’t be completed
The message names what failed to save and what happened, and its buttons match the cause: you can always discard your change and load the latest data; when the problem was the connection to the map’s source, you can also retry the save; and where your access turns out to be view-only, you can download that data with your change in it to pass to your administrator. Choose one of the buttons: reloading the page instead discards the message and the unsaved change with it.
Dates show in the wrong order
While you are editing, a date field is the browser’s own, and the browser takes the order of its day, month and year boxes from the language and region the device is set to. A device set up for the United States shows 03/09/2026 where one set up for Australia shows 09/03/2026. Groundwork cannot set that order for you.
Nothing is recorded wrongly. The date is stored the same way whichever order you see it in, so colleagues on other devices read it correctly, and everywhere outside edit mode Groundwork writes the date out in full — 9 Mar 2026 — where there is no doubt about which number is the day.
To change the order, set the device’s region and language to a country that writes the day first, such as Australia or the United Kingdom, then close the browser and open it again. The setting is called something slightly different on Windows, macOS, iOS and Android, but on each it is the one covering language and region together. If the order still does not change, check the browser’s own language setting as well: some browsers follow the device and some keep a setting of their own, which is why two browsers on the same device can disagree.
The map looks wrong or half-loaded
If a layer loaded with a warning, there may be a problem with the map’s data. Tell your administrator what the warning said. If a layer is missing altogether and a notice named it, Groundwork couldn’t load its data, and the layer comes back when the connection does. If the notice says the map’s source couldn’t be reached, it carries a Retry that reads the source again. For anything that looks stuck, reload the browser tab once any edit you’ve made is saved; a change that hasn’t saved doesn’t survive a reload.