Core concepts
Notes, areas, tasks, incidents, layers, roles and access levels: the vocabulary used throughout SCAD Maps.
A handful of ideas recur throughout SCAD Maps. This page defines them once so the rest of the documentation can use them without explanation.
Things on the map#
| Item | What it is | Read more |
|---|---|---|
| Note | Text pinned to a point, optionally with photos, documents and a checklist. Up to 500 characters of text. | Notes |
| Area (also called a zone) | A polygon with a name, a severity, optional checklist, and optional geofencing and a capacity. | Areas and zones |
| Task | A piece of work at a location, or unplaced until a location is known. Has an owner, status, priority, deadline, tags and a checklist. | Tasks and checklists |
| Incident | A task of a special kind for something that went wrong. Adds an acknowledgement, an optional response clock and escalation. | Incidents |
| Checklist | A tick-off list of up to 50 items on a note, an area or a task. | Checklists |
| Person | A live dot for a colleague who is online and sharing their location. | People |
An incident is stored as a task with a different kind, so statuses, priorities, assignment and checklists work the same way. The difference is in the extra response tools, and in where incidents appear in lists.
The map itself#
- Layer
- A venue plan, site drawing or data overlay shown over the base map. Layers can be switched on and off by each user; administrators set the order, opacity and default visibility.
- Base map
- The street or satellite map underneath the layers. It is optional and is not part of an offline venue download.
- Saved view
- A remembered camera position (centre, zoom, rotation, tilt). Personal views belong to one user; global views are published by administrators, and can switch a set of layers on when opened.
- Venue download
- A copy of the venue layers stored on your device so the map keeps drawing without a connection.
Access levels#
Every account has exactly one access level.
| Level | Purpose |
|---|---|
| User | Everyday use of the map: notes, tasks, areas, chat and location sharing, subject to visibility rules. |
| User admin | Manages people: creates and edits accounts, custom roles and their memberships, and reviews access requests. Cannot change access levels or delete accounts. |
| Admin | Everything, including access levels, deleting accounts, exports, layers and integrations. |
| Guest | A view-only visitor who entered through a guest QR code and PIN. Cannot see chat or tasks and cannot write, apart from notes where the link allows it. |
A sign-up that has not been approved is pending, and a declined one is rejected. Neither can sign in.
Custom roles (groups)#
Administrators define custom roles such as Security, Catering or Stage crew. A user can belong to several. In the interface they are often called groups. They are labels used to organise work, not permission levels:
- Tasks and incidents can be assigned to a group, so everyone in it sees the work in My work.
- Each group has its own chat channel.
- Notes, areas and tasks carry a snapshot of the author's groups so viewers can filter the map by group.
- One role can carry the GPS-admin flag, which lets its members manage machinery tracking and nothing else. See Machinery GPS tracking.
Restricted and focused accounts#
Two per-user switches narrow what an account sees, without changing its access level:
- Restricted to own groups: notes, tasks and areas are limited to those that involve the person's own groups.
- Own tasks only: for shared crew tablets. The account sees and edits only tasks assigned to that person or to one of their groups. Notes and areas are unaffected.
See Users, roles and access levels for how to set them and Roles and permissions matrix for the exact effects.
Live, but not everywhere at once#
Changes are pushed to your screen as they happen, but only for the part of the map you are looking at, so a busy event does not flood every device. Pan to a new area and the items there load in. When the connection drops the app shows an offline banner and keeps what it already has; see Mobile, install and offline maps.
Instances#
Each event runs as its own instance with its own address, accounts, map layers and enabled features. Nothing is shared between instances, and an account on one instance does not exist on another unless single sign-on connects them.