The Fulcrum Focus

No network – no problem! Using maps when offline in Fulcrum
Today we added a much anticipated feature to our Android client that now allows users to save time and bandwidth. Previously in order to utilize true offline maps on Android, each map would have to be uploaded to your account, and then downloaded back down to each device. This presents challenges for users with limited to zero Internet connectivity.

GIS has become a newly cherished friend to the environment, standing out as the only tool multi-faceted enough to create predictive models. These models incorporate the multiple relationships and compound effects involved in environmental impact decisions. To gather the data for these essential models, fieldwork requires many man-hours. Read on to learn how environmental data collection has evolved.

Auto-populate your address fields

As you may or may not know, one of the best features of Fulcrum is the drag and drop form builder. Recently, we added support for a new type of field that many users have asked for: address fields with reverse geocoding.

Despite enormous industry investment in safety, construction work continues to be one of the most dangerous jobs in America.

We on the Fulcrum team are very pleased to announce a brand-new Report Builder that dramatically enhances your ability to create and deliver professional, error-free reports to your internal or external constituents.

Construction Tech Review Magazine, a leading peer-to-peer resource for information and insights from the construction industry, has recognized Fulcrum as a Top Provider of Safety and Compliance Solutions!

Employers have a long list of things to think about as they resume operations after the COVID-19 closures, such as keeping their employees safe, creating a plan to ensure continued compliance with government regulations, and how to respond if an employee tests positive for COVID-19. To help in these efforts, Coleman McCormick, Fulcrum’s VP of Product co-hosted a webinar last week with Flo Broderick of CARTO about how businesses can leverage spatial analysis for risk mitigation as they reopen.

As the country reopens, corporate liability in post-COVID world comes into focus

The family of a Walmart employee who died due to complications of COVID-19 filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the company last month.

Deploy digital cleaning & sanitization checklists at scale to protect workers

The COVID-19 epidemic highlights the importance of a data-driven approach. From an epidemiological view, limited test data restricts our understanding of the spread and future trajectory. Often, even available data is hard to analyze and present in a form useful for public and policymaker decisions.

As a technology company, focused on building software, we consider ourselves to be in a fortunate position during this global pandemic. With one-third of our workforce already working remotely, we are well-positioned to continue operations with minimal disruption.

While the rest of us are busy washing our hands, the folks in Nashville, TN and surrounding areas are recovering from damage caused by several tornadoes that touched down on March 2nd and 3rd – while also monitoring COVID-19. Seventy thousand residents lost power, 300 injuries were reported and 25 lives were lost. We can’t stop these events from happening, but when we respond with the right tools, we can help the Nashville Strong recovery take place faster.

The foundation of any family is centered around the home. It’s the place we live, eat, sleep, and grow through many of life’s changes. Most of us make our home purchases based on neighborhood safety, convenience, education and economic opportunity.

The days of filling out forms using pen and paper and then transcribing that information into a database for use later have come to an end. If you are still using that workflow, you have probably landed here because you’re looking for a better way.

February is earthquake awareness month and while most of us are reviewing our plans, Puerto Rico and Jamaica have already suffered massive earthquakes, registering tremors as high as 7.7, according to the U.S. Geological Service. Puerto Rico has endured an estimated 950 aftershocks, exacerbating an already fragile situation. The island is still recovering from hurricanes Maria and Irma. Initially, these disasters left more than 250,000 people without power, with many more lacking housing, food, water, and other essentials. Last month, officials found a warehouse full of unused supplies sent to Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria over two years ago. This discovery prompted Governor Wanda Vázquez to order an investigation. While the reasons for the oversight of these supplies are still unknown, it highlights the need for process in place that uses data for disaster response to prevent such mistakes in the future.

As we continue updating old workflows, modernizing platform components, and building out growth capacity, we are excited to announce that we’ve made some major improvements to the process of inviting new members to your Fulcrum organization. Our goal was to make it easier to add new members, simplify permissioning, and improve security.

