Collect entries on a phone

Collect is the phone version of Spatibase, made for people who add and fix entries out in the field. It runs in your phone’s browser (and on a tablet), can be added to the Home Screen so it opens like an app, and uses the same projects, types and fields as the full app, so what you add in Collect shows up there at once. This page shows editors how to sign in on a phone, install Collect, find a project, add and edit an entry, set its location, take photos, publish, and what happens when the signal is weak.

Collect is for filling in entries. Projects, types and fields are still set up in the full app on a computer (Types, Elements). Collect needs a connection to open. Phones show Collect automatically after you sign in; on a computer, Collect on a phone in the project menu shows a QR code that opens the same project on your phone when you scan it with the camera, and narrow screens show an “On a phone? Open Collect” bar.

How do I open Collect and sign in?

Open app.spatibase.com/collect in your phone’s browser. If you are not signed in yet, enter your email address. Spatibase sends one email with a link and a 6-digit code. Use either:

• Tap the link in the email.
• Or type the 6-digit code into the code box and tap Sign in. Use the code if you added Collect to your Home Screen: on an iPhone the link opens in Safari, not in the installed app. The code also works when you read the email on another device.

The link and the code work once, together, and expire after 15 minutes. Only the code in your newest email works, and it stops working after five wrong tries; the link in that email still does. If a code doesn’t work, request a new email. More in Account and plan.

How do I add Collect to my Home Screen?

An installed Collect opens full screen, with its own icon. At the bottom of the Projects screen, an Add Collect to your Home Screen row has an Add button. It disappears once Collect is installed, or when you tap the × beside it.

• Android (Chrome): tap Add and confirm in the dialog your browser shows, or choose Install app in the browser menu.
• iPhone (Safari): tap Add to get three steps. iOS doesn’t let a web page open Add to Home Screen itself, so you do the taps. (1) Tap Share at the bottom of the screen; on iOS 26, Share can be behind the ⋯ button at the bottom right, so tap ⋯ first, then Share. (2) Scroll down and tap Add to Home Screen. (3) Tap Add. Collect then opens from its own icon.
• iPad, or Chrome, Edge and Firefox on iPhone: Add shows the same steps with Share where your browser keeps it. The row doesn’t appear inside the browsers built into other apps; open the link in Safari or Chrome.

The icon is light or dark to match the theme Collect uses when you add it. To change it, remove the icon from your Home Screen and add Collect again. Installing Collect doesn’t make it work offline: it still needs a connection to open.

How do I find my project?

The Projects screen shows your projects as cards with a small map, the most recently opened first. A small pill on the map says All published or, when some entries are still drafts or have unpublished changes, Not all published. Under each name you see the number of entries, View only if you can’t edit the project (which comes from your role) and when it was last edited. Tap a card to open the project. In the installed app, pull the screen down to refresh the list. In a browser, tap your picture at the top right and choose Refresh projects; the same menu has Sign out.

How do the map and the list work?

A project opens on a map of its entries, each a dot in its type’s colour, with the list in a panel at the bottom.

• The panel: drag its handle or the search and filter area to any height. It follows your finger and settles at minimised (only the search field shows, for the most map), peek, half or full, and a quick flick jumps to the next size. Tap the handle of a minimised panel to bring the list back. The list itself always scrolls, at every size, and never moves the panel; grab the handle or the search area to make the panel taller or shorter.
• Search and filters: Search entries searches by title. All types, Any status (Draft, Unpublished changes, Ready to publish, Will be unpublished or removed, Published) and Any group (shown when the project has groups) narrow the list; a dark chip means a filter is on.
• Labels on entries: an entry that still needs publishing shows Draft (never published), Unpublished changes, Ready to publish or, for a live entry about to leave, Will be unpublished or Will be removed on the right of its row. Published entries have no label.
• Long lists: the list loads in pages. When there are more entries than shown, Load more at the end of the list shows how many are left.
• Refresh: the round arrow beside the search field reloads the list. It turns at least once, then a short message says what it found: Up to date, or for example 2 new, 1 updated; if it can’t reach the server it says so. The list also reloads by itself, without a message, when you come back to the app.
• Open an entry: tap it in the list or on the map. On a phone it slides up in a second panel over the map, as tall as the list panel was (full if the list was full, otherwise half), with its dot enlarged and moved into view above it. Drag its handle or top bar up to see the whole entry (the form scrolls at any size); drag them down, tap × or use the phone’s Back button to close it and get the list back as you left it.
• Your position: the target button on the map shows where you are as a blue dot with a circle for the accuracy. When your phone knows which way you face, a soft cone shows the direction, from the compass or from your walking direction while you move. The first tap asks for permission to use your location (and on iPhone for the compass): choose Allow. This button, and Use my location in an entry, are the only times Collect asks for your location.
• Map credits: the small ⓘ at the bottom left of the map opens the credits for the map data.

