Updates to the Social Map are on the way as part of Version 2.7. The update will bring several new features to the tool that will expand its capabilities to collect place-based information as part of your engagements.

Here's a summary of the key new features:

A few simple but important modifications have been made to the User Interface (UI) of the Social Map.

A slide-in 'panel' has now been added which will contain the activity's input fields, and will appear once a participant selects the 'add marker' button.

The panel is also used to display the content of an existing contribution (comment, image, address, category and date/time stamp), which replaces the current 'pop-up' on the map.

The other significant user interface change is that the 'add marker' button will now appear as a shorter action button in the bottom, right corner of the map rather than spanning the full width of the map. On mobile view, the button will still appear as 100% the width of the map.

Images can now be uploaded by citizens via the Social Map, unlocking further potential for collecting place-based stories and illustrating issues and ideas.

When turned on, this setting adds an image upload field in the input form that allows participants to share an image file from their device (e.g. .jpg, .png, .gif ). Uploaded images will be displayed in the new side panel when the map pin is clicked.

Categories have been added to the Social Map to allow participants to classify their contributions. When enabled, customisable category names and unique marker colours can be set.

Participants can select the relevant category when making their contribution and their map marker will reflect the nominated category colour as well as being denoted in the info panel. A dynamic legend (or key) will also appear at the bottom, left of the map.

Spatial 'bookmarks' have been added to help users navigate the map and focus on particular areas of interest. The 'bookmarks' are preset map locations that identify a location's centrepoint and zoom level so users can quickly move the map to a place of interest within the study area (e.g. feature or neighoubhrood).

When enabled, the 'bookmarks' appear as a dropdown menu at the top centre of the map.

We're aware that our customers often don't have access to GIS software, and not everyone can analyse map data with spatial x y coordinates. So we have integrated the Google Places API to geocode the pin location to the nearest address.

This will make analysing spatial data much easier as the address and suburb name will appear directly in the results. The geo-coded address will also appear when viewing the contribution in the info panel.

Please be aware that the geocoding process may not always be accurate, particularly in newly developed areas where addresses may have not been recently updated in Google's database, or may not be useful in small-scale applications.

If the exact location is important to your analysis, we recommend you implement more accurate geo-coding methods.

Making mapping activities accessible to all users has always been a challenge for map-based activities. We have implemented a new workflow that makes it possible to make a place-based contribution even if the citizen is using assistive technologies such as screen readers.

The method uses the address geo-coding mentioned above to allow a user to set the closest address for their contribution. This can be achieved independently of the map interface meaning a user doesn't have to see the map to leave a contribution.

Currently this flow is being tested, and future improvements may further refine this process.

The Results report for the Social Map activity has been updated to include the geo-coded address field in the participation data.

The map will now only show filtered contributions within the selected date range. Additionally, the same map style used on the front end will be displayed in the reports area.