Skip to content

What's new

We list what we added to Groundwork and improved in it each month, with the newest month first. Select a highlight’s name to read how to use it in the guides. To see everything that Groundwork can do, go to Features.

October 2026

We shipped 20 highlights and 18 more improvements.

Data sources

  • ArcGIS Online. Start a map from ArcGIS Online: paste a Web Map, a dataset page or an ArcGIS Hub site, and choose its layers. The layers keep the styles, labels, layer order and filters that the Web Map gives them. Feature titles and field labels come from the service, so your team sees the names it already uses.
  • Large layers. Open large layers from a WFS, OGC API - Features or ArcGIS service, and large FlatGeobuf files. Groundwork loads the features in view, and loads more as you move the map.
  • CSV tables in QGIS projects. A QGIS project can keep its lookup lists and related records in CSV files, and Groundwork reads them. Your team can add and change records in a CSV table, and Groundwork saves them back to the file.
  • About each layer. Press About to see where a layer comes from: its description, credits, licence, dates, feature count and a small map of its extent. Your team can check a layer’s source before they rely on it.
  • Public WMS layers. Add a public WMS layer, such as planning zones published from QGIS, with its server’s style and opacity. Its legend shows beside it in the layer picker.
  • FlatGeobuf, GeoParquet and GeoTIFF files. Open FlatGeobuf files from a cloud folder, a QGIS project or a STAC catalogue. Drop a GeoParquet, FlatGeobuf or GeoTIFF file on the map to look at it straight away.

QGIS compatibility

  • Edit forms from QGIS. The edit form follows the form you built in QGIS, with its layout, hidden fields, locked fields and fields that appear only when they apply. Default values fill themselves in, such as today’s date or the next number in a series. A save stops when a required field is blank or a value breaks one of your rules.
  • Field widgets from QGIS. Fields work the way their QGIS widgets set them up. Your team picks from lists, ticks boxes, enters numbers within your limits and sees dates in your format. A Value Relation list narrows as the form fills in, such as the suburbs of the chosen council.
  • Labels from QGIS. Labels look the way you set them in QGIS, including rule-based labels and labels built from expressions. A label can join several fields, round a number, or appear only on the features that need one.
  • Styles from QGIS. Layers draw with more of their QGIS styling: transparency, opacity, hatched fills, arrowheads on lines and icons from icon sets such as Maki. A colour can come from a field, and the map’s buttons take your project’s colour.
  • QGIS layer settings. Groundwork honours more of your QGIS project: scale ranges, Private layers, layers that are not identifiable, and XYZ and WMTS tile layers. A file that QGIS splits into point, line and polygon layers opens as one layer.

Editing

  • Saving alongside your team. When a teammate saved the same file in a cloud folder first, Groundwork adds your changes to their copy and saves again. It stops only when you both changed the same feature. On a map server, Groundwork checks for a newer change before it saves, so nobody’s work is overwritten.
  • From another layer. Add a feature by copying one from another layer on the map, such as a property boundary into a works layer. Groundwork remembers the layer that you copied from, so the add button offers it again next time.
  • Layers with mixed geometry. One layer can hold points, lines and polygons, and each feature draws, labels and edits as its own geometry. Choose Point, Line or Polygon when you add a feature to such a layer, and filter the layer by geometry.
  • Paste options. Paste a copied feature where you press the map, and clear the fields that you do not want to carry over. On a polygon layer, paste a buffer around the copy, such as a 50 m zone around a tree.
  • Related records. Add inspections and other records to a feature, even on a layer that you cannot edit. Editing a record works like editing a feature, with the same checks. A record on a line or polygon can have a point, line or polygon of its own.
  • Text annotations. Add text to the map as a feature of its own, such as a note beside a works site. Download our QGIS template for a shared annotations layer, or try the Annotations demo map.

Sharing

  • Export map image. Save the map as a picture, or copy it straight into a report or an email. The picture carries the scale bar and the credits of the layers shown. Open it from a feature to hide the rest of that layer’s features.

Search and navigation

  • Date and number filters. Filter a date field to Today, This week, This month or This year, or to the dates between two days. Filter a number field with a slider over a chart of its values, such as trees between 5 m and 10 m tall.

