Web portal for sharing survey results with third parties

Ask the Community
1

Hello QField user,
Do you have any experience of sharing survey results with third parties, for example your client, who may not have QGIS?

The background is the possible project of Inspection of 200 Underground Chambers – Feasibility Question - Ask the Community - QField community.
What I’m looking for: a read-only web view of the completed inspection data — ideally with the ability for the client to add comments on individual chambers or findings.

So far I heard about:

Option Pro Con
qgis2web Fast, static, no server needed No comment feature, no auth
QWC Services (qwc.app) Full QGIS project rendering, WMS/WFS Heavy setup, needs server
Lizmap Good middle ground, built-in editing possible Needs Lizmap server
GeoServer + custom frontend Maximum flexibility Most effort
2

as I cannot modfiy the OP anymore, here is another option, Mergin Maps: Collect, Share and Publish your Geo-Data Easily with A final surprise for the year - shared maps via URL | Mergin Maps although it is a competitor to QField, Mergin Maps Vs Qfield cloud : r/QGIS.

3

Does it has to be a webmap?
Could a PDF work? So you can use the QGIS Layout manager to create an atlas, with maybe multiple chambers on each page? Each page could show a map and the attribute table.
Then again, it mostly depends on what the client want to see and what it needs access to.
The inspection project has a lot of attributes and data, including 360 views, audio, etc. Does this all have to be visible, or accessible by the client? In one application? I doubt all options can handle this all. Also, can the options handle QGIS relations, which you might need in your project (many to one relations?)

What kind of comments do you expect? A simple word, or elaborate comments on each chamber? Do the comments need to be digitally stored and reused, connected to the actual chamber?

This can all add up to become a significant list of functionalities for any given webmap application.

Maybe a solution could be to provide the client with access to the QField project? Add them as users to the project. It would cost you ‘user per month fee’ if it is a private project, but that is probably nothing compared to server fees and or commercial webmap instances.

4

The idea is that clients can conveniently review the data on a desktop PC without needing to install QGIS.
The intention is to avoid receiving a separate list of comments per inspection by email, which should be incorporated in the QGIS project at our end.

5

QField can be installed on a windows PC and you could add a comment field to the project so the client can use that comment field for all comments. This way, all comments are integrated into the data and connected to the relevant chamber.

A thing to consider is how to prevent the client from changing data other than the comment field. You could create a separate QField project and create a new form, specifically for the client, set up in a way the important data and the comment field is easy to find and use.

Thinking about this, it is probably the easiest and quickest option.
Going for a webmap option would probably also require you to create a new form layout (identify pop-up, which is more suited for the client than for the data-collector), and going through all the stuff needed to get a webmap up and running.

I am assuming the project has private data (i.e. not public data) so even if you were to use a webmap, your client would still need to use a login. Therefore, installing QField, would just be one additional step for your client.

6

I was not aware of that, thought it focus on mobile devices

7

We would like to be able to do something similar and I suspect using QGIS server and a web client would make it quite workable but dealing with restricting access to sensitive data and getting client buy in are more likely the barriers for us than the GIS or Qfield

8

If it is possible and feasible within the corporate structure to install QField on desktop computers in the office, this allows for the creation of a very simple, user-friendly, secure, and reliable solution for data inquiry and collection. Furthermore, access and editing permissions can be defined easily and with fine-grained precision. If the installation of an additional application on the computers is neither desired nor permitted, the only remaining option is to set up a web mapping solution; for this purpose, QGIS Server and QGIS Web Client offer excellent technology.