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Locate and Mapping

Table of Contents

Overview

The Locate and Mapping module gives you a real-time, interactive map of tracked assets, parts and materials, employees, geotagged photos, client sites, and jobs. You can see where equipment is located, whether it is currently running, who last operated it, and navigate to any location across your operations — all from a single screen.

The map is built on Leaflet.js and supports street, satellite, and hybrid imagery. It integrates with Google Places for address search and displays colour-coded markers for quick visual identification.

Permissions: You need Manage Assets to open Locate. Employee, client, and job layers appear only if you also have those manage permissions.

Map Modal — Click Any Location to See It on a Map

Almost every place in the web UI that shows location data — addresses, GPS coordinates, history rows — now has a small 📍 chip beside it. Click the chip and an interactive Map Modal opens right where you are; no need to navigate to the Locate page or copy coordinates into Google Maps.

The Map Modal is web UI only — on iPad and phone you still use the native mobile app maps.

Where you'll find it

Section What the Modal Shows
Asset → History tab → Use Log Every Start/Stop GPS pin with operator, timestamp, hour meter, fuel level. Drag the slider to replay the asset's day.
Asset → History tab → QR Scan Log Every QR scan location with timestamp and action.
Asset → Photos tab → Mobile App Photos Every geotagged photo of the asset, with capture time and operator.
Employee → Location History tab The employee's full GPS trail from the mobile app, with date filtering.
Contractor → Location History tab Same as employees.
Job → Edit The job's site address pinned on the map.
Client → Edit → Addresses Each address has its own 📍, plus a "View All Addresses on Map" button at the bottom.
Parts → Edit → Inventory Locations Each inventory row's GPS, plus a "View All Inventory on Map" header button.
Locations list A 📍 on each location row, plus a "View All on Map" toolbar button.
  • Single point — opens centred on the pin with the popup already showing details.
  • Multiple points — every pin is drawn at once with a dashed line connecting them in chronological order. The currently-focused pin is highlighted in gold.
  • Side panel (right) — every point listed with timestamp; click any item to focus the map on it.
  • Date slider (bottom) — only appears when points have timestamps. Drag to scrub through history.
  • ▶ Play / ■ Pause — auto-advances through points at 0.9 seconds each.
  • ← / → arrow keys — navigate one point at a time.
  • Esc — closes the modal.
  • The map uses OpenStreetMap tiles and supports scroll-zoom, drag-pan, and Leaflet's standard zoom controls.

Accessing the Locate Page

  1. Log in to AXITRAQ at axitraq.app.
  2. From the main navigation menu, select Locate.
  3. The Locate page opens with the interactive map displayed by default.

You need the Manage Assets permission to access this page.

The Asset Map

Map Layers

The map provides three tile layer options, accessible from the layer control in the top-right corner:

Layer Description
Street Standard OpenStreetMap road and place names (default)
Satellite ESRI World Imagery aerial photography
Hybrid Satellite imagery with road and place name labels overlaid

To switch layers, click the desired option in the layer control panel.

Map Controls

  • Zoom: Use the + and - buttons in the top-left corner, scroll wheel, or pinch gesture on touch devices.
  • Pan: Click and drag the map, or use two-finger drag on mobile.
  • Fit to bounds: When data loads, the map automatically adjusts to show all markers with comfortable padding.
  • Full screen: Expand the map to fill your browser viewport using the full-screen control.

Understanding Map Markers

Asset Pins

Assets appear as teardrop-shaped pins on the map. Each pin can display one of 21 equipment icons rendered as a white silhouette inside the coloured teardrop:

Category Available Icons
Vehicles Vehicle, Semi Truck, Dump Truck
Heavy Machinery Bulldozer, Excavator, Crane, Grader, Road Roller, Forklift, Skid Steer, Front Loader
Tools Drill, Hammer, Jackhammer, Shovel, Toolbox
Implements Wheelbarrow, Trailer
Inventory Material (Bricks)

Assets without a specific icon assigned display as a simple coloured dot.

Pin colours indicate status:

  • Blue — Active asset
  • Green — Currently running (last started, not yet stopped)
  • Grey — Inactive asset

If an asset has no stored coordinates (and no parent GPS to inherit), Locate uses the latest Start/Stop GPS from the use log so recently operated equipment still appears. The popup notes when the pin is from activity GPS.

Parts and Materials Pins

Inventory locations with GPS coordinates appear as diamond-shaped pins, visually distinct from asset teardrops:

  • Amber — Parts
  • Purple — Materials
  • Teal — Items classified as both part and material

Other Entity Pins

Layer Appearance Data source
Employees Green person pin Latest mobile GPS (employee_locations)
Photos Purple camera pin Geotagged photos (default last 30 days)
Clients Pink building pin Client addresses with GPS
Jobs Orange clipboard pin (job colour when set) Job site latitude/longitude

Running Status Indicator

If an asset has a recorded start event more recent than its last stop event, the map treats it as "running." Running assets display a green pin and a green dot indicator in list view.