More than 5,200 workers died on the job in 2018, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

Rivers serve as lifelines to the humans, animals, and plants in the areas where they flow. They naturally assume excess rain and minerals and nurture the growth of every living thing they touch. That’s why it’s imperative that we preserve our rivers and the natural space surrounding them. Rivers naturally change over time, but recently extreme flooding and other imbalances have caused the erosion of river boundaries, destruction of property, mold, and other problems that pose a danger to the surrounding people and area. Since 1981, the Tennessee River Gorge Trust has provided a helping hand to preserve the Tennessee River Gorge and the precious plants and animals that live and migrate in that area. The Gorge, a beautiful 26-mile canyon formed near the Tennessee River in Chattanooga, TN, is a wonder to geologists, who believe that it was formed some 290 million years ago.

We depend on millions of commercial vehicles — from semi-trailers to school buses — to transport people and goods every day. And every year, the Commercial Vehicle Safety Alliance (CVSA) conducts about 4 million fleet inspections across North America to ensure they are operating safely.

Regular roof inspections are critical for detecting damage from severe weather, improper construction, and even regular wear and tear. Using a mobile roof inspection checklist can help you streamline the process and conduct more thorough inspections in less time.

Every year brings a different journey and uncharted experiences that drive our growth. At the start, our country grappled with a government shutdown, casting clouds over 2019. Despite this, we reached beyond those clouds and found the strength to not only begin but also to persevere. That grit and determination have carried us through a topsy-turvy year and promise to guide us in the future.

A worker is injured on the job every 7 seconds in the United States alone, according to the National Safety Council. Workplace injuries can result in lost workdays, lawsuits, and costly fines — not to mention needless pain and suffering for your employees. One way to prevent hazards that cause workplace illnesses and injuries is to conduct a job safety analysis (JSA).

Last month, we shared a video walking you through the steps of creating a custom mobile form with Fulcrum’s drag-and-drop app builder.

The goal of this post is to give users an overview of how to run some of the Python scripts that we have developed. Often, these scripts can be leveraged to do things that Fulcrum does not already have built in. Since Spatial Networks is primarily a Mac shop, this post will focus on doing this on MacOS. (I plan to do a Windows version of this blog in the future.)

If you are an active Fulcrum user, you’ve probably noticed several usability improvements in our web application over the past few months. We published a product update back in late September highlighting what we’ve been working on and I’m happy to report that in addition to launching Fulcrum Views in October and implementing Global Navigation in early November, we’ve also been quietly working on some mobile updates as well.

The birds have migrated south as the autumn air flows through our trees fashioned in bright color confirming the imminent end of 2019. We annually anticipate these changes and enjoy the bounty of Thanksgiving knowing the finish line marks the beginning of a new race. For most, it’s known as the most joyous time of the year, but for others, it’s quite difficult. Particularly those who live in areas with severe weather.

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!
If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you know that we’re a bunch of geography nerds here at Spatial Networks.

How to Create Fulcrum Apps
Creating custom mobile forms in Fulcrum is super easy with our drag-and-drop app builder.

Last week we hosted a hands-on workshop on data collection with Fulcrum during the NetHope Summit in San Juan. As part of the joint workshop from myself and Mapbox’s Mikel Maron, we wanted to showcase how to go from the beginning to end — creating a mobile collection survey through field collection all the way to visualization (online or disconnected) with Mapbox’s Atlas server.

Fulcrum updates – new and coming soon!
In a recent post we highlighted some new features and usability improvements for Fulcrum as well as some goodies that were just over the horizon. Today we’re happy to release our Global Navigation feature, as well as some other UI improvements and bug fixes.

September will never be the same for the Bahamas. Hurricane Dorian obliterated the Abaco Islands and Grand Bahama in a matter of hours, changing the island and everyone that lived there. Currently, there are 67 reported deaths, 777 people living in shelters, 200 reported missing and thousands of residents are displaced. In one day, the northwest region of the Bahamas was forever changed and it’s expected to take years before it returns to a livable community.

We’re just getting home from our attendance of the 2019 NetHope Global Summit where we had a fantastic time networking with folks who operate in the humanitarian, disaster response, and development sectors. There as technology partners, it was our first time to the event and we were excited to share with others how Fulcrum has become an integral tool in NetHope’s disaster response training & operations.

Fulcrum gives you the power to turn your paper forms into fully customized mobile apps for conducting inspections, assessments, surveys and more in the field — all without writing a single line of code.

Randal Hale is a longtime Fulcrum user and the owner of North River Geographic Systems, Inc., a GIS consulting firm based in Chattanooga, TN. He was kind enough to share the details of his experience helping his client — a local 911 office — convert their GIS system to a more affordable, flexible setup using Fulcrum!

