Using PowerMaps to Manage & Collect Field Data

01 Getting Started

PowerMaps works two ways: the web dashboard for setting up projects and reviewing data, and the Android app for collecting data in the field — including offline. Most people use both.

Creating an account

Go to powermaps.app or cloud.powermaps.app/?page=register and fill in the sign‑up form: name, organisation, email, and password.

1. Submit the form — you'll see a confirmation that a verification email is on its way.
2. Open that email and click the verification link.
3. Return to cloud.powermaps.app and sign in.

02 Your Role

PowerMaps has two kinds of role, and it's worth understanding the difference — it explains almost every "why can't I see this?" question.

Your account role

This is what you are on the platform as a whole. Everyone who signs themselves up starts as a Project Manager. If you were invited to someone else's project instead of signing up directly, you start as a Collaborator.

Your role on each project

This is the one that decides what you can actually do day to day, and it is set per project by that project's owner or manager. The same person can manage one project, collect on another and only observe a third.

Being promoted to Manager on any project also raises your account role to Project Manager automatically, so you can create projects of your own.

03 Your Dashboard

Project Managers see stats and a table limited to the projects they own, plus a team‑progress view of how much each collaborator has collected. Collaborators see personal stats — records collected this week, total, and the projects they belong to — with quick actions to jump straight into collecting.

04 Projects

Creating a project Project Manager

1. Open Projects → Create Project.
2. Pick a template for your sector, or start blank. There are 14: power, gas pipelines, telecom & fibre, water & sanitation, roads & transport, land parcels, renewables & mini‑grids, EV charging, customers & metering, regulatory inspection, mining, healthcare, education and general/custom.
3. Name it and add a description and location. The country you choose also decides what PowerMaps calls its administrative areas (for example Region and District in Ghana).
4. Review the categories collectors will log. For each one, choose what it is Collected as: a Point for an asset (pole, valve, meter), a Line for something that runs (power line, pipe, cable, road) or an Area for a zone or boundary (parcel, service area).
5. Define each category's custom fields — text, number, dropdown, date, checkbox, URL or email, with units, placeholders and required rules.
6. Save. You now own this project and can invite collaborators to it.

Managing the team Owner / Manager

Open a project and choose the Team tab. You'll see everyone on the project, their role, how many records each has collected, and when they joined — plus any invitations that have been sent but not yet accepted.

• Change anyone's role with the dropdown beside their name. It takes effect straight away.
• Remove takes away their access. The records they already collected stay on the project and remain credited to them.
• The project owner can't be demoted or removed — otherwise a project could be left with nobody able to run it.

Working on a project Collaborator

Your projects are reached through Collection Points, not the Projects menu. Use the project filter at the top of that page to switch between every project you've been assigned to. You'll see the records you have collected on the selected project.

05 Invitations

Inviting a collaborator Project Manager

1. Open your project and choose Invite Collaborator.
2. Enter their email address and send the invite. You can change their role from the Team tab once they've joined.
3. They receive an email with a link to accept — if they don't have an account yet, accepting the invite creates one for them, already attached to your project.

You can cancel a pending invitation at any time from the project's team list.

Accepting an invitation Collaborator

1. Open the invitation email and click the link.
2. If you don't have a PowerMaps account yet, set a password to create one.
3. You're now on that project and can start collecting.

06 Collecting Points Web

Both roles can log a record from the web, though most day‑to‑day field collection happens on the Android app (see Android App). For lines and areas, see Lines & Areas.

1. Open Collection Points → Collect New Facility, and pick the project.
2. Choose a category and status, and fill in the project's custom fields.
3. Let the location settle — the readout shows the accuracy and how many readings were averaged — or connect a GNSS receiver (see Accuracy).
4. Attach a photo if you have one, and save.

07 Lines & Areas New

Utilities don't only map things that sit in one place. A power line, a gas main, a fibre route or a parcel boundary is a line or an area, and PowerMaps now captures them as one — vertex by vertex, completely offline — on the Android app and on the web Collect page.

Before you go out

1. On the Android app, open Sync, sign in and select your project while you still have signal. That downloads every category — including which ones are lines and areas.
2. For the best accuracy, connect your GNSS receiver from the accuracy chip at the top of the Collect screen (see Accuracy & GNSS Receivers).

Tracing a line on Android

1. Open Collect. Under What are you mapping? tap Line (route, cable, pipe). The screen changes from a single point to Trace the line.
2. Stand at the start of the line — the first pole, or the first valve — and tap Add vertex here. The app averages the best fix available, exactly as it does for a point.
3. Walk the route and add a vertex at every pole, every bend and every tee. The sketch, length and vertex count update as you go.
4. On long routes, tap Record while walking instead. The app drops a vertex every few metres (you choose the spacing) and keeps the screen on until you tap Stop recording.
5. Tap Done: add details, pick the category — for example MV Overhead Line, or Distribution Main for gas — and fill in its fields: the voltage, or the pipe material, diameter and pressure class.
6. Tap Save Line. Like a point, it's stored on the device straight away and queued for sync.