Viewing Asset Details on the Map

To view details for any asset on the map:

  1. Hover over a pin to see a tooltip with the asset code, name, icon type, and running status.
  2. Click the pin to open a detailed popup showing:
  3. Asset code and name
  4. Map icon type
  5. Manufacturer and model
  6. Current location name
  7. Hour meter reading
  8. Running status
  9. Last start time and operator
  10. Last stop time and operator
  11. Links to View Asset and Activity History

For parts and materials, the popup displays the item name, part number, type, category, quantity on hand, location name, address, and a link to edit the part.

The map includes a dedicated search bar labelled "Map Search" located above the map area. This allows you to navigate the map to any address or place.

Using Google Places Autocomplete

  1. Click into the Map Search input field.
  2. Begin typing a place name, road, or address.
  3. A dropdown of autocomplete suggestions appears as you type.
  4. Select a suggestion from the list.
  5. The map flies to that location with a smooth animation and drops a red search pin.
  6. A popup on the search pin shows the resolved address.

If you press Enter without selecting an autocomplete suggestion:

  1. AXITRAQ first attempts a Google Geocoder lookup.
  2. If Google returns no results, it falls back to OpenStreetMap Nominatim geocoding.
  3. The map flies to the first result and drops a search pin.

This is useful for general area searches or when Google Places does not surface your query.

After searching, a Clear button appears beside the search bar. Click it to remove the search pin and reset the input field.

Filtering the Map

Text Search

  1. Enter a keyword in the Search field at the top of the Locate toolbar (asset code, employee name, client, job number, etc.).
  2. Press Enter or click Refresh.
  3. Locate searches all entity types you can access (not only the layers currently toggled on). Matching layers turn on automatically, the map fits to the results, and a single strong match opens its popup.
  4. Clearing the search restores your previous optional-layer preferences (Employees, Photos, Clients, Jobs).

Examples: LV27 finds that asset; Brayden finds that employee’s latest known GPS (even if older than 24 hours).

Status Filter

  1. Use the Asset Status dropdown to filter assets only:
  2. All Asset Statuses — all assets matching search
  3. Active (selected by default)
  4. Inactive
  5. Maintenance
  6. This dropdown does not filter jobs, employees, clients, or photos.

Layer Toggles

Layer buttons show or hide pins on the map (they are not search-type filters):

Button Default Notes
Assets On Teardrop pins
Parts & Materials On Diamond pins
Employees Off Browse shows GPS from the last 24 hours; search uses latest known
Photos Off Geotagged photos (last 30 days)
Clients Off Addresses with GPS
Jobs Off Job sites with GPS

Click a toggle to show or hide its layer. Optional layers fetch data when first turned on. Active toggles are highlighted.

Pin history scrubber

  1. Search for an entity (for example LV27) so it appears on the map.
  2. Click its pin to open the popup, then click Show history.
  3. A control panel appears at the top-right of the map with:
  4. From / To date range (default last 30 days) and Apply
  5. A slider (plus previous/next) to move through each historical pin
  6. Play / Pause to auto-advance through points
  7. The focused point is highlighted in amber; other trail points are indigo with a dashed path.
  8. Close the panel with × to clear the trail.

Toolbar history

After a search that places at least one entity on the map, enable the toolbar Show history button to plot trails for all current search matches at once (no scrubber). Prefer the pin popup for a single entity with date range and slider.

History sources: asset Start/Stop use-log GPS, employee location trail, and geotagged photos for clients/jobs/parts.

Map and List Views

Map View

The default view. Shows the interactive Leaflet map with all visible markers. The map container fills 65% of the viewport height (minimum 400px).

List View

Switch to list view by clicking the List button in the top-right corner of the card header.

The list view displays:

Assets table with columns: - Status (with running indicator dot) - Code - Name (with icon type) - Location (address or GPS coordinates) - Last Activity (most recent start or stop, with operator name) - Actions (View, History links)

Parts and Materials table (shown below the assets table when the parts layer is active): - Type (Part, Material, or Part/Material) - Part/Material name and number - Location name and address - Quantity on hand - Actions (Edit link)

Stats Bar

A row of summary statistics appears between the toolbar and the map:

Stat Description
Total Assets Total number of assets matching the current filter
Assets w/ GPS How many of those assets have GPS coordinates recorded
Running Now Number of assets currently in a running state
Part Locations Number of inventory locations with GPS coordinates

These numbers update each time you search, filter, or refresh.