Appearance

  • Formatted details. A feature’s details show the headings, lists, bold text and tables in your data. Web, email and phone links open with a press, and a link to a picture shows the picture.
Also improved (18)
  • Groundwork opens QGIS projects saved as .qgz, as well as .qgs.
  • Choose the basemaps that a map offers, including Esri’s for an ArcGIS map, or a folder of your own aerial imagery.
  • Fade or hide the active layer with the Layer opacity slider, and a share link carries the setting.
  • Show several fields in a map label, one per line.
  • Show each feature’s length or area prominently on its card and as its map label.
  • The legend shows the most common values first.
  • Open a single data file from GitHub as a map.
  • Show an icon beside each field’s name, set in your QGIS project.
  • A map from a private Dropbox folder stays signed in after a reload, and a folder that you can only view shows a padlock.
  • Layers from ArcGIS and QGIS Server show only at their published scales, and a Web Map opens on its saved view.
  • Open a cloud folder that holds several QGIS projects, and choose the project to open.
  • Search features much faster on large layers.
  • Close any dialog with Escape, a tap outside it or the Back button.
  • When the map moves to a feature, it keeps the feature clear of the location box and the phone sheet.
  • Groundwork turns off its animations when your device asks for reduced motion.
  • Error messages say what happened and what you can do next.
  • The website lists which QGIS settings Groundwork reads, and what to use in place of the rest.
  • Search the website from any page.
  • Bug fixes. A layer from a cloud folder or map server shows the same records and styles each time that you open it. Dropbox files with accented or non-Latin names open and save, and Tasmania’s theLIST layers draw in the right place. A map that you are creating is no longer lost when a Dropbox or Microsoft sign-in takes you away and back.

September 2026

We shipped 8 highlights and 9 more improvements.

Data sources

  • Start page. Start a new map from a demo or any of your data sources, all on one page. Groundwork names the new map after the layers its source loaded.
  • Public GitHub repositories. Open a public GitHub repository as a map without a GitHub account. Paste its link, and Groundwork reads the data and any QGIS project in it.
  • OGC API - Features. Connect a map to an OGC API - Features service, the successor to WFS, and add its feature and image collections as layers.

Search and navigation

  • Field filters. Filter a layer by any of its fields from a row of filter buttons, each with a tick list of values and their counts. A share link carries the filters, so a colleague opens the map already narrowed down.
  • Legend chips. The legend under a layer’s name is a row of chips, each with a symbol, a value and a count. Press a chip to show or hide those features, and fold the row to one line of symbols when space is short.
  • Street View. See the selected feature in Google Street View, turned to face it. Check a site from your desk before you send someone out.

Editing

  • Ways to add a feature. Add a feature at an address or coordinates, by pressing the map, at your device’s location, or by pasting a copy. The four ways sit together where you add a feature.

Documentation

  • Open space maintenance demo. The new Open space maintenance demo map shows the jobs done on each mown area, and the requests logged against it. Try it to see related records at work.
Also improved (9)
  • Open a QGIS project, with its data and styles, straight from your computer.
  • Yes and no values show as a tick or a cross.
  • On a phone, a selected feature stays in view above the sheet.
  • Map labels are larger, and their halo is wider.
  • Features with an empty value get their own entry in the legend and the filter list.
  • Add a layer that is too large to show at once, and Groundwork asks you to zoom in.
  • On a touch screen, drag the edge of the Data panel to resize it.
  • A route draws above the other layers on the map.
  • We rewrote Groundwork’s screen text in plain language, and each error message starts with what Groundwork could not do.
  • Bug fixes. On a phone, a field’s dropdown list opens on the screen. If you cancel the OneDrive sign-in for a folder, Groundwork no longer opens the folder again. A feature that you are editing is no longer lost when the layer behind it refreshes.

August 2026

We shipped 14 highlights and 16 more improvements.

Editing

  • Related records. See a feature’s related records, such as the inspections of a tree, in tabs beside its details. Add a record or update one, and Groundwork saves it to the source. Groundwork reads the relations that you set in your QGIS project.
  • Live edits from teammates. See a teammate’s saved changes within a second or two, on a map from a private Dropbox folder. If you have unsaved work, Groundwork offers to reload instead of overwriting it.
  • Measurements on the map. Label a line with its length, or a polygon with its area and the length of each side, even while you draw it.

Reliability

  • Saving back to the source. Your team’s edits save straight back to the data in your cloud folder. Groundwork shows where each change saves, and stops with a clear choice when a save fails, so no edit disappears unnoticed.

Sharing

  • Share links. Share a link that opens the map with its data source, layers and settings, so your colleague sees what you see. Choose whether people sign in to edit, and whether they must give a location before the map opens.
  • Demo maps to share. Share any map as a demo, so everyone who opens the link can try the editing tools without saving to your data.

QGIS compatibility

  • Maps from QGIS projects. A map opens on the view saved in your QGIS project, with its layer order and field aliases. Dashed lines, outlines and SVG marker icons draw much as they do in QGIS.

