Collect a feature in the field

Collecting a feature is the single most repeated action in DatumPro. Everything else on the platform exists so that this action takes a few seconds and produces data the office does not have to correct.

Before you start

• You are working inside a project that has at least one job and one layer.
• You have permission to create features on that project or job — the server decides this, not the app.
• Your device has a recent location fix. The workspace asks for one as it opens.

Draw it

1. 1Open the project map and pick the layer you are collecting into.
2. 2Choose a tool from the palette. It holds only the tools in the project’s catalogue, narrowed further if you picked a toolset, so a feature type the catalogue does not define is not an option.
3. 3Place the point, or trace the line or polygon. Snapping attaches the new feature to the one it physically connects to.
4. 4Fill in the attributes the tool requires. Required attributes are asked for now — not chased down next week.
5. 5Save. The edit is written locally first, so it is safe even with no connection.

What happens next

Saved edits queue in an outbox and replay to the server in the order you made them as soon as there is signal. You can keep working the whole time. When a quality rule flags something — a line left unconnected at one end, a line end that stops just short of what it should meet — you see it on the device while you work, not in an email three days later.