Setting an Asset Location

GPS coordinates for an asset can be set or updated in several ways:

Manual Coordinate Entry

  1. Navigate to the Asset Edit page for the asset.
  2. Find the Latitude and Longitude fields.
  3. Enter coordinates in any supported format (see below).
  4. Save the asset record.

Supported Coordinate Formats

AXITRAQ accepts multiple coordinate formats and automatically normalises Unicode characters from copy-paste:

Format Example
Decimal degrees -35.4315, 143.7362
Degrees/Minutes/Seconds (DMS) 35°25'53.5"S, 143°44'10.3"E
Decimal minutes 35°25.8'S
Direction suffix 35.4315S

Unicode prime symbols, smart quotes, and curly quotes copied from Google Maps or iOS are automatically converted to standard ASCII.

Selecting a Map Icon

  1. On the Asset Edit page, scroll to the Map Icon section.
  2. Click one of the icon cards to assign an icon to the asset.
  3. The selected icon will appear on the asset's map pin on the Locate page.
  4. If no icon is selected, the asset displays as a coloured dot.

Mobile GPS Location Capture

Automatic GPS Recording

When employees use the AXITRAQ mobile app, GPS coordinates are automatically captured during:

  • Viewing or updating an asset
  • Submitting timesheets
  • Completing inspections and checklists
  • Scanning QR codes
  • Capturing photos

The device's current GPS position is recorded along with extended data including heading (compass direction), altitude, speed, and accuracy.

Recording Parameters

To prevent excessive data storage, GPS recording follows these rules:

  • 60-second throttle — a new position is only recorded if at least 60 seconds have passed since the last one.
  • Minimum movement — at least 5 minutes elapsed and 0.0001 degrees of movement for deduplication.
  • Extended data — heading is converted to compass direction (N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW).

Geolocation in Inspections

When completing an inspection or pre-start checklist, location can be captured using an interactive map:

  1. Get Current GPS — Tap the "Get Current GPS" button to fetch the device's current location. Coordinates populate automatically.
  2. Search on Map — Use the address search bar (powered by Nominatim) to find a location by name.
  3. Tap or Click the Map — Drop a pin at any point by tapping or clicking directly on the map.
  4. Drag the Marker — After placing a pin, drag it to fine-tune the exact position.
  5. Review Coordinates — Latitude and longitude values display in real-time below the map as you adjust the marker.

The captured GPS location is saved with the inspection record for auditing and reporting purposes.

Parts and Materials Locations

Each inventory location for parts and materials can store:

  • Location name — a descriptive label (e.g. "Main Warehouse", "Site 4 Shed")
  • Street address — with Nominatim geocoding search for address lookup
  • GPS coordinates — via an interactive Leaflet map picker
  • Location type — Warehouse, Vehicle, Field, Office, or Workshop
  • Map icon — select from the same icon set used for assets

To set a part location:

  1. Navigate to Parts and open the part for editing.
  2. Go to the Inventory tab.
  3. Edit or add an inventory location.
  4. Enter the address or use the map picker to set GPS coordinates.
  5. Choose a location type and optionally assign a map icon.
  6. Save the record.

Inventory locations with GPS coordinates appear on the Locate map as diamond-shaped pins.

Employee Location History

Managers can view an employee's location history:

  1. Navigate to People and open the employee record for editing.
  2. Select the Location History tab.
  3. An interactive map displays:
  4. A prominent marker at the most recently recorded position
  5. Smaller markers at historical positions, each with a timestamp and accuracy popup
  6. Below the map, a scrollable log table lists all recorded positions.
  7. Use the date range filter to narrow the view to a specific time period.

Location data is recorded passively whenever the employee interacts with the mobile app (submitting timesheets, completing inspections, scanning QR codes, or capturing photos).

Photo Geo-Tagging

Photos captured through the AXITRAQ mobile app are automatically geo-tagged with:

  • GPS coordinates (latitude and longitude)
  • Compass direction (heading in degrees)
  • Altitude
  • Location accuracy

When viewing photos in the lightbox, a map link is available to view the exact capture location on a map.

Tips for Rural and Remote Users

The Locate module is designed with rural and remote operations in mind:

  • Satellite imagery — switch to Satellite or Hybrid view to identify landmarks where street maps show little detail.
  • Address search — search by road name, locality, or place name when exact street addresses are unavailable.
  • Large-area navigation — the map starts at a continental zoom level and fits to your data bounds, making it easy to see assets spread across large distances.
  • Coordinate entry — paste coordinates directly from Google Maps or other tools; AXITRAQ handles the format conversion automatically.
  • Mobile GPS — even without cellular data, the mobile app captures GPS from the device hardware and syncs when connectivity returns.