Create your first record on the map

Ginkgo is a user friendly data platform designed to help all place managers, technical or non-technical, leverage Geographic Information System (GIS) technology to work with records about the busy places they manage.

To get started using Ginkgo's user friendly framework for GIS, head to the Map section of your account (https://app.ginkgo.city/map) and follow these steps to create your first record on the map. 

Step 1 - Find the exact location you're interested in, whether an address, storefront, property boundary or location of something in the street

Use the map (https://app.ginkgo.city/map) to navigate to the location you want to add or edit data for, and click on the exact location on the map.

A blue pin will mark that location you selected and the Location Details sidebar will open. (On mobile devices, you may need to click the Location Details icon in the blue toolbar to open this sidebar.)

Click on the blue "New Record" button at the top left in the sidebar to open the New Record modal and select the type of record you are adding, i.e. a business, a listing for a vacant space, development activity, streetscape assets, etc.

Zoom in and pin the location on the map that you would like to add a record to. 
Map layers like curb lines and other GIS layers can help you accurately place your pin.

 

Step 2 - Add information & Create the record using the forms.

Use the form to enter information about the property or streetscape location. Once you have all your information about the property or streetscape asset, and any photos added to the form, go ahead and click on the blue Create button at the bottom. That's it! You've created your first record and mapped it to the right location where it's easy for you and your community to access and edit in the future.

 
Ginkgo's database framework includes a form for each type of record. 
In this example, we are adding a new Streetscape Asset categorized as a "Kiosk".

 

Step 3 - Update the your records on the fly.

Once your records have been added to your Ginkgo account, they will be easily accessible to anyone on your team that you would like to invite to the account. From there, records are easy to look up and edit on the fly. Simply use a keyword search or filter the map to find the record you'd like to update and then click "EDIT" in the record's detail view.

In this example, we are updating the Kiosk record we just created in order to add
the nearest address, which Ginkgo will look up for you, as well as a 
subcategory called "LinkNYC".

 

Great work! Now you are ready to try adding other types of records. The process is pretty much the same, but each type of record has a unique set of fields in its respective Editor Form. 

Some things to keep in mind as you work with the Editor Forms:

• Certain fields will be required and you won't be able to create or update your records unless you have a value in these fields. These always include visibility, which can be Public by default.
• The Visibility setting only applies to your records when you are sharing them on a map that you have embedded on your website or sent someone a link to. Otherwise, there is no way for someone to see any of the records in your account regardless of what you set the Visibility to. 
• On a smaller screen size, such as a mobile device, the "Location Details" sidebar that provides the "Add a Record" button might not open on its own when the pin is placed on the map. Instead you may need to open it manually by clicking on the pin icon located at the top of the blue toolbar in the upper left. 
• If the Location Details tool panel is collapsed at the top of the sidebar, the Add a Record button will look like a blue plus icon instead of a blue button. This can be handy as a space saver once you are familiar with the tools panel in the Location Details sidebar.

The tool panel for Location Details is collapsable to save space.