Appearance

  • Layer styling. Change a layer’s style, for example to give each value of a field its own colour. Pick a layer’s own symbol and colour, and switch between the styles its source offers.
  • Photos and status from records. Show the photo from each record on its card, and on the feature it belongs to. Give each feature a status sticker from its latest record, such as the result of its last inspection.

Search and navigation

  • Filter and search by records. Filter a layer by the values in its related records, such as trees whose last inspection found decay. Feature search finds records too.

Data sources

  • COG, GeoParquet and PMTiles layers. Groundwork opens Cloud Optimized GeoTIFF (COG), GeoParquet and PMTiles data as layers, from a cloud folder, a QGIS project or a STAC catalogue.
  • STAC catalogue items. Browse the items of a STAC collection, newest first, and add any one of them as a layer. Groundwork also reads catalogues whose collections are spread across linked files.
  • Cloud folder browsing. Pick a Dropbox folder from inside Groundwork, and publish it as a map. A folder that cannot be read says why, with a Try again button.

Documentation

  • Documentation chat. Ask the website’s chat assistant about Groundwork, and it answers from our own documentation, with links to the pages it used.
Also improved (16)
  • Place a point at the location that you set, or at your device’s position.
  • Set a location by pressing the map, or type coordinates into the location box.
  • The location box starts small, so that more of the map shows.
  • Nearby has a choice of travel mode, and keeps your bookmarked features in its results.
  • Groundwork marks your bookmarked features on the map with a badge and a bolder label.
  • A feature’s tooltip appears above it, joined to the feature by a line.
  • Groundwork draws a feature that you select above its neighbours, so that a dense layer does not hide it.
  • Features draw with a soft shadow, so they stand out from the basemap.
  • Sketch a new feature in its layer’s own style.
  • A true/false value shows as a tick or a cross, in the details, in the list and in map labels.
  • Dates in the list read as the time since, such as 3 months ago.
  • See measurements in metric or US units.
  • The street basemap is dark in dark mode, and no longer shows shops, house numbers or highway badges.
  • Press the browser’s Back button to close a feature or cancel an edit.
  • Dialogs keep the keyboard inside them, and a greyed-out control says on screen why it is greyed out.
  • The website has new pages on working from QGIS, use cases, pricing and field work.
  • Bug fixes. If you cancel a save, Groundwork no longer stops later saves. When you discard a change, Groundwork no longer undoes an earlier save that the data source accepted.

July 2026

We shipped 9 highlights and 11 more improvements.

Phones and tablets

  • Groundwork on a phone. On a phone, the Data panel becomes a sheet over a full-screen map that you drag up and down. A long press opens every right-click option, and features are easier to hit with a finger.

Search and navigation

  • Travel-distance sorting. Sort features by the distance along streets and paths from any location, by walking, cycling or driving. Each card shows the distance and the travel time.
  • Routes to a feature. Draw a walking, cycling, driving or straight-line route to a feature from a location that you set, such as a depot or a site office.
  • Bookmarks. Bookmark the features that you come back to, and show only those in the list.

Editing

  • Saving to Dropbox. Save or delete a feature on a private Dropbox layer, and Groundwork writes the change back to the original file. It warns you if a colleague changed the file first.
  • Copy and paste. Copy a feature and paste it, at the same location or at a new one. A message explains when its geometry does not fit the layer.

Appearance

  • Map labels. Choose the field that a layer’s map labels show, and line labels follow the line. Labels set in a QGIS project show too.
  • New logo and light theme. Groundwork has a new logo and a consistent look, and opens in light mode on a new device. Choose Light or Dark from the settings menu.

Reliability

  • Fast with large layers. The feature list stays responsive on very large layers, and the map no longer freezes as you pan. Switching to a layer for the first time is much faster.
Also improved (11)
  • Edit mode stays on when you pan the map, so you can edit a feature larger than the screen.
  • When you select a feature, its highlight is in the feature’s own colour.
  • Show a description below each feature’s title in the list, such as a tree’s species.
  • The aerial basemap shows roads and labels on top of the photography.
  • Drag a point or polygon to move it while you edit.
  • Find your current location on the map, with a circle that shows how accurate it is.
  • Feature search shows each result’s category, or the field that matched.
  • Places that you set on the map appear under Recent in the location box.
  • Add Groundwork to a phone’s home screen for a crisp app icon.
  • An embedded map zooms only with Ctrl or Command and scroll, so the page around it scrolls freely.
  • The website has a Features page and a What’s new page.
  • Bug fixes. Groundwork reports an error when a server accepts a save but does not apply it. It no longer mixes layers from two maps if you change maps during an import. The map opens straight at your saved position, without first showing the whole world.

