🗺️Maps - GeoPack

For those councils licensed for the eDesigner GeoPack, which includes:

• eDesigner Geo Plug-ins

• OpenProcess Geo Plug-ins

• OneVu MyArea

It is possible with no code to:

a) Add a Maps control to your online forms to capture geolocation

b) Push/pull geolocation data captured on the map into/out of OpenProcess

Adding a map to your forms

To add a map you need to click 'Add Item' in the Design Tools menu. This will appear similar to the following where the Map control is in the bottom row of the grid below:

Map control is bottom middle

If you cannot see a map control check if you are licensed for this functionality and if you are request that this functionality is enabled via support:

https://help.ieg4.com

When you click to add the map the following options available to you will be as follows:

Text search option label	Search	This is what the customer sees as the call to action to choose to search for the location rather than use their geo-location. See how in the map above this has been adjusted to be 'Search for the location'.
Text search option placeholder text	search	This is what is shown as a guide inside the search box. I.e. this disappears when the user starts typing in the search box.
My location option label	My location	This is the label shown for the customer to know to use their location. Hence in the above example this has been updated to 'Use your location' which is more intuitive.
Selected location coordinates label	Selected location coordinates	This is what is shown on the PDF adjacent to the coordinates
Selected location hyperlink label	Selected location hyperlink	This is what is shown on the PDF adjacent to the hyperlink that will take a user to view the map of the location they specified
Mandatory	Blank	By default it is not mandatory. If it is mandatory a warning is needed see below.
Mandatory warning	Blank	You need to provide a warning contextual to the user.
Default zoom level	Blank	I'd suggest using a zoom level of 10. The lower the number the higher up i.e. further away from street level you start.
Default centre latitude	51.50632	See the notes below
Default centre longitude	-0.12714	See the notes below

Default latitude and longitude options

The default location is the centre of London. So odds are you will want to change this. So easily get the latitude and longitude of a location go here:

https://www.latlong.net/Show-Latitude-Longitude.html

Type in the default latitude and longitude and once done move the cursor on the map from London to the location you wish to. This will then give you the relevant location. For example, if I wanted to place the default location to be Lambeth Town Hall in London I would move the cursor on this map to here and I would then see where my default lat/longitude should be:

How the functionality works

When a user selects to search for the location, we are using a real-time Azure Maps search meaning it is very powerful and can locate places anywhere in the UK in seconds.

The following illustrates an example of searching where it prioritises the results to be those closest to section of map currently in view:

Road view

If we consider the last search and look at Wimpole Mews, we can also leverage some other functions by virtue of using the Azure Maps API.

Where a user chooses to use their geo-location, it will the first time this is done request permission to use their location. If they deny this then clearly they will need to use the search function. If they accept it will automatically use the geo-location services on their device to locate them:

Map Integration Technical Set Up

There is just one setting that are needed to make this work, which is your Bing Maps API key. The setting is:

Setting Name
MapsApiKey

To get the Bing Maps API key, you need to create a Bing Maps (free) developer account:

Bing Maps Dev Center - Bing Maps Dev Center

This will enable a basic API key to be retrieved. This allows 125,000 look ups per annum and is more than a council will need.

Azure Maps - from release 2.18 June 2025

From eDesigner Release 2.18, released June 2025

From release 2.18 Bing Maps has been replaced by Azure Maps. Your Council may already have an Azure Maps app in which case the details of this should be shared with IEG4 so that this can be set up as the Maps provider for your Council. Alternatively a dedicated Azure Maps app can be set up on your behalf by IEG4 for use within eDesigner. There may be usage costs associated with this subject to volumes.

Linking eDesigner Map Content to OpenProcess

In the last article, we saw that it was possible to map 'Fields' from the form into an OpenProcess automatically without any code (or anything technical required).

It is possible to:

a) Map a geolocation point selected from a form and pass it to OpenProcess

b) Show details of existing tasks with a geo-location point held in OpenProcess on a map

Mapping a Geo-location to OpenProcess

First, you need to create a process, which has a Field type of Geographic Location, as shown below:

Geographic Location Field Type

And ensure this is set as the Geotag Field in the Process Details tab:

Geotag set to LOCATION

Add an action to connect your form to the OpenProcess above, as shown in the last article and you will have linked your form to be able to trigger the process.

Now we need to link the map that is capturing the report location to the geotag we created for our process - so open your form and using Add Item add a map:

Map control in eDesigner

Once in Design Mode click to edit the map.

There, ensure to use the same code you got from OpenProcess in the Field Id as shown below:

Retrieve Processes with a Geolocation set on them

To retrieve processes from OpenProcess, it is as simple as clicking the 'Get locations from OpenProcess' checkbox as shown in the blue outlined box below:

Retrieve a process functionality

You can control, how far beyond the centre of the current map, it should look for OpenProcess processes.

You can add multiple process types to a map. Simply select the process type and click the Add a process type button for each of the processes you wish to add.

Only processes, which have a Geotag set against them in process details in OpenProcess will appear in this list.

Once done these jobs will appear as red dots on the map as shown below.

As one cannot garner any more detail it makes sense to tell citizens accessing the form that the map simply provides the location of incidents so that duplicates are not reported.