Features
Set up a map in QGIS and save it to your organisation’s cloud storage. Then send your staff a link, and they keep it up to date from their browser.
Connect your data
Groundwork reads the sources your team publishes to. There is no migration and no new database. Read the whole QGIS path on Straight from QGIS.
QGIS projects
Groundwork opens a project saved as .qgs or .qgz with its symbology, field aliases, display fields, draw order, scale ranges and saved view. You set each thing up once, in QGIS.
WFS and QGIS Server
Load layers from the WFS services your organisation publishes, including QGIS Server and Esri-hosted WFS. Editing them is on the Teams plan.
OGC API - Features
Connect a service from its landing page and add its feature and imagery collections as layers. Groundwork can view them but not edit them.
ArcGIS Online
Display layers from the popular ArcGIS Online platform, from a public Web Map, feature layer or Hub site, with the style that each map gives them.
WMS layers
Add a public WMS layer, or configure one in your QGIS project, and Groundwork reads it straight from the source.
Dropbox and OneDrive
Sign in and browse to your team's Dropbox folder, or paste a OneDrive folder link. OneDrive maps are on the Teams plan, and saving to them is coming soon.
Public GitHub repositories
Open a public repository, folder or QGIS project as a read-only map, with no account needed.
GeoJSON, GeoParquet, FlatGeobuf and raster files
Publish any of them to a cloud folder. Save a QGIS style file with the same name beside a data file, and Groundwork draws the file in that style. GeoParquet, FlatGeobuf and GeoTIFF files open as read-only layers.
External STAC catalogues
Add the collections you need from a published catalogue, or single items from one. Groundwork loads GeoJSON, GeoParquet, FlatGeobuf and WFS as features, and draws PMTiles and COG as image layers.
Large layers
Groundwork loads the features in view from a large service or FlatGeobuf file, and loads more as you move the map.
CSV tables
A QGIS project can keep its lookup lists and related records in CSV files, and your team can add and change those records.
Capture and edit
The people who know the ground make each change themselves, and Groundwork saves it to your live data. On a Dropbox folder, saving works when you share the folder privately with each editor, give them edit access, and set the map's Sharing to Sign in to edit. See In the field.
Drawing and reshaping
Draw new features and adjust existing ones directly on the map, or place one at an address or at your device's own position.
Direct writes to your source
On the Teams plan, Groundwork writes each change straight to your WFS server, so there is no copy of the data to keep in sync.
Copy and paste
Copy a feature and paste it back where it was or somewhere new, straight from your system clipboard.
From another layer
Add a feature by copying one from another layer on the map, such as a property boundary into a works layer.
Live updates across the team
On a private Dropbox folder, Groundwork shows a teammate's save on everyone else's open map within seconds.
Saving alongside your team
When two people save the same cloud folder file, Groundwork combines their changes, and stops only when both changed the same feature.
Related records
Your team can add and edit records, such as the inspections on a tree or the jobs done to it.
Photos on a record
Where the data source declares a photo field, Groundwork shows a photo on each record, and shows the photo from a feature's most recent record on the feature in the list.
Live measurements
Label a line with its length, or a polygon with its area, on the map or in the feature list. The map labels update as you draw or reshape it.
Mixed geometry layers
A GeoJSON layer can hold points, lines and polygons, and each feature draws and edits as its own geometry.
View-only or editing links
Choose whether a link opens view-only, or asks people to sign in and then gives them the editing tools. See Data and trust for who can open a map.
Forms from QGIS
Your team fills in the edit form you built in QGIS, with its layout, pick lists, default values and the rules a value must meet.
Find what you're looking for
Search and filtering
Search a feature's attributes and its related records. Filter a layer from its legend, by the values in its fields, by a date period or by a number range.
Closest by travel distance
Find the closest features to an address you search for, by real travel distance. Pick a feature to see the route to it.
Street View
Open Google Street View facing a feature.
Formatted details
A feature's details show the headings, lists, tables and links in your data, and a link to a picture shows the picture.
About
See any layer's vital metadata, including its source, an extent map, dates and links.
Bookmarks
Bookmark a feature to mark it on the map. Show only your bookmarks in the list and on the map, and Groundwork then finds the closest of those.
Orientation tools
Find your way with a legend, location search, a scale bar and a style icon on each feature.
Maps that look right
Groundwork draws your layers the way you published them, so there is no re-styling for the web.
Your published symbology
Groundwork reads each layer's styling from your WFS/WMS server, so features look the same as in your published maps.
QGIS styling
Groundwork draws the symbology, marker sizes and labels that you set in QGIS Desktop, including label fonts, colours and halos.
Basemaps
Choose a street map, or aerial imagery with street names on top. People who open your link see the basemap you chose.
Layer styling
Switch between a layer's published styles, set its own symbol and colour, or give each value in one of its fields its own colour. Fade a layer, or hide it, with its opacity slider.
Handing the map over
Your team gets the map as a link. They click it and start work. There is nothing to install and nothing to set up.
Share links
Your team opens the map with your layers, filters, sort order and starting area already set.
Updatable links
Send a new link from the same map, and Groundwork updates the map your team opened earlier instead of adding a second one. Groundwork keeps any name they gave it.
Live data on every open
Groundwork reads the data source each time someone opens the link. So when the data changes, you don't need to send a new link. Send one when you change how the map is set up.
Export map image
Save the map as an image for embedding in documents.
Required start location
Share a map that asks each person for their location first, for questions such as what applies at this address.
Open standards
Groundwork reads and saves data in the open standards your organisation publishes with, and leaves your data in its own format. See Data and trust for where it is stored and what Groundwork keeps.
| Standard | What Groundwork does with it |
|---|---|
| WFS and WFS-T | Loads features live from the server. If the server accepts transactions, Groundwork saves your team’s edits to it |
| OGC API - Features | Loads a service’s collections of features and of imagery. Your team cannot edit them |
| WMS | Draws a public WMS layer from a QGIS project or a STAC catalogue as an image |
QGIS project files (.qgs, .qgz) | Loads the layers, styles, field aliases and display fields, from a cloud folder or from your device |
| OGC SLD and QGIS QML | Reads a style file of the same name beside a layer, in a folder with no project |
| GeoJSON | Loads it from a cloud folder, a STAC catalogue or your device. Groundwork saves your team’s edits to it in a cloud folder that supports saving, and downloads any feature layer as GeoJSON |
| GeoParquet and FlatGeobuf | Loads them read-only, from a cloud folder, a STAC catalogue or your device |
| GeoTIFF, including cloud-optimised GeoTIFF (COG) | Draws it as an image, from a cloud folder, a STAC catalogue or your device |
| PMTiles | Draws an archive from a STAC catalogue as an image of the data, in one colour |
| STAC | Connects to a STAC catalogue, and loads the collections and items that you choose |
Try it on your own data
The app is free to use with a Dropbox folder. Maps from OneDrive, and editing on live WFS servers, are on the Teams plan.