Logo preload
close Logo

The Fulcrum Focus

Stay in the know with thought leadership, product updates, and latest news on field inspection and data collection topics.

6 Reasons to Go Paperless (and 4 Tips for Doing it Right)

From conserving natural resources to reducing business costs, there are lots of reasons to go paperless — but many companies have yet to do it. Maybe it’s because they’re attached to their familiar paper processes, or perhaps they’re simply reluctant to enact change.

Supporting FOSS4G 2018

Spatial Networks is once again proud to announce our support for the annual Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) conference. FOSS4G brings together the largest gathering of developers and users of open source geospatial software in the world- and this year it’s all happening in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, one of Africa’s fastest growing cities!

How to Save Time Teaching Your Field Teams to Use Mobile Form

One of the biggest benefits of using mobile forms is the time savings. So naturally, once you’ve made the switch from paper, you’ll want to get your field teams up and running as quickly as possible. In this post, we’ll show you an easy way to get your employees trained on Fulcrum and collecting field data in no time.

Showcasing the Fulcrum data collection app at FLGISA

Account Executives Jonathan Katzeff and Traci Phillips are in Boca Raton, FL this week representing Fulcrum at the Florida Local Government Information Systems Association (FLGISA) 2018 Annual Conference.

How to Collect Mobile Data with No Internet Connection

Advances in remote data collection
Collecting data from the field is an essential task across many industries, and recent advances have made it easier than ever.

All in with Google Maps

Over the past several weeks our Product and Engineering teams have been working hard on transitioning our web mapping engine to the Google Maps JavaScript API. With this complete, we are excited to announce that Fulcrum is now fully leveraging Google Maps across the entire platform!

How to Create a Mobile Inspection Form in 15 Minutes

Professionals across many industries — utility, engineering, and construction, especially — are giving up their antiquated pen-and-paper processes and switching to mobile forms, and for good reason:

How to Use Basemaps

As we mentioned in a recent post, adding a spatial dimension to your field data vastly increases the value of your efforts, whether you’re collecting information for the purpose of tracking sales or fighting malaria. And all geospatial data collection starts with a basemap.

New Additions to Data Events

Fulcrum Data Events allow you to design your own custom behaviors and workflows for your data collection process. From advanced data validation and dynamic lookups to alerts and filtering, Data Events provide a powerful framework for rule-based data collection tailored to your own workflow needs.

Value of Spatial Dimension in Field Data Collection

In the last few posts, we’ve talked about the benefits of collecting and analyzing field data. Information gathered from the field gives businesses and other organizations a unique advantage, providing the basis for more informed decision making and allowing them to better allocate resources.

How Different Industries Collect and Use Data

The term “data collection” may sound esoteric, but the practice is actually quite broad. Data collection is a vital process that every business conducts regularly, even if they don’t call it that.

The Logistics of Collecting Field Data

Field data collection can be a complex process, requiring time, money, and people. That’s why logistics are important. A successful project design will save you from wasting time, energy, and resources, and ensure the most reliable data possible.

Spatial Networks Awarded Grant for Professional Development

Working at Spatial Networks has its perks.

Data Collection Techniques | Methods of Collecting Data

In our last post, we explored how and why businesses gather and use information from the field. In this post, we’ll dive deeper into some of the different methods for collecting data.

What the GDPR Means for Fulcrum and its Users

As more security breaches and data thefts by hackers come to light, consumers are demanding increased transparency and responsiveness from companies that process or store their data. In fact, in a survey conducted last December, 62% of respondents said that in the event of a breach, they would blame the company — not the hacker — for their lost data.

The Value of Field Data

Data that is captured in the field is some of the most valuable information available to a company. It provides a clear picture into what’s happening at a job site or point of transaction, giving managers and other executives the insights they need to make informed business decisions.

Spatial Networks’ 2018 Spring All-Hands — By the Numbers

We recently wrapped up our spring “All Hands” week, the semi-annual event when the entire staff descends on SNI headquarters in St. Petersburg, FL, for presentations, planning, and team-building. (And So. Much. Eating.)

