Using mapzaa, start to finish

1Getting in Everyone

mapzaa has no public sign-up. Accounts are only ever created by accepting an emailed invitation, so the first thing that happens is that someone invites you — either us, setting up your municipality's first administrator, or an administrator already in your organisation.

Accepting your invitation

1. Open the invitation email and follow the link. It is good for 72 hours; if yours has expired, ask whoever invited you to resend it — that is one click for them.
2. Your email address is shown but fixed. Add your name so colleagues and the audit trail know who you are, then choose a password of at least 10 characters.
3. Complete the checkbox that proves you are not a bot, then press Activate account.
4. You are signed straight in. There is no code to enter this time — the link already proved the address reaches you, and you chose the password in that same step.

Signing in after that

1. Enter your email and password at Log in.
2. mapzaa emails you a 6-digit code. Type it into Verification code — the form submits itself on the sixth digit, so your phone's one-time-code autofill completes it for you.
3. The code lasts 10 minutes and allows 5 attempts. Past either, use Resend code and start the step again.

Forgotten password

Use Forgot password? on the login page. We email a link that lets you set a new one.

2What your role allows Everyone

Every account is a seat in exactly one organisation and holds one of two roles. Which one you have decides whether the rest of this page is something you do or something you watch.

Read-only is the right default for a colleague who needs to look things up but shouldn't be editing the register. An administrator can change anyone's role later from Settings › Organization.

3Setting up the register Admins

Do this once, before the first assets go in. Both settings apply to your whole organisation, and both can be changed later without disturbing what is already recorded.

Categories

A category is an asset type — litter bin, bench, lamp post — and carries the colour its pins take on the map.

1. Go to Settings › Categories.
2. Under Add a category, give it a Name and pick a Colour, then press Add category.
3. Use Edit on any row to rename it or change its colour. Both take effect everywhere at once.

Asset fields

Beyond category, status, location and description, asset fields are what your municipality specifically records — install date, material, serial number, last inspection.

1. Go to Settings › Asset fields and press Add a field.
2. Give it a Label and a Type: Text, Number, Date or Choice.
3. For a Choice field, type each option into Choices and press Enter — they become chips you can remove individually.
4. Leave Shown for empty and the field applies to every category. Name one or more categories and it only appears on those.

Names you type — categories, field labels, choices — get their first letter capitalised on save, so the dashboard reads tidily. A capital already inside the first word, as in "iPhone dock", is left exactly as you typed it.

4Adding assets Admins

An asset is a category, a status, a point on the map, an address, a description and whatever asset fields you have defined. It has no name — the reference number and the address are what identify it.

1. From Map or Assets, press Add asset in the top bar — or simply click the map where the asset stands.
2. Place it one of three ways: click the map, type an address and press Find, or type latitude and longitude directly. Whichever you use, the other fields fill themselves in.
3. Nudge it if needed. The dark pin that appears is draggable — drop it exactly where the asset stands and the address follows it.
4. Choose a Category and a Status: Active, Maintenance or Retired.
5. Fill in the Description and any asset fields shown for that category.
6. Press Save.

On save the asset is given a Ref — a plain number handed out within your organisation, starting at 1. It never changes and never moves, so it is the number to quote in a work order.

One-off fields

The One-off fields group at the bottom of the panel records something on that single asset without adding it to every asset in the organisation — a note about one awkward bench. If you find yourself typing the same one repeatedly, add it properly in Settings › Asset fields.

Editing and deleting

Click any pin on the map, or any row in the table, to reopen the record. The same panel is used for both, with Delete available on an existing asset. Retiring an asset is usually better than deleting it — what used to stand on a corner is part of the record too.

5Finding assets again Everyone

The Assets tab is the whole register as a sortable table. The map has the same search and dropdowns in its sidebar; the table adds rules, columns and sorting.

Search and the dropdowns

The search box matches against the category name, the description, the address and every asset-field value at once, so a serial number or a supplier finds its assets without you saying which field it lives in. The two dropdowns beside it narrow by category and by status.

Filter rules

1. Press More filters, then Add filter.
2. Pick what to test — a built-in column, or any of your own asset fields.
3. Pick an operator and type a value. The operators offered depend on the field's type; see Filter operators.
4. Add as many rules as the question needs. Every rule has to match, on top of the search box and the dropdowns.

