OrbGIS Mobile, field data collection without a licence per field worker

Most organizations that keep a map also keep people in the field: a tree inspector, a street-lighting technician, a biologist counting nesting sites, a seasonal crew checking playgrounds. They need to record what they see, where they stand, often with a photo. And for a long time that has meant a second system: a field app with its own licences, its own project files, and a sync step before the office sees anything.

OrbGIS Mobile is our answer to that. It is the field app for the surveys you build in OrbGIS, it runs on iPhone and Android, and it is part of the platform rather than a product on top of it. Every member of your organization can use it. This article explains what it does, what it does not do yet, and how it compares with the two field apps we are asked about most: Esri's ArcGIS Survey123 and QField with QFieldCloud.

What OrbGIS Mobile does#

You sign in with your ordinary OrbGIS account and see your organization's surveys, the ones built in Surveys on the computer and the ones created on the phone itself. Each opens as a form made for a thumb: large buttons, choices as buttons, the right keyboard for numbers and dates, and a fixed Submit bar.

• Position with honest accuracy. A full-screen map with a blue dot and an accuracy ring. The app averages several GPS readings, shows ±N metres before you accept, and stores both the accuracy and how the point was placed, by GPS, on the map or by address search, with every record. A survey can warn when the accuracy is worse than a limit you set, or refuse the record until it is better.
• Photos straight from the camera. One tap opens the rear camera; the picture is downscaled and uploaded while you keep filling in.
• Nothing lost when coverage drops. Answers are saved on the phone as you type and restored if the app reloads. With no connection at Submit, the answers are kept and sent when you try again.
• Mine. A list of what you have sent, per survey, with answers, photo, position and accuracy.
• Surveys made on the phone. An editor can start from Issue report, Tree inventory, Inspection or Species observation, add questions, set the GPS accuracy limit and start collecting, right there.
• On the map at once. A record is a point in the survey's layer the moment it is sent: on the map, in the Results tab, in dashboards and in QGIS. There is no field database and no sync step.

The step-by-step is in Collect your first field data, and every control is described in the OrbGIS Mobile reference.

What it costs: nothing per field worker#

OrbGIS has two prices, one per editing user and one per 5 GB of storage, and viewers are free and unlimited. OrbGIS Mobile does not add a third. A member who only records in the field can be a Viewer, and Viewers can fill in surveys, so a crew of ten seasonal workers who record all summer costs nothing beyond the storage their records take. The people who build the surveys and the maps are the ones you pay for, as before.

How it compares#

We build OrbGIS, so read this with that in mind. Every statement about the other two is kept to how their makers describe and sell them, and the last section lists where they are still ahead.

Where the others are still ahead#

We would rather you knew this before a field season than after.

• Real offline. OrbGIS Mobile keeps your answers through lost coverage and sends them when it returns, but it does not download surveys, basemaps or layers for a day without any signal. Survey123 and QField both do.
• Lines and polygons. A survey records points. If your field work is drawing a ditch or a felling area, QField or Field Maps are the tools today.
• Editing existing features. OrbGIS Mobile adds records; it does not edit features that are already in a layer. QField edits your QGIS layers in the field, and Field Maps edits hosted layers.
• External GNSS receivers. Both other apps can take positions from an external receiver, RTK included. OrbGIS Mobile uses the phone's own GPS and is honest about its accuracy instead.
• Complex form logic. Survey123's XLSForms allow calculations and nested logic that OrbGIS surveys do not have.

Several of these are on our list. The accuracy field stored with every record is there so that positions collected with better equipment later fit the same data.

Getting started#

1. Build a survey in OrbGIS, or create one on the phone from a template.
2. Open mobile.orbgis.se on the phone, add it to the home screen and sign in.
3. Pick the survey, record, send. The points are on the map.

OrbGIS is not affiliated with Esri or with OPENGIS.ch, the maker of QField. "ArcGIS", "Survey123", "Field Maps", "QField" and "QFieldCloud" are used only to describe the products and to compare offerings.