In a nutshell:
Already have your map built? Jump further down. But if you haven't built your map yet, read this first.
From the dashboard, choose the Design/Edit Maps icon. Only master users can access this feature.
There are three ways to build your map(s).
* Browser based solution.
* Advanced Map Editor.
* Desktop Version.
You're immediately presented with the basic browser map editor. This method is very slow and can be a burden for creating large maps. Your better alternative is the Advanced Map Editor, but let's say you just want to make a quick change to your map or you don't have a Windows computer where you can download the software. The first thing you'll want to do is click on the Configuration to define your map canvas.
The map is a grid (columns and rows, like a spreadsheet). All graves run horizontally on the map, so north may not always be 'up'. Input your approximate width and height of your map grid (you can change these values later if needed).
You're presented with a canvas of green cells. This represents unassigned space in your cemetery. Move your mouse to a location where you want a grave and left-click. There's a dropdown at the top of the popup box. This is important. If you don't change this to "Grave" you can't make an assignment of grid locations. Be sure to input the grave identifiers to match your data records so that the map can make the connection. For example, you might input A for the first identifier, 1 for the second identifier and 1 for the third identifier (Section A, Lot 1, Grave 1). When you have someone interested, or interred, in this location you would create a cemetery data record with the same grave identifiers. If there is already a data record with matching coordinates, the map will automatically color code the grave on the map at this point. Proceed to add more graves. Don't forget to use the correct dropdown or you may get a warning message. Graves colored red contain record(s) with a date of interment. Graves colored blue contain record(s) with a purchase date. Graves colored yellow contain record(s) with either a name of someone interred, or a name of a purchaser, but no dates inputted yet. Graves colored white mean there are no records yet tied to the grave.
To see your map the way a guest would see it, return to the dashboard and click on the View/Edit Your Data icon. Then choose the option for View Map. If you have multiple cemeteries, you will be asked to choose which map you want to view. Choose from the dropdown and then Submit.
Moving your mouse around the map you can hover over a grave to get details which appear as a small text box. You can also click the Show More Details button to see the grave identifiers show up in the map and get a bit larger view.
Clicking on a grave in the View Map page opens up a box that gives even more details about any person(s) associated with that grave. There can be more than one record associated with a single grave. From the popup box you can drill into the data record to view full contents and even edit the data record.
If you wanted to print the map (we do not recommend this) you could go here and you'll get a page of nothing but the map and you can send this to your printer.
The better option of map editing is the Advanced Map Editor, and we have a whole other tutorial on that feature. You could also use the Desktop Version to build your map by exporting your entire online account to the desktop version, editing the map, and then uploading just the map data back to your online account.
If all that fails, you could contact us to build your map on your behalf.