Using the field map (mobile)

Platform: Mobile (the Archer app)

The Maps tab is the home screen of the Archer app, and the hub almost every other flow runs through. When the app opens, you land here: a live map of your vineyards centred on your GPS position, with your blocks, rows, field features, and trouble spots drawn on top.

This page is an orientation to the map itself — what it shows and how to interact with it. The detailed workflows live in their own sections, and we link out to them as we go:

• Vineyards and blocks — blocks, rows, and the block sheet.
• Field features — irrigation, posts, hazards and other mapped features.
• Trouble spots — reporting and managing issues in the field.

The map canvas

The map fills the screen below the status bar. You pan by dragging, and zoom by pinching or double-tapping.

Map tiles — for both the Map and Satellite basemaps — are cached on your device, so areas you've visited before load instantly and keep rendering when you have no signal. (See Working offline.)

Follow your GPS

The follow button lives in the app bar at the top of the Maps tab, next to the Layers button. It appears once the app has a GPS fix — its tooltip reads Follow GPS, or Stop following while it's active.

• Tap it to lock onto your position — the map recentres on you, zooming in only if you were further out.
• While locked on, the map keeps following you as you move. The icon fills in and tints purple.
• Dragging or flinging the map releases the lock. Zooming — by pinching or double-tapping — keeps you locked on.
• Tap the button again any time to re-lock.

When the map gets its first GPS fix after opening, it locks onto your position automatically, so you start centred on where you're standing. (If you arrived via a "view on map" link, the map stays focused on that target instead.)

Your position is drawn as a blue dot. When the GPS reports a heading, a soft cone fans out from the dot to show which way you're facing.

The GPS status bar

The strip across the very top of the map is your GPS and position status bar.

• On the left is a GPS-quality badge — for example RTK Fixed ±2cm, RTK Float ±50cm, an accuracy estimate like ±5m, or No GPS / Acquiring... while it's still settling.
• When you're standing inside a block, the bar shows a small row-lock icon, your row (for example Row 12–13 when you're between two), and how far you are from the nearer end of the row, as 135 m from S. The block name shows in the app bar title above.
• When you're not inside any block it reads Outside blocks; before a fix it reads Waiting for GPS.

Tap the status bar to open GPS Configuration, where you connect and set up your receiver. (See Setting up your rover.)

Zoom-dependent detail

The map shows more as you zoom in, so it stays readable when you're looking at the whole property and gets precise when you're working a block:

• Zoomed out — blocks are drawn as filled, variety-coloured outlines.
• Zoom in — field features (areas, lines and points) fade in.
• Zoom in further — the block outlines give way to individual row lines, and row-number bubbles appear at the ends of the rows.

So if you can't see features or rows yet, zoom in a little — they appear at closer zoom levels by design, with rows needing the closest zoom.

The row-number bubbles cover every block on screen (during a row-based work session, just that job's blocks) and re-arrange continuously as you move the map. When both ends of a row are off screen, a bubble pins near the top edge of the map instead, so long rows stay identifiable while you pan along them.

Tap to select: detail cards

Tapping something on the map selects it and slides a detail card up from the bottom. Tap the card's close (X), or tap an empty part of the map, to dismiss it.

What you can tap depends on the zoom level, matching what's drawn:

• Tap a block (while outlines are shown) → the block detail card: name, owning vineyard and variety, and a stat strip (area, row metres, rows, plants, posts). Its actions are View in list and Block sheet.
• Tap a row (while row lines are shown) → the row detail card: the row number and a stat strip (length, plants, posts). Same View in list and Block sheet actions.
• Tap a field feature → the feature detail card: the feature's name, category, geometry type, any notes, attributes and photos, a View in List action, and a press-and-hold archive button (Hold to archive).
• Tap a trouble-spot marker → the trouble-spot detail card. It opens folded: the type and row, the vineyard › block and your distance from it, and the completion control — a single Hold to complete button, or, for types that carry a resolution process, the step buttons you can do right now. Tap the summary line at the bottom (More, or "2 photos · 1 note") to unfold who reported it and when, photos, notes, the full step checklist, and Edit.

For the workflows behind each card, see Vineyards and blocks, Field features and Trouble spots.

Layers

The Layers button (the layers icon, tooltip "Layers") sits in the app bar at the top of the Maps tab, next to the follow button. It tints purple whenever any filter is active — the per-layer filter counts appear inside the sheet itself. Tap it to open the Layers sheet, which controls the basemap and what's drawn on the map.

At the top of the sheet, a two-option segmented control switches the basemap:

• Map — a plain street-and-place map.
• Satellite — aerial imagery, with road and place labels layered on top.

Your choice is remembered for next time.

Below the basemap are two layer rows — Trouble spots and Field features. Each row shows an icon, how many items the layer holds, a one-line summary of its current settings, a filter-count badge when any of its settings are non-default, and a master on/off switch. Tap the row itself (not the switch) to drill into that layer's settings; the back arrow returns you to the root list.

Whenever any filter is active, a Reset action appears at the top-right of the sheet — tap it to return everything to showing all.

The Trouble spots layer

Drilling into Trouble spots gives you:

• Show on map — the layer's master switch, with the spot count. It reads "Hidden from map" while off.
• Categories — one row per trouble-spot category. Each row leads with that category's map-marker shape in its colour, shows the count of open spots, and has a checkbox. Untick categories to hide them; once any category is unticked, a Select all action appears in the Categories header to re-tick everything in one tap.
• Needing step — filter to spots whose resolution process still needs a specific step, with a count of spots needing each one (Any shows all). This row only appears when at least one open spot on the map carries resolution steps.
• Reported — a date preset: Today, This Week, This Month, 3 Months, or All Time.
• Show completed — include trouble spots that have already been completed.
• Work orders only — keep trouble spots that belong to active work orders prominent and dim the rest.

The Field features layer

Drilling into Field features gives you:

• Show on map — the layer's master switch, with the feature count.
• Categories — a checkbox per feature category (with generic icons rather than marker shapes) and the same Select all behaviour.
• Show hidden features — reveal features that are marked hidden by default.

Your filter choices are saved per management group. Each management group remembers its own filters, so switching groups or restarting the app won't lose them — and one group's filters never carry over to another.

Logging trouble spots while you work

The flag button in the bottom-right corner reports a trouble spot at your current position. You can also pin a type to the screen for fast, repeated one-tap logging as you move down the rows. The full flow — including pinned work-mode logging — is covered in Reporting a trouble spot.

Working a work order on the map

Tapping a work item on the Work tab starts (or resumes) a work session and lands you on the map. A pull-up sheet at the bottom of the map is the session's home: collapsed, its header shows the job and its progress; drag it up (or tap it) to expand the item list and completion controls. While a session is active, the Work tab shows only that job, with Open on map and Leave work buttons. For Spot Fix work, the map focuses on the order's spots and de-emphasises everything else.

See Working a work order for the full workflow.