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Create a Project

Save your progress so you can come back later or share with your team.

Written by Holly Conrad Smith

In Giraffe, a project usually maps to one real-world site: a single parcel, development, or precinct you're working on. Giraffe saves your work in a project, so you can keep your boundary, layers, and calculations in one place, and come back to them anytime.

Create a project from Home

  1. Open Giraffe. You land on Home.

  2. Giraffe includes starter templates for common project types, like mixed use, multifamily, and industrial. Choose one to start from it, or click Blank project to start from scratch.

  3. Search for an address in the search bar. Once chosen, the map navigates there.

  4. Select Units for the project. Giraffe guesses based on your IP address or uses the units from the template you selected. You can override it here, and in Project Settings.

  5. Choose Pick a parcel, Drop a pin, or Draw a boundary. You can't continue until you've set one.

    The Pick a parcel button only shows when a workspace Admin has chosen parcel layers under New Project Layers in Workspace Settings.

    Pick a parcel:

    1. Click Pick a parcel.

    2. Click a parcel on the map to select it. Click more parcels to add them. Click a selected parcel again to remove it.

    3. If more than one parcel sits under your click, a list opens. Choose the parcel you want from the list.

    4. Click Use selected, or press Enter. Giraffe joins the parcels into one boundary and moves you to the next step. Press Esc or click Cancel to stop picking.

    If Giraffe shows "No parcel layers are on the map yet," none of the workspace's new project layers can be picked from. Ask your workspace Admin to check New Project Layers.

    Drop a pin:

    1. Click Drop a pin.

    2. Click anywhere on the map to set your project's location. Giraffe moves you to the next step automatically. Press Esc to cancel.

    Draw a boundary:

    1. Click Draw a boundary.

    2. Click on the map to place your first point, then click to place each additional point.

    3. Close the shape by clicking near your starting point, or press Space or Enter once you've placed at least 4 points. Giraffe moves you to the next step automatically. Press Esc to cancel.

    Learn how to establish a project boundary.

  6. Set your Project name. Giraffe suggests the address it found near your boundary. Click into the text box to change it.

  7. If you are a member of an enterprise workspace with workspace properties, fill out those fields here. You can edit them later from a Space, manage projects in Home, or from project settings.

  8. Click the Create Project button to finish and create your project.

Land in your new project

After you save, Giraffe opens your new project and flies the map to fit your boundary.

Your project's name appears in the top bar, as part of the breadcrumb trail next to Home.

Once you've created a project, all changes save automatically.

Other ways to start a project

You don't have to start from Home. You can also start a new project from:

  • The main menu: New > New Project.

  • The project switcher in the top bar: New Project.

  • Inside an open Space: click New Project on the Space's toolbar and draw your boundary directly on the map. A drawer opens on the side for you to save your project details, instead of the wizard above.

  • From the Data Table: select one or more rows, then use the bulk actions bar at the bottom left to create a project from your selection.

    See Bulk Actions in the Data Table for the full breakdown. That article is still GI4-specific and hasn't been checked against GI6 yet.

Each of these leads to the same steps described above.

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