Branches and tees

Save the main line first. Then start a new line standing at the pole or tee where the branch leaves the main. When the network is built, line ends within 3 metres of each other (or of another line) are joined into one network automatically.

Assets on the line

Map poles, transformers, switches and valves as ordinary points, standing on the line. A point within 5 metres of the network counts as on it. For every valve or switch, record whether it is open or closed — a closed valve (status Inactive, or Valve Position Closed) stops a trace, just as it stops flow on the ground.

Outlining an area

1. Under What are you mapping? tap Area (zone, parcel). The card becomes Outline the area.
2. Walk the boundary and add a vertex at every corner. You don't need to return to the start — the area closes back to the first vertex by itself.
3. Tap Done: add details, choose the category and save. The area is computed on the ellipsoid, so it can be checked against what is claimed.

Capture settings

Accept vertices up to

The worst accuracy a vertex may have, from ±5 cm (RTK fixed) to ±25 m. A vertex isn't taken until the fix is at least this good.

While walking, a vertex every

2, 5, 10, 25 or 50 m — the spacing for Record while walking.

Undo

Removes the last vertex — use it straight away if one was taken while the fix jumped.

Clear

Removes every vertex so you can start the line or area again (you'll be asked to confirm).

Lines and areas on the web

The web Collect page works the same way: choose a line or area category and the vertex panel replaces the single‑point capture, with Add vertex here, Record while walking and, for office work, Draw on map to sketch a line or area over the street or satellite map.

08 Accuracy & GNSS Receivers New

Every point and every vertex records not just where it is, but how well that position is known. A phone on its own is good to a few metres; with an external receiver and corrections, PowerMaps captures to centimetres.

How PowerMaps picks a position

The Position fix card at the top of Collect always uses the best source available, in this order:

What is stored with every record

So a reviewer can tell a survey‑grade position from a rough one, each point — and each vertex of a line or area — keeps:

Accuracy

Estimated horizontal error in metres, shown as ±.

Fix quality

RTK fixed, RTK float, SBAS/DGPS corrected or standalone.

Position source

This device's GPS, or the external receiver — and which correction service, if any.

Satellites & HDOP

How many satellites were used, and the geometry's dilution of precision.

Sample count

How many readings were averaged into the position.

09 Points & Map

Collection Points lists everything logged on projects you have access to — points, lines and areas — with a map view alongside the table.

• Filter by project, category, status, or administrative area.
• Click a record to see its full detail — every custom field value, any photo attached, and for a line or area its length or area.
• Edit a record if a detail needs correcting.
• On a project's Map tab, switch between Streets and Satellite with the layer control, and use the network tools.

Region, district and town — automatically New

Every record is tagged with its administrative areas (named for the project's country — for example Region, District and Town / Locality in Ghana), worked out on the server from its coordinates. Nobody types them, so every record in the same district carries exactly the same name, and records captured offline and synced days later are tagged the same way.

10 Network Tools New Owner / Manager / Viewer

Back at the office, the lines your crews captured become a network you can work with. Open the project, choose the Map tab, and the tools sit in the toolbar above the map.

You can also run Trace, Isolate and Nearby from any feature's popup on the map.

Isolating a leak or a fault, step by step

1. Open the project → Map tab.
2. Click Isolate. A hint asks you to click the damaged line, or the leak.
3. Click it. The section that would be shut off is highlighted, and the valves or switches to close are marked on the map.
4. Read the result card below the map — how many devices to operate, how many kilometres are isolated, and which line features and assets sit on that section.

Network settings

Under More → Network settings. They're remembered in your browser for each project.

Snap tolerance (m)

Line ends this close are joined. Default 3 m — about a phone fix. RTK‑surveyed networks can go to 0.1 m or less.

Attach distance

How close a point asset must be to count as on the network. Default 5 m.

Nearby radius (m)

The distance Nearby searches. Default 100 m.

Barrier categories

Which point categories can stop flow — valves, switches, breakers, reclosers, fuses. PowerMaps guesses them from the category names until you choose. Trace stops only at closed ones; Isolate stops at every one.

11 Export & Analytics

These appear in your sidebar only if your account has been granted export/analytics permission.

1. Open Export Data, pick a project and an optional date range.
2. Choose a format:
   • CSV or Excel — every custom field becomes its own column. Lines and areas come out as WKT in a Geometry (WKT) column, which QGIS can read as a delimited‑text layer.
   • GeoJSON New — points, lines and areas with their real geometry and every field as an attribute, ready for QGIS or ArcGIS.
3. Tick "Also download photos as a ZIP file" to get all collected photos bundled with the spreadsheet.

Analytics gives you charts of collection volume, category/status breakdowns, and activity over time for a quick read without exporting anything.

12 Requesting an Upgrade Collaborator

If you need to start your own project rather than just collecting on someone else's, request an upgrade to Project Manager.

1. If you try to create a project as a collaborator, PowerMaps offers to take you to Request Upgrade automatically — or open it yourself from your account menu.
2. Briefly explain why you need Project Manager access.
3. An administrator reviews the request; you'll be notified once it's approved.