The 6 Biggest Threats to Workplace Safety

Globally, more than 2.3 million people die each year as a result of occupational accidents or work-related diseases — that’s more than 6,300 deaths per day.

An Efficient, Affordable Enterprise Asset Management Solution

Successful enterprise asset management is key to reducing costs and increasing productivity and profitability for any organization.

Integrating With Google Drive

Fulcrum was built to be extensible, enabling users to integrate best-in-class data collection tools with other applications and services for complete workflow customization. We provide a variety of integration points for getting data both into and out of Fulcrum and offer a full range of Professional Services if you need help getting things wired up.

Offshore Data Collection

Field data collection is by no means limited to the confines of terra firma!

How to Build a Field Data Collection Survey

Successful data collection starts with a good survey. How you design your questions will have a tremendous impact on the way data is collected, processed, and analyzed. We’d like to share some of our best advice on building a proper field data collection survey.

Fulcrum Community at NPS JIFX

Recently, Spatial Networks attended NPS JIFX 18-2 at Camp Roberts, CA and provided an experiment demonstrating Fulcrum Community “for Mobile Data Collection during Disaster Response Operations.”

Should You Switch to Mobile Forms?

You have probably noticed that many companies have switched from paper to mobile forms, whether it was while checking in at the doctor’s office on a tablet or signing for a package with a stylus.

Comparing Bluetooth Barcode Scanners

With so many Bluetooth barcode scanners on the market, I thought it would be helpful to our users to offer a comparison. While Fulcrum can scan barcodes using the onboard phone camera, often users are rapidly scanning many items, in which case it is faster to use an external Bluetooth barcode scanner.

Spatial Networks Announces New CIO and CTO

We are excited to announce two internal promotions here at Spatial Networks that will help guide us toward our robust growth plans for 2018 and beyond!

Creating Lookup Tables in Fulcrum

We’re fans of keeping it simple when it comes to data modeling. While Fulcrum is flexible when it comes to making changes, it’s always helpful to start simple and add complexity as you need it when building your apps. One common and powerful use case for data relationships is creating lookup tables for common datasets to be referenced in your apps. Fulcrum’s Record Link data type allows you to establish these relationships across apps to maintain consistent, standardized data for lookup fields.

How to work 30% more efficiently

We know that companies save time, money, and resources when they start using Fulcrum for field data collection.

The Benefits of Software as a Service

We’re out at the SaaStr Annual again this year, a yearly gathering of companies all focused on the same challenges of how to build and grow SaaS businesses.

Promoting Geographic Literacy Around the World

As a geospatial intelligence and technology company, Spatial Networks is committed to promoting geography in education to heighten students’ understanding of our changing world.

Using Drone Maps in the Field with DroneDeploy

View your drone maps within Fulcrum on your smartphone, to use as reference when collecting data

What are the Themes of Human Geography?

What is human geography
Human geography has been around as long as, well, humans. But our study of “human geography” as a concept is relatively new, especially among the geospatial/GIS community.

5 Cool Crowdsourcing Platforms/Apps You Should Check Out

Last year, Spatial Networks released Fulcrum Community, which provides the ability to crowdsource mobile data collection across any geographical area. Data collected by the crowd or organization is then made open and available for anyone to view or download. It has been used in damage assessments for tornados, wildfires, hurricanes, and earthquakes, as well as for environmental protection.

Looking Ahead to 2018

Since we introduced Fulcrum in 2011, the team at Spatial Networks has worked continuously to improve the platform and become the industry leader in field data collection, as well as to mature as both geographers and software developers. We like to think we’re succeeding on both counts.

2017: The Year in Review

At Spatial Networks, we strive to be your go-to source for geospatial data and the industry leader in mobile data collection technology. We continue to improve the Fulcrum platform and help our customers all over the world discover new ways to save time and money and streamline their business processes.

The Future of Mobility: Autonomous Cars, Hyperloops, and Drones

Earlier this month, Tony, Bill, RJ and I had the pleasure of attending Geography 2050, the American Geographical Society Annual Fall Symposium, at the beautiful Columbia University in New York City.

