📝 Getting The Most Out Of Maps in Active Oversight

by Klew Still, UX Designer at Active Oversight

Does anything in your Active Oversight app look a bit...different to you? Perhaps something particularly “geographic”? No, we didn’t get a haircut! The Map within Active Oversight has been totally overhauled on the mobile application and also added to your Dashboard on web.

These updates come with a ton of new functionality designed to give you more power and flexibility when it comes to managing or viewing your Projects at a high level. Follow along with this overview of our new and improved Map features and learn some tips and tricks for getting the most out of this tool.

Be advised that the Map functionality on the web app is currently only available to Internal Admin and Editor users.

The Basics on Web

The new view of your web Dashboard, now featuring the Dashboard Map

Internal Admin and Editor users can find your new web Map on the Dashboard next to the Project Status Summary. Don’t worry, the Project Status Summary has just been moved a bit - it still works just like it used to!

As you can see from the screenshot above, your new Map shows Projects grouped by their Location with the number of Projects at that Location shown on the Map pin. Pins grouped very tightly together form a “cluster” that will break into individual pins if you zoom into it. Also notice that this view is already filtered to show only Projects that are active, i.e. Projects that have the status In Progress. Pin clustering and pre-filtering are designed to reduce visual clutter and help you focus on what’s important.

Finally, the Map on web gives you some very powerful tools to make the most of this view: the ability to fullscreen the Map and use Google’s Street View from right within this window. 

The Basics on Mobile

On your Android or iOS device, you can see all these updated features by navigating to the Map area.

You can view Projects in the same way on your mobile device

Hopefully, it’s a familiar view! Pins, pin clusters, and filters are all present here and work the exact same as they do on the web, so your experience is consistent across devices. One thing to know is that on mobile you will only see the Projects that you are a Project Member of to help further focus your work. So for Admin or Editor users, you may see fewer Projects on your mobile device than you do on the web.

Using Filters

We wanted to make sure you had the ability to filter this Map view so that you could find Projects much easier. That’s why you can filter your Map pins by Project Type, Project Status, and/or Project Manager. It looks a bit different between mobile and web, but it works the exact same:

Notice that if your filters have excluded all the Projects at a given Location, that Location pin will not appear on the map at all - so if you’re missing something, that might be why.

Using filters is an easy way to pinpoint (ha!) work that a single person is responsible for within a given area, or view the distribution of similar work across the state, among many other tasks that the Maps filter makes easier. 

Plus, great news! These filters are saved for you when you navigate away from this page so no more re-applying your filters over and over. They are only reset if you sign out. 

Data Embedded in the Map

It’s time to really dig down to the nitty-gritty: Location and Project details. Don’t worry, we have you covered. Of course, you can use the Map pins to view a list of Projects at a given Location!

In web, click on a pin; on mobile, touch a pin and swipe up on the Location Details panel

By now we hope you’ve noticed…our haircut! Kidding. With the Map, we’ve introduced Location images on the web. You can add or change a Location image right from the web Map which then appears as the header for the Map Location panel. In this panel, you can also see the basic Location data and a list of Projects at that Location. Be aware though that Projects are filtered with your filter settings, so if you have a filtered view you may not be seeing all Projects. And if you’ve included completed Projects in your search they will be at the very bottom of the list!

On mobile, you can also navigate to the Location you’ve chosen using the blue navigation arrow button.

Now, perhaps you’d like to see Project information and even go straight to the Project within AO. And who are we to stop you? On mobile, select a Project to go straight to the Project Details. On web, click any Project to see the Map Project panel.

The Map Project panel on web showing Project details with essential information like Lat/Long and contact data

From here you can review high-level Project information, Location Notes, and even see a list of Project Documents if any are attached. Click on the Project name to be taken directly to the view of that Project within AO.

And that’s Maps!

If you’ve enjoyed learning about and using our Maps and have ideas, questions, or comments we would love to know about it. Don’t be shy about telling our Product team at [e-mail].