This article helps administrators to understand the appearance and process of using various features of the Places tool, from the front end. The tool settings are done by the administrator in EngagementHQ (back end), and the settings are reflected at the front end. Participants use the front end section to insert pins in the consultation area along with pin details such as comments, photos, responses to survey questions and so on. They can also view overlays in the map that are set by administrators. Places tool enables administrators to request participants and other users for information that can be tagged to a pin on a map.
Places is an open environment tool, meaning that people can view other people's pins, photos and comments too.
NOTE: To understand the process of adding this tool in an administrator’s project’s page and use its various features, read the article on Places.
The following steps describe how to preview and access various features of the Places tool at the front end.
Select the Projects link from the left menu of EngagementHQ and click on your specific project from the drop-down menu.
2. This displays the project page. Here, click on Preview button for Places tool.
The following Places page is displayed and this is how the page would appear for a participant to view and access.
The branding icon or display of the site logo on the top left of the map page helps retain client branding.
On click of the add pin option, the available pins that can be used by the participant on the map are displayed.
The below illustration shows the administrator view of the pin categories, that the participants will see:
On clicking the option to filter pins, a participant can select the pins to be displayed on the map, this is useful when there is a lot of participation.
A participant might want to filter out inessential pins, or pins they are not interested in and retain only the required ones. For example, to filter out all the pins, the participant must remove the blue tick, as indicated in the figure below. On doing this, only ‘Picnic area’ pin(s) are displayed in the consultation area.
If multiple participants have inserted pins in the set consultation area, a participant can select the Show Only My Pins checkbox to display only that participant’s pins.
A participant can view all the activity that has happened on the tool by clicking on the activity feed.
Clicking on the 'View' link will show further details of the pin added and brings that pin to the center of the map.
Participants can search for a place on the map by entering keywords of the location they are looking for, in the Search box.
Participants can magnify and reduce the magnification of an area by clicking on the Zoom in and Zoom out buttons provided on the map.
The following steps explain how participants can use the places tool on the front end.
1. To add a pin, participant must drag and drop the pin inside the set boundary.
The following screen is displayed. Participants can click the X in case they want to delete the pin and not proceed.
NOTE: The address will be displayed on the pin, only if the administrator selects the Show address on pins option in the Participation settings section.
2. In the Add Pin box, participants must do the following:
- Add an appropriate comment in the Add your Comment text box, if not optional.
- Click the Add Image link to add an appropriate photograph. A dialog box is displayed. Navigate to the location where the photograph is located and click on it.
Note: The Add Image button is displayed, only if the administrator selects the Allow photo upload option in the Places page.
The photo is displayed in the Add Pin Details box, as illustrated in the figure below.
- If a survey is created, participants can choose to take part in the survey unless mandatory.
- Then click Submit. After clicking Submit, the following screen is displayed. Click the Back arrow button to add more pins in the consultation area.
Note: Participants CANNOT delete a pin after it is submitted. However, they can edit it by clicking the three dots, as shown below, participants can choose to Edit the pin. The position of a pin can be changed by dragging it to the required position. After making the necessary changes, the participants will have to submit again to save the changes.
4. When a participant clicks on a pin, it 'zooms in' to differentiate it from other pins on the map and the details of the pin are displayed.
5. Pins have a unique id, called a 'Marker Id' to enable unique identification of a pin. This also means that each pin has a unique URL. Just click on the pin to focus on it, and copy the URL (showing the marker ID) from the top, to share it.. In the example below the URL is - https://demonstration.engagementhq.com/places/maps/Park#marker-7572 When a user clicks on the URL, the map will open with marker id pin 7572 in focus.
6. A participant can also alert or report a pin to an administrator by using the Report functionality.
What's next : Read our article on How to rearrange the order of tools on your project page.
Note - You can understand how the social share modal pop-up works by referring to the article Social media sharing article.