Remote monitoring with Lens and Landscape

There are a couple of ways to use Upstream Tech's Lens platform with Landscape to track your monitoring obligations. This article walks you through two different methods of doing so. The first utilizes the existing Upstream Tech Lens > Landscape integration, while the second shows you how to upload a Lens .pdf report.

Setting up the integration

If you haven't set up your Lens account yet, export a shapefile of all of the boundaries you wish to import into Lens, and be sure to include at least the 'Name' and the 'ID' field by using the method outlined in the video below. Share this shapefile with the Lens team when you're setting up your account and tell them you'd like it to be integrated with Landscape.

If you already have Lens and wish to integrate with your Landscape account, then you'll need to request a shapefile export from the Lens team, and fill in the field that they specify with the Landscape ID for each record in your Lens account. You can use Views to easily see all of the ID numbers of all of the IDs in your Landscape account.

Once these steps are complete, the Lens team will provide you with an API key. Share that number with us, and we will complete the integration setup.

Here's a video that walks you through creating the shapefile you need:

Method 1: Using the integration

The Lens integration works by automatically creating Issue work items in Landscape for records that have been synchronized. These work items contain points or area features that then contain .jpg photos of the point or area where you made the note. You can then easily create a site visit record from that geography to record the monitoring visit, and use a special report template which incorporates the images instead of displaying a typical map. It's important to note that the integration does not overlay Lens imagery on the Landscape map.

Setting up the integration

If you haven't set up your Lens account yet, export a shapefile of all of the boundaries you wish to import into Lens, and be sure to include at least the 'Name' and the 'ID' field by using the method outlined in this article, and here's a quick video on how to do this as well. Share this shapefile with the Lens team when you're setting up your account and tell them you'd like it to be integrated with Landscape.

Once these steps are complete, the Lens team will provide you with an API key. Share that number with us, and we will complete the integration setup.

Here's a video that walks you through creating the shapefile you need:

First, create a note in Lens for the property you want to monitor with the satellite image layers active that you wish to export.

Landscape will synchronize with Lens once a day, but if you wish to speed up the process you can go to Settings > Integrations > Upstream Tech > and select 'Sync Now'.

Navigate to the work tab of the correct record in Landscape. The note should appear as an Issue work item. Open the work item, click on the point or area that was brought in, and you should see the satellite imagery appear as an image thumbnail. Click the 'Copy to Work Item' button in the geography panel.

Select 'Site Visit' as the work item type, then choose the appropriate sub-type of Site Visit (usually 'Annual Monitoring'). You can either create a new visit or copy the data into an existing site visit.

The data will be copied and you will be taken to the site visit work item. From there you can run a monitoring report as you normally would. Note that you probably want to use a special monitoring report that accommodates the photos as the report 'maps'. You can find a sample report to download here.

Here's a video that walks you through the process described above:

Method 2: Uploading a Lens report

If you prefer to use Lens to generate your remote monitoring report, you can upload that report to Landscape to ensure that future stewards can see a complete history of your monitoring activities.

Start by creating a site visit work item in the appropriate record. If you'd like, you can enter a summary of the visit or fill out form questions.

Next, add a blank report to the site visit to hold the Lens report. Do this by clicking on add linked work (not 'Run Report'). Select 'Add New', then choose 'Report' as the work category and the appropriate type (like 'Annual Monitoring').

You'll be taken to the report work item. Scroll down to the 'documents' section and add the Lens report .pdf.

Finally, mark the report as completed.

Here's a video of the process:

'Can Satellite monitoring be tracked in Landscape if we don't use the Lens platform?'

Yes! Depending on availability in your region, you may be able to link to recent satellite imagery as a custom service layer (Settings > Map Layers) and incorporate that imagery into a custom report. Alternatively, you may be able to incorporate imagery into your reports in a way similar to method 1 in this article. Feel free to reach out to support if you have any questions about custom workflows.