Sites

A public engagement is longer than one survey: a pilot, the main survey, a round of feedback on the proposal, open-house events. A site is the one address residents need for all of it. Put it on flyers, posters and QR codes; it stays the same while the surveys behind it open and close.

Sites are part of Pro. A workspace on the Pro trial can create one.

Create a site

1. Open Sites in the sidebar and press New site. The site opens in the builder as a draft, with its title selected.
2. Type the title over it, for example Riverside Park plan. Until you publish, the site’s address follows the title.
3. Click the line under the title and write a summary of one or two sentences; press Add a cover picture at the top right of the title area, or drop a picture onto it. The summary is also what people see when the link is shared.

How the builder works

The middle of the builder is the site itself, as residents will see it.

• Click any text to change it — the title, the summary, a heading, a paragraph, a caption, a button label. Select words for bold, italic, links and lists.
• Fill a block in where it is. Drop a picture, a GeoJSON file or documents onto the block (or click to choose them), paste a video or button link into the field under it, type the questions of an FAQ and the phases of a timeline straight into the rows, set an event’s date, time and place above its card, pick the survey of a card or the question of a results block from the list in the block.
• Click a block to see its other settings on the right — the finer points: picture description, button style, map colour and style, chart type, time zone and seats of an event. With nothing selected, the right side holds the site settings: the cover picture’s description, address, language, visibility and the surveys on the site.
• Point between two blocks and press + to add a block there, or use Add block at the bottom.
• Point at a block for its toolbar: drag to move, up and down, duplicate, settings, delete. The list on the left shows every block; click one to jump to it, or drag to reorder.
• Everything saves by itself. The top bar says Saving… and All changes saved. A block you have not finished (a picture without the picture, an event without a time) stays in the builder and is not shown on the site until it is complete.
• Accessibility notes (violet, with the accessibility icon) point at what a screen reader or keyboard user would trip over: a picture without a description, a small heading before any larger one, a link that only says “here”. The Publish panel lists them; they never stop you publishing.
• The phone button at the top shows the site at phone width.
• Page width (site settings) sets how wide the column is on a computer: Narrow for reading, Standard, or Wide for plans and drawings. Pictures, maps and videos can also go Full width — edge to edge of the page — in their own settings.

Add blocks

Press + or Add block and choose what to add:

• Heading — a section title on its own: large, medium or small (Settings, Size). Use it to open a part of the site, or for a subheading between blocks.
• Text — formatted text: what the project is, why residents are asked, what happens with their answers. The toolbar offers Heading and Subheading inside the text.
• FAQ — questions and answers that open on a tap.
• Timeline — the phases of the engagement with their dates. Press Now on the phase you are in; earlier phases show as done.
• Image — a picture with a description for screen readers and an optional caption.
• Gallery — up to 12 pictures (boards, renderings, site photos) in two to four columns; residents open them large with a tap. Drop the pictures onto the block and caption them there — the caption is also what screen readers read.
• Before and after — two pictures of the same view, today and the proposal, with a slider between them. Drop each into its half of the block and name the two sides.
• Video — a YouTube or Vimeo link.
• Survey card — one of your surveys. The card follows the survey: Open with a Take part button, Opens on … before its period starts, Coming soon while it is a draft, and Closed with a link to its public results once you publish them.
• Button — a link to anything else: the draft plan, the council’s website, an event sign-up.
• Contacts — who runs the project and how to reach them: add people (name, role, e-mail, phone) right in the block, the address and opening hours in its settings.
• Documents — files to download: the input summary, the open-house boards, the draft plan. PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OpenDocument, CSV or plain text, up to 25 MB each and 20 per block. Each file gets a title (the file name to start with) that you can change on the block; × takes one off.
• Results — what residents said in a round: a chart of a choice, rating or number question, or a map (markers, heatmap or clusters) of a map question, from any survey of your workspace. Answers are counted as on the survey’s public results page: only reviewed, non-deleted responses, small groups masked, written answers never shown. The block updates by itself as answers come in.
• Map — the project area on a map. Upload a GeoJSON file with the boundary, a route or a few points (up to 1 MB; export it from QGIS or draw it on geojson.io), pick a colour and one of your map styles. A shape’s name shows when someone points at it.

Every block can have a heading above it — or none: leave Heading (optional) empty and the block starts with its content. A heading also becomes a link in the menu at the top of the site; untick Show the heading in the menu at the top in the block’s settings to keep it out. The menu appears once it has two links. Drag blocks by the handle to change their order.

Events and registration

The Event block announces an open house, a walk or a workshop: date, start and end time in the event’s time zone, the place (with an optional map link), a few words about it, and an optional number of seats.

While Registration open is ticked and the event has not ended, the block carries a short form: name, email and a box the resident ticks to agree. They get an email with the details, a calendar file and a link to cancel; a cancelled registration frees its seat. The same email registers only once.

Under the event in the builder, Attendee list shows who registered, with a CSV download and Remove / Remove all. Names and emails are for this event only: Mapsurvey deletes them automatically 30 days after the event — the form says so to every resident. Owners, admins and editors of the workspace see the list; viewers do not.

Surveys on the site

Surveys on this site lists the surveys the site shows. Add one there or straight from a survey card. A survey can be on any number of sites — the same city-wide survey on two neighbourhood sites, for example. Removing a survey from the site removes its cards.

Your brand

The workspace owner sets the public name, a logo and an accent colour in the workspace settings (General → Branding). Every site of the workspace shows the logo and the name at the top and uses the colour for buttons and links; a colour too light to read is darkened on the site automatically.

Other languages

Press Translations in the top bar and add a language. Every text of the site is listed once, in page order — headings, text, questions and answers, phases, captions, button labels, contacts, file titles, the title and summary — ready to translate in the table or through a CSV for an outside translator; one translation fills every place the same text is used. A text you change later shows as Outdated until its translation is checked.

Visitors get the site in their browser’s language when it is offered, and can switch at the top of the page; a text without a translation shows in the primary language. Event confirmations go out in the language the visitor registered in. Stop offering a language hides it from visitors and keeps its translations.

Start from an earlier site

Duplicate on the Sites list (or Duplicate site in the site settings) makes an unpublished copy to start the next engagement from: the same blocks, files, surveys and settings, a new address. Event registrations are never copied.

From a template next to New site starts from a ready layout: Consultation (why we ask, take part, how it works, meet us, questions, contact) or Master plan (the plan, where, phases, take part, what we heard, documents, project team). Blocks that need your material — a picture, a survey, files, the project area — wait empty with their drop zones. Save as template in the site settings keeps any site as a starting point of your own: it has no surveys, is never published, and appears under Templates and in the same menu.

Publish

Press Publish in the top bar. The panel that opens shows the address — mapsurvey.org/p/<address>/, with a copy button — a switch for search engines and the QR code to download; Publish now puts the site live. Change the address (site settings, Address) before you print it: changing it later breaks the links already out there.

• Public sites may be listed by search engines.
• Unlisted sites are reachable only by people who have the link.

Until you publish, only members of your workspace can open the site; they see a Draft banner. Unpublish takes the site offline at any time.

To show the draft to a client before it goes live, copy the link under Share for review in the Publish panel. Anyone with it sees the draft read-only for 14 days, without an account; event registration stays closed. New link stops every link you sent before.

If your Pro plan ends

A published site stays online, so the QR codes you printed keep working. You can still unpublish or delete it, but not edit it, until the workspace is on Pro again.