13 Messages & Notifications

Messages are project‑scoped announcements from your team — not private one‑to‑one chat. Anything posted on a project you belong to shows up here. The notification bell covers things like invitation activity, role changes and upgrade‑request updates.

14 Profile, Help & Reporting a Problem

• Profile — your name and contact details.
• Settings — change your password and personal preferences.
• Help Center — quick answers without leaving the dashboard.

Reporting a problem

There's a report button on every screen of the Android app and the web. Use it whenever something looks wrong — it's the fastest way to get it fixed.

1. Tap the report button (bottom corner of the screen).
2. Choose what kind of problem it is and describe what happened.
3. Add a screenshot — capture the page, or choose an image — and tap Send report.

15 Android App

This is the app most collectors live in day‑to‑day — three tabs: Collect, My Points, and Sync. It works fully offline, which is the whole reason it exists.

Installing & first launch

1. Install the PowerMaps app on the Android device (Android 7.0 or later). If it's on Google Play you'll find it there; otherwise download the signed installer from powermaps.app and allow installs from your browser when prompted.
2. On first launch, you'll see why the app needs Location (to record GPS coordinates) and Camera (to attach photos) — tap Continue to grant both, or Skip for now and grant them later. Connecting a GNSS receiver also asks for Bluetooth.
3. Open the Sync tab and sign in with the same email and password you use on the web.
4. Pick your project. If you're only on one, it's selected for you.

Why you must sign in once before going out

Signing in does more than prove who you are. It downloads your project's entire data definition — its categories (and whether each is a point, line or area), every custom field, the status options and the labels — and stores it on the device.

The app refreshes that definition quietly whenever it happens to have a connection, so a field your manager adds in the browser this morning reaches your phone without an app update or a reinstall.

Getting newly created projects

If a project is created for you after you signed in, pull down on the Sync tab — or tap the refresh icon in its toolbar — to fetch it. This is also how a role change reaches your device.

If a project is view-only for you

Where your role on the selected project is Viewer, the Collect tab shows a "View-only access" panel instead of the form, and the Sync tab marks that project accordingly. You can still review the project's data; you just can't add to it. Ask a project manager if you need to collect.

Signing in or creating an account

1. Open the Sync tab.
2. Have an account already? Sign in directly.
3. New here? Tap Sign Up — it opens the same secure registration used on the web, right inside the app.
4. After signing up, the app shows a "Verification email sent" banner on this same sign‑in screen — check that inbox, verify, then sign in.

Collecting a point

1. Open the Collect tab. Under What are you mapping? keep Point (asset) selected.
2. Wait for the Position fix chip to settle, then tap Collect Location.
3. Choose the type/category, fill in the custom fields and pick a status.
4. Take a photo if you'd like one attached, then tap Save Point. It saves to the device instantly, signal or not.

For power lines, pipes, cables, roads and parcel boundaries, see Lines & Areas.

My Points & syncing

• My Points shows everything you've collected on this device — synced or still pending — plus records already on the server for your projects.
• Sync: once signed in, pick the project and tap Sync to upload everything pending, photos included. Lines and areas upload with all their vertices; the server names each one and measures it precisely.

16 Tips for Field Collectors

• You don't need signal to collect — save points, lines and areas offline all day, then sync once when you're back near Wi‑Fi or data.
• Let the GPS settle before saving if you're under trees or near tall structures. Watch the ± figure on the Position fix chip, not just the dot.
• Walking a line? Add a vertex at every pole, bend and tee — and tap Undo immediately if one was taken while the fix jumped.
• Start every branch at the pole or tee where it leaves the main, so it joins the network.
• Record whether each valve or switch is open or closed. Network traces depend on it.
• Sync often enough that a lost or damaged device never costs you more than a few records.
• Double‑check the project selected in the Sync tab before syncing — records upload to whichever project is currently selected.
• Download the field guide video to your phone before a training day with no signal.

17 Troubleshooting

Still stuck? Use the report button on any screen (see Reporting a problem), or email support@powermaps.app.

18 Glossary

Vertex

One captured position along a line or around an area. A line needs at least two; an area at least three.

Category

A kind of thing you collect (Transformer, MV Overhead Line, Land Parcel). Each is a point, line or area.

Barrier

A point asset that can stop flow along a network — a valve, switch, breaker, recloser or fuse.

Isolation

The smallest section of network that can be shut off around a fault, and the barriers to operate to do it.

Snap tolerance

How close two line ends must be to be joined into one network node.

GNSS

Satellite positioning in general — GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, BeiDou.

RTK (fixed / float)

Real-time kinematic: a receiver uses corrections from a nearby base station for centimetre (fixed) or decimetre (float) accuracy.

NTRIP

The internet protocol that streams RTK corrections from a caster to your receiver.

SBAS / HAS

Corrections broadcast from satellites (for example EGNOS, or Galileo's High Accuracy Service). Nothing to connect, where available.

HDOP

Horizontal dilution of precision — how good the satellites' geometry is. Lower is better.

GeoJSON / WKT

Standard text formats for geometry. GeoJSON is a whole map layer; WKT is one shape per spreadsheet cell.