We’re heading next week to San Juan for the 2019 NetHope Global Summit. As one of their technology partners, we’re looking forward to showcasing how Fulcrum is being used in global response operations to events like Cyclone Idai in Mozambique and Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas.

Data collection can be beneficial for just about any business. You can streamline processes and workflows by asking the same questions across your entire workforce, and receiving the information in a specified format.

Ever think about what occurs behind the curtain of public safety or the people who safeguard us when danger is imposed? When a fire, natural disaster, or any emergency occurs, we pick up our phones, dial 911 and — poof! — the magic dragons appear and save us from imminent danger.

Fulcrum’s record editor
Fulcrum’s web-based Record Editor is used by project managers and admins to view, modify, analyze, and export data collected in the field or imported into the platform. The Editor presents your data in an interactive table with an integrated map view and includes tools for browsing and filtering out subsets of records.

The Fulcrum Product Development team has been focusing for the past few months on improving usability across the platform by updating some outdated workflows, modernizing platform components, and building out growth capacity. We’ve also been hard at work on some exciting new features, which we know our users are going to absolutely love!

Fulcrum users often have a need to visualize the data they collect in dashboards to make business decisions. Many solutions are available with Fulcrum’s REST API, such as Google Data Studio, PowerBI, and Tableau. Another tool called Cube.js recently came to my attention which allows you to build dashboards with your Fulcrum data. Cube.js is an open source analytics framework which allows you to create visualizations of the data from a local database.

Haiti is home to mesmerizing beaches, tropical flowers, great food, and beauty reflective of the sun’s love affair with the Caribbean. Unfortunately, it is also home to hurricanes, earthquakes, torrential storms, flooding and the many issues that follow disasters, particularly in the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

We received some exciting news here at Spatial Networks headquarters recently:

Since the inception of Fulcrum, we have made integrating with other platforms using our robust developer tools a top feature. One powerful and easy integration is to utilize Google Apps Script with Fulcrum webhooks. You can read about integrating with Google Apps Script in a previous article.

If you’re a firefighter, you need a hose. If you’re a surgeon, a scalpel. As NetHope prepares to help assess and respond to the devastation of Hurricane Dorian, we need a full complement of digital tools to aid the work in emergency situations.

Spatial Networks is excited to announce our newest Fulcrum partner, Orbica!

The part of the world which I call home is a place in California that most people only pass through, or fly over, on their way between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Recently however, I had the good fortune that NetHope was conducting its Bay Area Disaster Response Training (DRT) right in my “back yard,” in San Luis Obispo County, CA.

With the release of QGIS 3.8 there was new feature to generate raster XYZ layers. This is exciting because Fulcrum users can now create raster MBTile files to use within Fulcrum without needing to install any additional plugins. While there are other options available I have found this to be one of the easiest ways to generate a MBTile layer.

One of the most important features of Fulcrum is the ability to capture photos and attach them to a record in the field. This ability adds a further level of ground truth to the rich information being captured in a Fulcrum mobile form.

It was extremely hot and dusty as the caravan of humanitarian aid workers from Team Rubicon pulled up to a farmhouse in Matarara, Mozambique – 40 miles west as the crow flies from Beira, but a nearly 8-hour journey overland due to road washouts and poor conditions. Team Rubicon had arrived to help those affected after Cyclone Idai ripped through Mozambique and caused monumental flooding throughout the country.

In 1996, I went to work for Cambric Corporation in Salt Lake City, Utah as a deputy project manager for a telecommunications outside-plant (OSP) data conversion project. The client was Bell Canada, and we had three primary subcontractors, based in India, that were responsible for the vast majority of the labor in converting legacy analog engineering design and “as-builts” drawings in to a full AM/FM/GIS for roughly 255 telephone exchanges covering the eastern provinces of Canada. I was largely responsible for managing the production schedules, operations and quality control of our Indian subcontractors. This required a fair amount of time on the ground in India providing guidance, oversight, supervision and management of nearly 1,000 project team members for more than 18 months.

Health disparities have become common conversation amongst medical professionals, politicians, and communities at large. It’s a known fact that the poorer you are, the more affected you are by the worst health indicators. Understanding this fact makes the fix sound simple: perhaps move to a new neighborhood or increase your income — that should fix these issues. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.