Menus and pickers (filters, New entry, your account) slide up from the bottom: pull one down or tap outside it to close it.

How do I add an entry?

1. Tap + at the top right. If the project has several types, choose one under New entry; subtypes are indented under their type, and with a type filter on, only that type and its subtypes are offered. With a single type the form opens straight away.
2. The new entry opens as a full-height panel. Type a Title.
3. Set the Location (How do I set the location?) and fill in the fields below it. Which fields you see comes from the entry’s type.
4. There is no Save button: Collect saves your changes as a draft by itself.

If the list is filtered to a group, the new entry joins that group by itself (see “Groups” below).

How does saving work?

Collect saves a draft a few seconds after you stop typing, a moment after you leave a field, and when you switch apps or leave the entry. Nothing is created until the entry has a title, a value or a location, and nothing reaches your website or app until someone publishes the project. The line at the top of the entry shows how things stand:

What do the fields look like on a phone?

• A field with a few short choices (like Good / Fair / Poor, or Yes / No) shows them side by side: tap one to pick it, and Clear next to the field’s name takes the answer away again. Other choices up to six are pills that work the same way (tapping the chosen one keeps it, Clear takes it away), and longer lists open as your phone’s own list. Where you may pick several, tapping a chosen pill un-picks it.
• Dates and times use your phone’s own pickers.
• A red star marks a field that is required before the entry can be marked ready to publish.
• If a field has help text, tap the small grey ⓘ next to its name to read it (tap again or anywhere else to hide it).
• A field that links to another entry opens a list of entries to pick from, with a search box at the top.
• Generate next to an identifier (slug) field fills it in from the title, and shows Up to date for a moment if it already matches.
• Long text fields grow as you type and have Preview and Edit.

How do I set the location?

Tap the Location row to open a full-screen map. The shapes you can draw depend on the type; if it allows more than one, a Point, Line and Area switch appears.

• Tap the map to place the pin or to add points to a line or an area. Drag a point to move it.
• Use my location (the arrow button at the bottom right of the map) puts the pin where you are. If you already allowed location for Spatibase, a new location opens on your position by itself. The blue circle and the “± m” figure show how accurate your phone thinks the position is. The first time, your phone asks whether Spatibase may use your location: choose Allow.
• Walk a boundary: choose Area (or Line), stand at each corner and tap Use my location. Every tap adds a point where you stand.
• Undo removes the last point and Clear removes them all. A line needs at least 2 points and an area at least 3. Done stays grey until the shape is valid (or empty, when the type doesn’t require a location).
• Tap Done to keep the location, or Cancel. The phone’s Back button also closes the map.

A shape drawn in the full app with several parts, holes or a very large number of points shows “This shape is too detailed to edit here” with Replace. Replace it, or edit it in the full app.

A Map shapes field shows a list of shapes. Tap a shape to edit it, tap … to rename it, change its shape type or delete it, and tap Add shape to draw another (you pick the shape type first when the field uses them). See Map feature types.

How do I add photos and files?

An image field has Take photo, which opens the camera, and Choose, which picks from your photos or files. A file field has Choose file. Photos in JPEG or iPhone HEIC format, taken with Take photo or picked with Choose, that are longer than 2560 pixels or larger than 3 MB are made smaller on your phone before they upload, so they use less data and stay sharp on screen; HEIC photos are always converted to JPEG. Other picture types (PNG, WebP, GIF, SVG, AVIF) upload exactly as they are. Upload sizes are in Limits.

• A photo that can’t be uploaded is listed as “didn’t upload”, with Retry and Remove. Collect tries again when your connection returns. If you leave the page first, that photo is lost.
• If you leave an entry while photos are still uploading, Collect asks Photos are still uploading: Wait or Leave without them.
• On an iPhone, if a photo is refused as HEIC, set Settings › Camera › Formats to Most Compatible, or share the photo as a JPEG.

