OrbGIS Mobile

What it is#

OrbGIS Mobile runs on iPhone and Android and uses your ordinary OrbGIS account and organization. It works with every survey built in Surveys and with surveys created on the phone itself, and writes into the same response layers, so there is no field database to sync and nothing to export. Three tabs: Surveys (the list), Mine (your own records) and Account (organization, language, sign out).

Installing and signing in#

• Open mobile.orbgis.se on the phone. iPhone: Share → Add to Home Screen, then sign in once more inside the installed app (it has its own storage). Android: Install on the card at the top, or the browser’s own install banner.
• Sign in with your email and password; Forgot your password? sends a link that lands back in the app. There is no sign-up in the app, accounts are created in OrbGIS on the computer.
• Switch organization under Account when you belong to several.

The survey list#

The list shows the organization’s surveys with a search box and a Recently used group. Each card shows the number of questions and whether the survey has a Position and a Photo question. Draft surveys can be filled in by members (the dataset is created on the first response); Live surveys are published; closed surveys are hidden here and listed read-only under Mine. Editors see Edit survey on their own surveys and a + for new ones.

Filling in#

• Choices with few options are buttons; numbers and dates get the matching keyboard; required questions are marked. The Submit bar stays at the bottom.
• Answers are kept on the phone while you work and restored if the app reloads (“Your unsent answers were restored”). Clear empties them.
• No connection when you submit: the app says so, keeps the answers and sends when you try again. A validation error is shown at the question concerned.
• After a submit: New response (empty form) or New with the same answers (keeps everything except position and photos).

Position and accuracy#

Set position opens a full-screen map with your position as a blue dot and an accuracy ring. The app averages several GPS readings, shows the accuracy as ±N m and how many readings it used, and Use my position accepts it. The alternatives are Place on map (move the map until the cross sits on the spot, then Use the map centre) and, when the survey allows it, Search for an address. Every record stores the accuracy in metres and how the point was placed (GPS, map or search); both are shown in the record, in the Results tab and in pop-ups.

Each survey has a GPS accuracy limit (default 20 m) set in the mobile builder. With Warn the app shows an orange badge and lets you Use it anyway; with Block the button is disabled until the reading is good enough or you place the point on the map.

Photos#

Take photo opens the rear camera directly; Choose from library picks an existing picture. Photos are downscaled on the phone, uploaded while you keep filling in, and can be retried or removed. On a draft survey without responses yet, the first photo still uploads.

Mine#

Mine lists only your own responses, grouped per survey with a count and the time of the last one. A record opens read-only with its answers, photo, position, accuracy and Placed with. A survey that has been closed on the computer stays here with a lock: its records can be read but no new ones added.

Creating a survey on the phone#

Editors press + and choose a template: Issue report (what, description, urgent?), Tree inventory (species, trunk girth, vitality, damage, note), Inspection (object, status, comment), Species observation (species, count, observed) or Blank; every template starts with a position and a photo question. The mobile builder edits the name and introduction, adds questions of any of the ten types, moves them up and down, marks them required, sets options, minimum, maximum and the number of stars, and sets the GPS accuracy limit. Start collecting opens the form. A survey made on the phone opens unchanged in the builder on the computer, where themes, conditions and the public web form live.

Where the records go#

Records are rows in the survey’s response layer, a point layer when the survey has a position question. They appear at once in the survey’s Results tab, on any map that shows the layer, in dashboards and in QGIS. Who can see them follows the layer’s ownership and sharing, see Sharing & publishing. The Publish sheet on the computer shows Fill in on a phone with a QR code that opens the survey in the app.