Clear removes them all, and the number beside More filters tells you how many are active when the panel is shut.

Columns and sorting

Columns chooses which columns the table shows and in what order — the built-in ones (Ref, Category, Status, Address, Description, Coordinates, Added, Updated) plus any of your asset fields. Click a column heading to sort by it; click again to reverse. Your column layout is remembered between visits.

6Saving a view Everyone

A saved view is a name over that query string — the filters, the columns and the sort, exactly as you left them. Keeping your own is self-service, whatever your role.

1. Filter the table until it shows what you want.
2. Open the views menu in the toolbar and press Save this view….
3. Name it for the job it does — "This winter's grit bin round" beats "View 2".
4. Administrators also get Share with everyone in this organization. Tick it and the view appears for the whole team.

Reopen the menu to apply a view, Update view to save changes back into it, or rename and delete from the same place. A dot beside the view's name means you have changed something since it was saved.

7Changing many assets at once Admins

Retiring forty bins one panel at a time is nobody's afternoon. Tick the rows in the table instead and change one field across the lot.

1. Tick the rows you want. Filter, tick some more, filter again — the selection survives filter changes, because building one usually takes several passes.
2. The bar at the top of the table counts the whole selection, and says how many of those rows the current filter is hiding, rather than quietly disagreeing with what you can see.
3. Press Edit a field… and choose one field: Category, Status, Description, or any of your asset fields.
4. Type the new value. Leaving it empty clears that field on every selected asset, the same as a blank input on a single asset.
5. Press Apply to selection and read the confirmation — it names the field, the new value and the number of assets.

Two details worth knowing. A field limited by Shown for is written only to the selected assets in those categories; the rest are passed over, including any without a category. And location is deliberately not offered — one pair of coordinates across a group would stack the whole selection on a single pin, and an address is that same fact in words.

8Exporting the register Everyone

Export downloads a CSV of the rows the table is currently showing, in the sort order you put them in, with the columns you have switched on. Filter first, then export, and the file is the answer to the question rather than a dump to clean up afterwards.

Reading is not writing, so exporting is open to read-only accounts too. The file opens correctly in Excel, including addresses with accented characters.

9Out in the field Everyone

mapzaa is meant to be usable while standing in front of the asset, not only back at a desk. On a phone the map fills the screen and the asset list becomes a sheet you pull up from the bottom — the grab bar says how many assets match, so you can filter without raising it.

1. Open any asset and use Navigate in Google Maps to walk or drive to it.
2. Standing at the asset, correct what is wrong and press Save — the same panel as on a desktop.
3. Adding an asset on the spot: press + in the top bar, or tap the map where it stands.

10Managing people Admins

Everything about your team lives at Settings › Organization, starting with Usage — how many of your assets and seats are in use.

1. Under Invite someone, enter their email address and choose Read-only or Admin, then press Send invitation.
2. The invitation appears under outstanding invitations until it is accepted. Resend sends a fresh 72-hour link; Remove cancels it.
3. To change someone's role later, use Change role on their row.
4. Remove takes a person out of the organisation. Views they shared stay behind for the other administrators; their private views go with them.

Audit logs Admins

Settings › Audit logs records one row per sign-in and per change made in your organisation: who did it, what it was and when. Filter it by activity — Sign-in & account, Assets, Settings & organization, People & invitations — or search for a person, an address or a category.

A bulk edit is recorded as a single entry naming the field, the value and the count, not as one row per asset. The trail keeps a copy of the actor's name and email taken at the time, so it still says who did something after they have left the organisation. Entries are kept for 180 days.

Your account Everyone

Settings › Account is the one section that is only about you. Set the name your colleagues and the audit trail see, and change your password — at least 10 characters, and you will need your current one to do it.

Log out is in the top bar, and in the menu on a phone. Sessions last 30 days.

Filter operators

Which operators a filter rule offers depends on the type of the thing being tested. has a value and is empty take no value and are available on every type — they are how you find the records somebody never finished filling in.

Address and Description are text; Last updated is a date. Your own asset fields use whichever type you gave them in Settings.