More about uploads in Use the media library.

Groups

Below the fields, Groups shows a switch for each of the project’s groups. A switch changes the group at once. A new entry needs a title (or something else filled in) first. If the list is filtered to a group, a new entry is added to that group by itself (you can switch it off) and a short message says so. Someone who can only look at an entry sees the names of its groups. See Groups.

How do I mark ready, duplicate or delete an entry?

Your changes are saved as a draft, and nothing reaches your website or app. When the entry is good to go, tap Ready to publish (the check mark in the top bar); a short message confirms it. Collect has no Publish button: the entry goes live when someone in the office presses Publish for the whole project, so field staff hand over and the office publishes. Once an entry is ready, the same button reads Back to draft, and a note says “Marked ready. It goes live when someone publishes the project.” Marking ready needs a connection, and the button is grey while there is nothing new to mark. If a required field is empty, Collect says how many fields to fix. If you edit a ready entry, the mark goes away and you mark it again. See Drafts and publishing.

The … button (More actions) appears once the entry has been saved for the first time, and offers:

• Duplicate: a draft copy called “… (copy)” with the same values, location and groups, opened right away. Needs a connection.
• History: who changed the entry and when, newest first; tap a change for the date and what changed. Open to everyone who can see the entry, including Developers.
• Open in full editor: tablets only.
• Unpublish: takes a published entry out of your website or app at the next publish and keeps the draft. Until then the entry shows Will be unpublished with a Keep button.
• Delete entry: after you confirm, an entry that was never published moves to the Trash and waits there for 30 days. A published entry stays live until the next publish and shows Will be removed with a Keep button, then goes to the Trash. You restore it in the full app (Activity and Trash).

A Developer sees entries in Collect but can’t change them. To leave an entry, tap × (a back arrow on a tablet); it saves your last changes first. If a photo is still uploading, Collect asks whether to Wait or Leave without them; photos that haven’t finished won’t be added. Dragging the entry down closes it too.

What happens when the signal is weak?

While you edit, Collect also keeps the entry you are working on on your phone, to get you through a dropout.

• If the connection drops, a small “You’re offline” note appears under the top bar and Ready to publish is switched off until you’re back online. Carry on: your changes are saved when you’re back online.
• If the page closes or reloads, for example when the camera app takes over, Collect offers Restore the next time you open the entry, or Discard. You have to choose one; the question can’t be closed with the phone’s Back button. Photos in restored work load again once you’re online.
• If unsaved work is waiting on one entry and you open another, Collect asks whether to Open it or Discard it. It keeps one entry per project this way, so answer before starting something new.
• If someone else changed the entry in the meantime, Collect says “Someone else changed this entry”. Keep mine replaces their version with yours; Use theirs drops your changes. This also has to be answered before you go on.
• If you leave an entry with no connection, the changes are sent when the network returns.
• If Collect says “Couldn’t load this screen”, tap Reload.

Collect can’t download a project to the phone and doesn’t open without a connection, so it isn’t made for surveys that spend hours without signal. Rarely, if the connection drops at the moment a brand-new entry is saved, the entry can end up saved twice; delete the extra one from the list.

How does Collect work on a tablet?

From 768 pixels wide (a tablet, or a big phone on its side) the list sits in a column on the left and the map or the open entry on the right. An entry has a back arrow instead of ×. Two things are offered here and not on a phone, because the full editor doesn’t work well on a small screen: Open full app (tap your picture at the top right of Projects) and Open in full editor (in an entry’s … menu).

What if something doesn’t work?

• Location blocked: you said no earlier. Allow it for the site in your browser’s site settings (in Safari, aA › Website Settings › Location; on iPhone also check Settings › Privacy & Security › Location Services), or place the pin by hand. If finding your location takes too long, try again outside or near a window.
• No direction cone: on an iPhone, choose Allow when asked about motion and orientation. Without the compass the cone shows only while you are walking.
• Take photo does nothing: allow the camera for the site, or use Choose.
• The email link doesn’t sign you in in the installed app: type the 6-digit code.
• The icon has the wrong colour: remove it and add Collect again.

Related

• Add an entry on the map
• Groups
• Use the media library
• Drafts and publishing
• Account and plan
• Limits