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Tutorial: Create a field data collection app for groundwater studies

4. Using Input for field surveys

1. Install the Input app from Google Play Store or Apple App Store on your mobile phone or tablet.

Once you open the application for the first time, it will take you to Home screen. This screen displays all the projects stored locally (under /sdcard/INPUT folder).

Input Home​

2. To access your projects on the Mergin cloud, select My projects. You will need your log in details to sign in to Mergin:

Login Input​

Once logged in, you can download your project to work on it locally by pressing download button to the right of the project.

3. Download the survey project from the previous sections by tapping .

Choose project


You'll see the progress of the synchronisation.

When the synchronisation is finished you'll see:

The project will be available for loading in Input after you download it locally.

4. Select Home and you should be able to see your downloaded project:

Project on home screen

5. Tap the project to open it in Input.

You'll now see one of the map themes.

Loaded project

We can change the background layers to be displayed using the Map themes that we created in QGIS.
6. Tap the More button Input more button.
7. Choose Map themes.
Input_more_menu

8. Zoom in and Choose Satellite (offline)
Selecting map themes
Input will now show the offline Google satellite image as a background map with the study area boundary on top.

9. Tap at the border of the Boundary layer polygon. The attributes will be shown.

Now we're going to add a feature to our survey layer (Survey).

10.  To add a feature, tap the Record button Input record button from the lower panel. When you tap on the record button, it will list all the layers, you can edit. In our case that's only the Survey layer.

Add feature


Our survey layer is a point layer, it will show a cross-hair at your GPS location.

11. Move the map to the location that you are observing and tap Add Point Input Add point button. The point below the cross-hair will be used as the recorded location. You can move back to your location if needed, by tapping GPS Input GPS button.​ If needed you can switch to other Map themes to better orient yourself.

Move point

12. Fill in the form. To fill in the current date/time automatically, tap the calendar button Input Calendar button. The fields that are depending on choices are displayed in red.
Fill in formConditions in form

13. Tap Save Input save point button to save the form data to the attribute table of the survey layer.

You might still want to correct  something in the form while you're in the field.
14. Tap the point you've just created. A preview will show up as defined in QGIS.

Tool tip
15. Tap the edit button Input edit button and edit the form. You can also tap Edit geometry Input Edit geometry button to change the location of the point. Tap Save Input save point button to save the updates. If you want to delete the item, you can press the recycle bin Input recycle bin.

You can upload your changes through the Mergin service, once you have network connectivity.

16. Tap Projects Input projects buttonfrom the lower panel.

17. Tap My projects Input My Projects button
Now you see Input Sync buttonnext to your project.

Input automatically flags changed projects with a synchronise icon.

18. Tap Input Sync button  to synchronize your edits with Mergin.

Similarly, if a project and its data has been updated through the Mergin service, you will be notified to synchronise the changes to your local copy.

After synchronisation you'll see:

In the next section we'll synchronize the project back to QGIS on the desktop.