We are excited to announce a new update to how surveys are managed in the Outfield web app. This update makes it easier for you to upload survey images, view their status, make changes to surveys, and keep track of what data you’ve uploaded. This article will take you through all the changes and new features, but if you have any questions please do get in touch with your Outfield representative.
Making Uploading Easier
When you upload survey images through the Outfield web app, you will see some changes to the uploads page.
Survey Names and Notes
The first change we’ve made is that you can now give your surveys a descriptive name and add notes. You can use the Survey Name to describe the survey you’re uploading, so that you distinguish it from other surveys and so that you can easily find it later. For example, you might use a Survey Name like “East Orchard morning survey” or “Mavic 3 top down”. In addition to the Survey Name, the Survey Notes can be used to record any useful information or important context about the survey. For example, you might want to record things like crop observations, what the weather was like, or any issues that you had while flying the drone. The Survey Name and Survey Notes are also visible to the Outfield team, so it is a good way to share information with Outfield about the survey data you’re uploading.
Drag and Drop Images
You can now drag and drop your image files into the web app to upload them. Simply find your image files on your computer, highlight the ones you want to upload and click and drag them onto the Choose files box on the uploads page.
Multiple Uploads at Once
Another big change is that your uploads now run in the background, meaning you can queue multiple survey uploads one after the other. Once you’ve filled in the details and selected your images, click the Upload button to start the upload. A pop up window will then appear in the bottom right of your screen showing you the progress of your uploads. While the upload is in progress, you can navigate to other pages in the web app and even start new uploads. If you start uploading a new set of images, these will be queued to upload once the first set is finished.
New Survey Dashboard
We have created a new Survey Dashboard where you can manage surveys the that you’ve uploaded. To find the Survey Dashboard, navigate to a particular orchard and scroll down to to the bottom of the page. Your surveys will be listed there, and you can manage each survey by clicking on the survey name.
Quickly View the Survey Details
At the top of the page you can find the survey details, including the survey date and type, the number of images in the survey, and the Survey Name and Survey Notes.
Map of Image Locations
Also at the top of the page is a map showing the location of all of the images in the survey and the boundary of the orchard. Each white arrow is a single image, and if you hover over them you will see a thumbnail of the image itself. The direction of the arrow icon indicates the heading of the drone when the image was taken. In the Survey Images panel below, you can see details of all of the images that are part in the survey, including the image thumbnails.
Add or Delete Images
Using the Survey Dashboard, you can now also add or delete images from a survey. You can upload additional images using the Upload more images button at the top of the Survey images panel. Just like when you upload a new survey, you can drop and drag additional images to start the upload. If you want to delete images from a survey, simply select the checkbox to the right of the image and press the Delete Selected button at the top of the Survey images panel. You can delete images one at a time, or delete multiple images at once.
Survey Status
The final change we’ve made in this update is to give you visibility of the status of your surveys. At the top of the Survey Dashboard, you can see the current status is of the survey such as whether it has been uploaded or processed, or if it has some sort of error. You can also see the status of individual images within the survey, in particular if there are any errors with that image that prevent it from being processed by the Outfield system.
With this update, we are giving Outfield users more control over their survey data. The features we are introducing here are all based on user feedback, and we want to hear what you think of them. If you like the new survey management functionality then please let us know, and if you have suggestions on how we can make these features even more useful then we want to hear them. Just get in touch with your Outfield representative, or you can always contact the team on hello@outfield.xyz.
There are more features planned in the coming months, so keep an eye out for more updates from the Outfield team. Happy flying!