(Legacy Customers) New features in Landscape that you can start using now.
This article is for customers who were migrated from the prior version of Landscape
The updated version of Landscape is packed with brand new features, and it might be a challenge for recently migrated customers to sort out what new features can be immediately helpful. Here are a few ideas to help you get started. We've broken it down into Stewardship and Acquisition depending on your focus:
Stewardship
Everything gets a form! And it can be automatic!
Do you want to gather more data on your protected resources than just the size and type? Or perhaps you have a questionnaire that needs to be filled out when someone uploads title work. Maybe you need a form for severe violations that captures information like the Terrafirma ID and ensures proper due diligence. You can now create forms for any scenario and also (optionally) apply them to any work item automatically! No more manually populating form libraries of stewardship sites (although you can still link forms to individual records if you want).
Add a form to a work item manually by creating that work item and clicking the form button at the bottom of the record. Add a form to all work items automatically from the form settings.
Speaking of forms - conditional question visibility is now possible.
For example, if you have a question in your form like 'Did you find any issues', you can set one or more questions to appear if the answer is 'Yes', like 'Describe the issue' and 'Did you enter the issue in Landscape?'.
Note: Questions that were previously 'Multiple Choice with Explanation' or 'Single Choice with Explanation' were split into two questions - the question and explanation part - during the migration process. You can make these now extra explanations conditionally visible to hide them. We will apply this logic to your most commonly used forms post-migration
The site visit is just the beginning of your property management process - transform site visit points, lines, and polygons into any other work item easily.
A small but mighty feature. You go into the field and collect photos and photopoints with Landscape Mobile. Back at the office, you synchronize that data to the website and it appears as a site visit. But there are a lot of things you captured that need to be tracked separately! Maybe you took a photo of an issue you discovered, or perhaps you walked the length of a new trail and want to transform that into a mapped trail feature in Landscape. It's now easy to create these new work items from the map data you collect. You can also use this feature to copy data into existing work items:
Let's walk through an example of how you might tie all of these together to improve your record tracking:
You perform a site visit with the mobile app and note some encroachment on the southern boundary of the property. Back at the office, you transform the point containing the photos into a new issue using the copy to work feature. You classify the issue as 'Encroachment'. When you're taken to the new encroachment issue, you're automatically presented with a form that asks important questions like:
'Encroachments must be verified by field observations in addition to GPS mapping. Were you able to verify the encroachment by confirming the presence of survey pins, fencing, etc.?' Yes / No.
You answer 'No' and are presented with a new question, set to be conditionally visible: 'Describe the condition of the boundary at the location of the encroachment. If necessary, schedule a follow-up visit to verify the encroachment and/or obtain a survey of the property line in the encroached-upon area'.
Acquisition
The first item on this list is the same as the one under Stewardship because it's THAT AWESOME:
Everything gets a form! And it can be automatic!
Do you need to answer a questionnaire on a potential acquisition that can be included in a report to the board? Or perhaps you want to capture additional data on surveys that are completed during the acquisition process like 'Did the surveyor mark the boundaries at the time of the survey?'. You can now create forms for any scenario and also (optionally) apply them to any work item automatically! Meaning the form will appear when the work item is created.
Add a form to a work item manually by creating that work item and clicking the form button at the bottom of the record. Add a form to all work items automatically from the form settings.
Smarter tasks in projects.
If a task has required work and someone marks it as completed, Landscape will now walk the user through the creation of the correct work item. In the past, it only prompted you to do so and then left you to your own devices. This is very nice for folks who are less familiar with the overall workflow of projects. When you're done entering information on the work item and mark it as completed (or the completed equivalent), Landscape will search for linked tasks and prompt you to complete them automatically as well.
Simpler expenses, budgets, funding, and time tracking
You can now add expenses and time tracking (previously 'Personnel') to a project in general, rather than needing to tie those hours or expenses to something in particular. Go to the 'work' tab of a project and change 'Showing Work Items' to 'Showing Time Tracking' (or expenses). At the top of the list you'll see 'All Project Time Tracking', which is where you can add general time. Note that the 'role' can now be set per user in settings, so it doesn't need to be manually selected every time if you're tracking a user's hours.
You can also have multiple budgets if you would like, and the funding builder walks you through the creation of agreements and makes creating disbursals a breeze.