11 Perfect Holiday Gifts for Geo Geeks

Thanksgiving is right around the corner, which means it’s time to get serious about your holiday shopping. It also means it’s time for our annual holiday gift guide!

Working with Geospatial Data: An Introduction

At our core, Spatial Networks is a geography company. From building geospatial technology products to collecting, organizing, and analyzing geodata, we eat, drink, and breathe geography. It’s sobering to learn that, for many of our customers, Fulcrum often provides their first exposure to the wonderful world of Geographic Information Systems (GIS).

How to Export GeoPackage Data from Fulcrum

One of my favorite things about Fulcrum is that your data is always yours. I am impressed by how much work the engineering team puts into trying to make it almost as easy to get your data out of Fulcrum as it is to get your data in.

Spatial Networks 2017 All Hands Week Recap

We just concluded “All Hands” week, a semi-annual event where every Spatial Networks employee meets up at the company’s headquarters in St. Petersburg, Florida for a fast-paced week of projects, teamwork, and planning for the future.

Universities Assessing Hurricane Damage Using Fulcrum Community

Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria caused massive amounts of destruction in parts of Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. Now, engineering faculty and students from several U.S. universities are turning disaster into a learning experience.

Countdown to Geography 2050: The Future of Mobility

The American Geographical Society’s fourth annual Fall Symposium is next month – the countdown is on, and the SNI team is looking forward to the event!

Introducing Record-Overview Popups

Viewing records on both split view and map view just got easier. We’re introducing a new feature to the Fulcrum Editor — a record-overview popup that includes several important fields. The new overview popup shows:

Fulcrum Community a Proud Part of Hurricane Harvey Relief

When Hurricane Harvey made landfall last month, dumping over 50 inches of rain on the Houston area, hundreds of strangers from all over the country were eager to help with relief efforts.

Improving Fulcrum Editor With Better Basemaps From DigitalGlobe

On September 1, 2017, astute users of the Spatial Networks product, Fulcrum, may have noticed a slight change to the Fulcrum Editor mapping interface. On that day, we switched our underlying basemap provider to the DigitalGlobe Maps API. DigitalGlobe is a world-class provider of satellite imagery and Fulcrum will now be able to serve up better basemaps directly from their premium imagery map service.

Fulcrum Live 2017 Recap

Earlier this month, we held our first-ever user conference, Fulcrum Live. At this event, we hoped users could come together to share their experiences and learn from new ways organizations are using Fulcrum to streamline business processes. Judging by the feedback we received, it was a resounding success! It took our team many months to plan and coordinate the event, so we are grateful to those that came. We had nearly 100 attendees descend upon the city of Boston for a day of talking, storytelling, networking, and enjoying great food. We especially want to thank our speakers for taking the time to share their stories with the audience.

Getting Started with Drones in Construction

Our friends at DroneDeploy are hosting a great webinar this week (August 16, 11am PDT/2pm EDT), a primer in getting started using drone data for construction projects. Construction job sites are one of the best environments where drones can make a difference in getting better information from the field.

Integrating VETRO FiberMap and Fulcrum

In a business as ‘spatial’ as telecommunications, the physical network map truly is a core business information asset. ISPs need to know where everything in their outside plant is, how it’s connected, and its condition.

Share Your Fulcrum Story!

Hopefully by now you’ve heard about our upcoming Fulcrum Live event, which is co-located with the International Conference for Free and Open Source Software for Geospatial (FOSS4G) on August 15th in Boston, MA. This is our first ever official user conference and we are preparing for a fantastic turnout from the Fulcrum community!

Kids and Coding: Investing in the Next Generation

Most people understand that the ability to use a piece of software doesn’t equate to the ability to build that piece of software. Using a computer has been an essential skill in the modern workforce for some time, but the ability to make a computer useful by programming it to do what you want is an entirely different skillset. Computer programming is a language and like any language is best learned when you are young. So why aren’t we doing a better job of teaching kids the primary language of the tools that we work with?

Join Us At Fulcrum Live!

Update: Tickets to Fulcrum Live are SOLD OUT! Stay tuned for more updates & announcements from the conference on our blog!

1 5 6 7 8 9 12