MapDeck is a browser-based application and is designed to work on all screen formats - from desktops and tablets, to mobile phone screens.
In order to work properly, MapDeck requires Internet connection and a modern web browser with full HTML5 support.
MapDeck is built from functional modules which are strung together into complete applications to support a wide range of tasks.
A MapDeck application serves a specific purpose, generally only one at a time, but it shares many common elements with other apps. For example, finding a resource or creating a metadata record (i.e. information about the dataset) are very common functions across all of MapDeck applications.
All content (i.e. “resources”) available on MapDeck is sorted according to the following conventions:
Each MapDeck application has Help tab (marked with “?” icon). Please refer to individual applications for details.
You can ask for help MapDeck customer service staff and software engineers by submitting a support ticket (Main menu: Support/ Create new ticket) with your specific query.
Your free account comes with generous entitlements to upload files (up to 200 MB), the ability to share private folders with up to 5 individuals, and preview and interact with free resources using a set of default tools.
To access more functionality you will need to subscribe to specific apps and data (some are free, some require payment to access).
Free data does not require subscription to use but free tools do require a one-off subscription which is for an indefinite period.
Subscription term to paid apps and data is always 12 months, but there are a few items available on one month short term access basis. Every time you upgrade to a higher level plan (where available) you forgo unused portion of your existing plan and you start a new 12 months term. Please select your subscription plans carefully to minimise costs as there are no refunds for unused resources.
Each MapDeck app is designed to perform a discrete task.
Apps use internal tables and/or require user actions as an input, then they allow saving the end result of the process for further reuse – that is, either to update previously saved resource or save as a new version.
Any new user generated content is always “saved to” that user’s My Vault folder.
When creating new content (i.e. data tables) MapDeck will always create a product description record (metadata). This may seem unnecessary overhead but, in the long run, the benefit of maintaining proper information about your content outweighs the pain and effort of creating it. It will not only make it easier to find that particular piece of data amongst all your content but metadata will also record its lineage and will make it easier to distinguish between different versions you create and work with over time. Just trust us on this!
To navigate to a specific content on MapDeck use Finder app or click through Vault folders.
As a general rule, on start, all resources open in a new browser window. Close the window after finishing your task without logging out of MapDeck to continue with the current session. The exceptions are resources initiated from a Deck but this is for a good reason – read more about it on Help pages of Deck Manager app.
To preview content of MapDeck tables (i.e. system data) or map layers click the “Start” button on the selected resource (triangle icon). It will activate the Data Viewer app, a default tool for previewing such content.
To interact with a Table resource in MapDeck (e.g. to edit tables, create derived information, etc.) the convention is that you first select and start a relevant MapDeck app (i.e. suitable for what you are trying to do) and then you load the table and/or map layers of interest.
Users can upload files in any format (up to allowable folder limits) but in order to interact with the content via MapDeck apps these files have to be converted to a system file format using Data Editor app. Only then created Tables can be used in other MapDeck apps.
MapDeck is designed for easy sharing of content. The basic convention is that sharing privileges have to be set for each resource individually. For example, sharing a folder which contains private resources will not allow third parties to access those resources unless the user specifically set access permissions to those resources.