People, presence and live location

See who is online, share your live location with the team, and control what others can see of you.

SCAD Maps can show where your colleagues are, live, so you can find the nearest person to a job and message them in one tap. Seeing others is always tied to sharing your own: location is opt-in, off by default, and every device chooses for itself. This page covers the people list, sharing your location, how other people appear on the map, and what is stored.

See who is online#

The status bar shows a small stack of avatars, the initials of people who are online right now, with a count. Open it to get Who’s here, a list of everyone connected. Your own row is marked You.

Under each name a line shows how recently that person was active:

The list updates by itself as people connect and disconnect, so it stays current without a refresh.

Message or find a person#

• Choose the message button on a row to open a private conversation with that person. See Team chat.
• Choose a row itself to fly the map to that person’s last known position and close the list. Rows you can do this for show a small arrow; a person who has not shared a position has no arrow, and the row does nothing when tapped.

Share your location#

Open Notifications & location from the account group of the navigation (on the classic layout it is in the map menu). Switch on Share My Location.

1. Switch on Share My Location. The browser asks for permission to use your position; allow it.
2. Your dot appears on the map in the sharing style, and others who are looking at the same area can now see you.
3. You also start to see other sharers around you.
4. Switch it off at any time. Your dot drops back to a private marker that only you see.

The switch always starts off when you open the app, on every device. You have to turn it on deliberately each time.

High-accuracy GPS#

Directly under the sharing switch is a small High-accuracy GPS switch. It only affects your own marker while you are not sharing.

• Off (default): your own marker updates from occasional low-power position checks. It is enough to show roughly where you are and saves battery.
• On: your own marker follows live GPS, which is more precise and uses more battery.

While sharing is on, your marker always follows live position, whatever this switch says. The choice is remembered on the device.

How others appear on the map#

Each sharing person shows as a dot with their name. Dots fade as the last fix gets older, so you can tell a live position from an old one at a glance.

While you move, your position is sent every few seconds (more often at running speed, and only after you have moved a few metres). When you stand still it is refreshed about once a minute. The server groups updates so a busy crowd does not flood anyone’s phone. While you share, the screen is kept awake where the browser allows it, so tracking continues. You only receive the dots of people near the part of the map you are looking at; panning to a new area brings the people there into view. Nobody outside the area you are viewing is sent to your device.

What is stored#

Being open about this matters, so here is exactly what happens to shared positions.

• Live position. The latest position of each sharing person is held briefly, for about ten minutes, so that a colleague opening the map can still see you. When you stop sharing it expires by itself.
• Movement history. While you share, a position is also written to a history about once a minute. This history is deleted automatically after 7 days by default; an operator can shorten or lengthen that. Only administrators can read it, and it is removed when an account is deleted.
• Nothing when off. If you do not share, no positions are sent or stored for you.

Headcount in areas#

Administrators can turn an area into a geofence that counts people inside it, using the positions of people who share. If nobody in a crowded area shares their location, the count stays low, so treat it as a lower bound. See Areas.