June 2026

We shipped 3 highlights and 2 more improvements.

Sharing

  • Sign-in for private cloud folders. Team members that you invite sign in once with Dropbox to open your shared data. Anyone can open a map from a public folder, with no sign-in.

Editing

Documentation

  • The Groundwork website. We launched the product site and its User and Administrator Guides at groundwork.do.
Also improved (2)
  • Groundwork opens a file in the same way, whichever cloud service holds it.
  • Nearby measures to the closest edge of an area, and an arrow points towards each feature.

May 2026

We shipped 5 highlights.

QGIS compatibility

  • QGIS projects as a source. Connect Groundwork to a QGIS project in your cloud storage, and your layers load with their styling and field aliases.

Data sources

  • Dropbox and OneDrive. Open a project from a Dropbox folder link, or from OneDrive after you sign in with your Microsoft account.
  • QGIS Server and STAC catalogues. Add layers from your organisation’s QGIS Server projects or a STAC catalogue, several at once.

Appearance

  • Aerial imagery. Switch the basemap to aerial imagery from a control on the map, and a share link keeps your choice.
  • Resizable Data panel. The Data panel floats over a full-screen map, and you can drag it wider or narrower.

April 2026

We shipped 6 highlights and 8 more improvements.

Sharing

  • Share links. Send a link that opens the map with your layers, filters, sort and view. The person who opens it needs no account.

Search and navigation

  • Multiple maps. Make a separate map for each team, project or site, and switch between them.
  • Search and sorting. Sort features by distance, size or any field, with the value shown on each row. Search all their details.
  • Legend filtering. Tick and untick values in a layer’s legend to show only the features that you want, with a count beside each value.

Appearance

  • Plain-language records. Choose the fields that give each feature its title and its group, so lists use your organisation’s terms.

Data sources

  • GeoJSON from a web address. Add a GeoJSON layer by pasting its web address, with a clear message when the address cannot be read.
Also improved (8)
  • Type a longitude and latitude to go to a spot, and step between features with previous and next arrows.
  • Choose from a list of public WFS servers when you add a layer.
  • Filter a WFS server’s list of layers by typing part of a name or keyword.
  • Large WFS layers load only the features in view.
  • Layers with no style of their own get different colours and point shapes, so you can tell them apart.
  • Hover over a feature on the map to highlight its row in the list.
  • Groundwork asks before it deletes a feature or discards your changes, in its own dialog.
  • After a save, the feature’s title shows Added or Updated.

March 2026

We shipped 6 highlights and 5 more improvements.

Data sources

  • Multiple layers. A map can have several layers. Show or hide each one, and download any of them as GeoJSON.

Appearance

  • Published symbology. Groundwork draws layers with the styles published on your WFS server, or in their SLD file.
  • Legend and feature icons. A legend shows each layer’s symbols, and every feature in the list shows a small icon in its map style.

Search and navigation

  • Feature search and filters. Search a layer’s features by any of their values, and filter the list and the map by the values of a field.
  • Address search. Search for an address, with suggestions as you type, and the map moves to it.

Editing

  • Easier data entry. Dates have a calendar picker, fields with repeated values offer a drop-down list, and long text opens in a larger box.
Also improved (5)
  • While you draw or edit, points snap to nearby features.
  • A scale bar shows at the bottom of the map.
  • Fields show readable labels in place of database column names.
  • Drop a GeoJSON file together with its style file, and Groundwork draws it in that style.
  • Hover over a feature to see its name.

February 2026

Groundwork was born this month. These are the core functions that the app still stands on.

  • The map and the Data panel. A full-screen map with a Data panel beside it, which lists a layer’s features and shows the details of each one. Choose a feature in the list, and Groundwork finds it on the map.
  • WFS editing. Connect a WFS service, and add, edit and delete its features in place. Groundwork shows which layers are read-only, and offers only the changes that the service allows.
  • GeoJSON layers. Drop a GeoJSON file on the map to open it as a layer, and browse its features in a list beside the map.
  • Drawing and reshaping. Draw a new point, line or polygon on the map and fill in its details, or reshape a feature by moving its vertices.
  • Overlapping features. Where features overlap, click the spot to choose one from a list. Hover over a name to see which feature it is.
  • Feature names. Groundwork names each feature by the most useful field of its layer, such as a street name or an asset number.
  • Coordinate systems. Layers load and save in the right place, whatever coordinate system their server uses. Groundwork checks which systems a WFS server offers, and reads its data the right way round.