The Fulcrum Focus

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 How to respond if an employee tests positive for COVID-19 Coleman McCormick, Fulcrum’s VP of Product co-hosted a webinar last week […]

As lockdown restrictions are lifted, businesses are reopening and people are going back to work — but it won’t be business as usual. In the current landscape, there’s a lot to think about: Not only do you need to serve your customers and make up for lost revenue, you also need to ensure the safety […]

As the country reopens, corporate liability 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. The suit claims that Walmart managers failed to follow Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) recommendations, such […]

Getting more visibility into workforce productivity The Fulcrum team has just finished some updates that we’re sure you’ll like. I’d like to tell you about them, starting with a quick discussion of where we’re going, and then getting into specifics. The team is devoted full-time on ensuring that you have the best no-code application platform […]

In the 21st century, more companies are finding ways to automate manual workflows that eat up valuable time and resources. It’s a smart move. According to McKinsey research, about half of current work activities can be automated using technology that already exists. What is a workflow? A workflow is a predictable, predefined set of tasks […]

Deploy Digital Cleaning & Sanitization Checklists at Scale to Protect Workers As talks begin about lifting the restrictions on nonessential businesses in the wake of COVID-19 closures, some business executives have expressed concern about the consequences of doing so too quickly. If employees return to work and become sick with Coronavirus and feel they were […]

The COVID-19 epidemic has shone a light on the necessity of being data-driven. From an epidemiological perspective, our ability to understand the spread and predict the trajectory has been limited due to lack of available test data. And even when we have data, it often proves difficult to analyze and present data sets in an […]

We’re proud to share that Fulcrum has been recognized as a leader in mobile forms automation by G2 Crowd, the peer-to-peer software review site. It’s immensely gratifying to have our users confirm the value of our platform’s features, like no-code app creation, automatic location capture, and the ability to collect data even in areas without […]

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. We rely heavily on communication tools like Slack and Zoom for staying connected, GSuite for business productivity, […]

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 […]

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. For the average working class family in the U.S. this dream can be daunting at […]

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. You know it is time to transition to mobile form […]

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. It’s estimated that Puerto Rico has experienced an additional 950 aftershocks, adding more turmoil to an already fragile situation, given […]

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. ‍ Adding New […]

More than 5,200 workers died on the job in 2018, according to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). That’s more than 14 per day. If your employees are exposed to health or safety hazards (if you work in the manufacturing and construction industries, for example), it’s your job to ensure that everyone makes it […]

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 […]

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 inspections across North America to ensure they are operating safely. Vehicles that are deemed unsafe or inoperable during these inspections (a […]

Every new year, we wipe the slate clean and resolve to change for the better. Most of us make well-intended commitments to ourselves hoping to improve some area of our lives or venture to experience something we haven’t accomplished. These age-old promises are great reminders of where we stand and how far we have to […]

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. With Fulcrum, you can quickly and easily conduct all kinds of inspections with a mobile device […]

As another year winds down, we thought we’d share some of the most common support questions we’ve received over the last 12 months. Here they are, in no particular order: ‍ Is there a way to limit a member’s ability to see certain records within an app? There are two ways to limit the records […]

We recently updated our Fulcrum Android App UI and UX to facilitate easier navigation within context of your usage of the app. The biggest updates have come in the form of a consistent app toolbar, bottom navigation buttons, and all map controls floating over the map. Bottom Navigation One of the goals of the redesign […]

Every year brings a different journey and uncharted experiences that propel us to grow. As a country, we started out with a government shutdown, casting clouds over 2019, but we reached beyond them and found the strength to not only begin — we never quit. That grit and determination carried us through this topsy-turvy year […]

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 […]

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. Collecting and viewing records in Fulcrum Today we’ll show you where the real magic happens: When collecting records with the Fulcrum mobile app and viewing your data in the records editor! How to […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. So every year around this time we like to put together a list of gifts for people who love geography to help you with your […]

How to Create Fulcrum Apps Creating custom mobile forms in Fulcrum is super easy with our drag-and-drop app builder. How easy? This video shows you how to do it in just 3 minutes! How to Create an App in Fulcrum (Video) ‍ Transcript: We are excited to take you along our Fulcrum platform with this […]

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 […]

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. ‍Navigation The most noticeable […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. Want to see how it works? Watch this short video! What is Fulcrum and How Does it Work? (Video) ‍ ‍ […]

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 […]

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. NetHope is a consortium of 60 nonprofit organizations from […]

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. It isn’t just about the data collection itself, though. The data you’ve gathered will help you identify trends in your business, remain […]

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. Truthfully, when large-scale disasters […]

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! Below is […]

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 […]

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. Haiti is perpetually surrounded by poverty and […]

We received some exciting news here at Spatial Networks headquarters recently: Fulcrum is now FirstNet Listed and available via the FirstNet App Catalog! FirstNet is America’s public safety communications platform and features the first-ever App Catalog geared to first responders. This gives FirstNet subscribers a place dedicated to meaningful new solutions that have been specifically […]

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. There are several ways to capture logs from […]

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. That technical power was displayed at NetHope’s recent Disaster Response Training (DRT) […]

Spatial Networks is excited to announce our newest Fulcrum partner, Orbica! Based in Christchurch, New Zealand, Orbica is pioneering geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI), developing unique data visualization solutions and enabling organizations to gain near real-time visibility of their data through geography and the power of location data. Fulcrum, of course, is our industry-leading mobile data […]

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,” […]

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 […]

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. Although photos are valuable on their own, it is possible to exploit […]

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 […]

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 […]