# Any map your client keeps up to date > When to use Spatibase for a map project: store and location finders, tourism and trail maps, event maps, service areas, campus maps, public-sector and research maps. What each project models and how it is delivered. Projects where places change often, the client’s own team edits them, and one or more apps show them on a map are a good fit. In-house teams use it the same way. Here are the projects people build with it. ## When is this the right tool? It is a good fit when most of these are true: - **Your content is places.** Points, routes or areas on a map, each with its own text, photos, files and fields, like a store with opening hours or a trail with its difficulty. - **A client’s team keeps it up to date.** You build the map feature, and the client’s marketing, operations or content people keep it current in a simple editor, without calling you or a GIS specialist to change a pin. In-house teams work the same way. - **It’s living content.** Like the pages on your website, your places get new photos, new descriptions and new details, and the map should update without a release. - **It shows up in apps.** A website map, a mobile app, a kiosk or QGIS reads it through an API, GeoJSON or vector tiles, and you’d rather not build a backend for it. ## What projects do teams build? ### Store and location finders - **Who:** Retail chains, franchises, dealer networks, clinics, charging stations. - **What you model:** A Store type with address, opening hours, services as options and photos; subtypes such as Flagship and Outlet. - **How it's delivered:** GeoJSON with field filters (open on Sunday, has parking) feeds the store finder on your website and in your app. - **Starter template:** Store locator ### Tourism, trails and outdoor maps - **Who:** Destination marketing teams, parks, cycling and hiking portals, ski resorts. - **What you model:** Trails as lines from GPX or KML with difficulty, distance and best season, plus viewpoints and huts in groups. - **How it's delivered:** Vector tiles draw the trails on the map; groups such as Family routes power themed lists and pages. - **Starter template:** Trails & outdoor spots ### Events and festival maps - **Who:** Festivals, city event calendars, conferences, races. - **What you model:** Events with a start and end time, a category and a venue reference; stages, food stalls, a race course as a line. - **How it's delivered:** Apps filter by date and category. Publish the programme when it’s ready and unpublish what has ended. - **Starter template:** Events map ### Real estate and development - **Who:** Developers, agencies, regeneration projects. - **What you model:** Plots and buildings as areas, units with price, size, status and floor plans as files, and amenities nearby. - **How it's delivered:** A project microsite map; marking a unit sold is a quick edit and a publish, not a new website release. ### Service areas and territories - **Who:** Delivery and utility companies, insurers, sales teams. - **What you model:** Zones as areas, drawn on the map or imported from GeoJSON, with fees, hours or the team responsible. - **How it's delivered:** Your website or checkout loads the zones as GeoJSON and answers “do you serve my area?” for a customer’s address. ### Campus, venue and facility maps - **Who:** Universities, hospitals, airports, resorts, business parks. - **What you model:** Buildings, entrances, parking and service desks, linked to each other (this desk is in building C). - **How it's delivered:** Wayfinding pages and kiosks read the same data, while each department keeps its own entries current. ### Cities and public sector - **Who:** Municipalities, transport and park authorities. - **What you model:** Recycling points, playgrounds and public toilets as points, roadworks as areas with a start and end date. - **How it's delivered:** The city website map, plus public GeoJSON and vector tiles anyone can load in QGIS as open data. ### NGOs, research and newsrooms - **Who:** Project sites, monitoring locations, story maps, data journalism. - **What you model:** Sites or story locations with rich text, photos and documents, grouped by project, region or story. - **How it's delivered:** Maps embedded in articles and reports; a private project with API keys while the data isn’t public yet. ## How does a project usually start? 1. Start from a template, or from the client’s data: a file, a Google Sheet, a Google My Maps map or a PostGIS table. Its columns become fields. 2. Shape the model: types, subtypes and fields the client’s editors understand. A coding agent can set this up for you. 3. Invite the client’s editors. They work on drafts, on a map. 4. Publish, then point the client’s app at the Content Delivery API, GeoJSON or vector tiles. A webhook tells your site when something changed. 5. Optionally, connect an AI assistant to answer questions or prepare drafts for review. ## Who works on it? - **Editors keep it current.** The client’s staff keep places, photos and opening hours up to date without touching code, and every change stays a draft until they publish it. - **You connect it once.** One cacheable API for JSON, GeoJSON and vector tiles: you or your coding agent connect the app once, with no backend to build or run. - **AI assistants do the busywork.** They set up the project, answer “which stores are closed on Sunday?” or prepare drafts in bulk. Publishing stays with people unless you allow it. ## When isn’t this the right fit? It manages map content. Reach for something else when the job is one of these: - **Making the map itself** – It doesn’t give you a finished map. It manages and delivers the places on it; your app draws the map with MapLibre, Mapbox GL, Leaflet or QGIS, on a basemap from a provider you choose. - **Live tracking** – Vehicles or devices reporting their position every few seconds need a streaming or telematics platform. - **Spatial analysis** – Buffers, overlays, routing, raster and satellite imagery belong in a GIS such as QGIS or ArcGIS, which can read your data. - **Fully offline field work** – You can add entries on a phone in the browser, and the one you’re editing stays on the device through a dropout. Surveys that spend hours without signal, with whole projects downloaded to the device first, need a dedicated offline field app. [See what Collect does in the field](https://spatibase.com/platform/collect/) ## Questions ### What kind of projects is Spatibase best for? Projects built for a client or in-house, where the content is places (points, routes or areas with text, photos and fields), non-technical editors keep it up to date, it changes often, and one or more apps show it on a map through an API, GeoJSON or vector tiles. Store finders, trail and tourism maps, event maps, service areas, campus maps and city maps are typical. ### Does Spatibase give me a finished map? No. It is where your team keeps and publishes what goes on the map: the places, their fields, photos and files. It doesn’t draw or host a map for your visitors. Your app does that: it loads the published content as GeoJSON or vector tiles and draws it with a map library such as MapLibre, Mapbox GL or Leaflet, or in QGIS, on a basemap from a provider you choose. Editors see a map inside the editor while they work, but that is the editing view, not something you publish. ### Can I start with my existing spreadsheet of locations? Yes. Choose New project, then File to pick a CSV or Excel file, or Online source to paste the link of a Google Sheet. It creates the type and its fields from the columns, places entries from latitude and longitude or from addresses, and updates the same entries when you import again. ### Do I need a developer? The client’s editors run the content on their own. Someone connects the app once: you or a coding agent using the Content Delivery API or vector tiles, or any map tool that loads a GeoJSON URL. ### Can one project feed several apps? Yes. The same published content is served as JSON, GeoJSON and vector tiles, so a website, a mobile app, a kiosk and QGIS can all read one project.