3.4 Consultation Map

The ability to limit participation by geographic area is one of the core benefits of using PlaceSpeak for your consultation.

The map allows you to determine who is eligible to participate in your consultation (which can be customized for each engagement tool) and how it is tagged and segmented by geography.

• feedback data collected is segmented according to labels of areas in your map (e.g. neighbourhood, region, state/province, etc.)
• geo-fence participation by restricting participation to residents who are verified within a specific area, neighbourhood or region. 
• notify area residents of new opportunities to participate within specific boundaries.

Consultation Area

Drag: Use this tool to click and drag the map to your desired location. To zoom in and out, use the controls in the lower right corner of the map frame.

Once a map is created, use this tool click on each polygon to add a label (name) and color. Labelling the polygons will allow you to track where participants are coming from.

Polygon: This tool allows you to draw the boundaries of your consultation area directly into the map. Click once on the map to set your anchor point. Drag the cursor to the next anchor point and click to set it. Once you have set all your anchor points, click your starting anchor point to close your polygon.

A dialogue box will open allowing you to label your polygon, as well as to change the colour. You can access this dialogue box by clicking on the polygon.

Upload (Premium and Enterprise only): Upload a zipped SHP file or KML/KMZ file to automatically insert the boundaries you want on your map. You can drag and drop your file into the box that appears when you click on the upload tool icon, or click ‘Choose file’ to navigate to the file’s location.

Once the map appears, you can click on individual polygons to add/change their label and color.

Clear: Use this tool to remove all polygons and markers from your map.

Frame: This tool will allow you to refine the viewable area of the preview map that appears on your Topic homepage. Drag the desired portion of your map to the highlighted area and refine the view with the zoom tool on the lower right.

Show List: This feature will display all your polygons and their names.

Types of Maps

There are four types of maps available within the Consultation Map:

• roadmap displays the default road map view. This is the default map type.
• satellite displays Google Earth satellite images.
• hybrid displays a mixture of normal and satellite views.
• terrain displays a physical map based on terrain information.

Accessibility

At PlaceSpeak, we strive to make our platform accessible to participants with disabilities. To facilitate this goal, you can provide text descriptions of the polygons in your map for visually impaired participants.

You can do so by clicking the "Accessibility" button on the right. 

PlaceSpeak is WCAG 2.0 AA compliant.