Public Engagement (PlanPulse)
Public Engagement lets project teams collect structured feedback from citizens and stakeholders on planning proposals. Create a campaign, share a public link, and watch responses come in — then explore sentiment, geography, and demographics in the built-in dashboard.
The Engagement toolbar button only appears on projects that have at least one campaign. On a new project the button is hidden until you create your first campaign from the Share dialog.
How it works
The engagement workflow has four stages:
- Create a share link — generate a public link for your project in the Share dialog
- Create a campaign — attach an engagement campaign to that link and configure it
- Citizens respond — members of the public open the link and submit feedback
- Review results — the Engagement dashboard shows responses, sentiment, and geographic patterns in real time
Creating a campaign
Campaigns are created from the Share dialog, which is the natural entry point because every campaign needs a public share link to work.
- Open the Share dialog from the viewer toolbar.
- If you do not already have a public link, click Create Link to generate one.
- Click Create Engagement Campaign (next to the Create Link button).
- Enter a title and description for your campaign. Citizens will see both.
- Set an open date and an optional close date. The campaign moves to open status automatically at the open date.
- Click Create to save the campaign as a draft.
Once saved, the campaign is in draft status and not yet visible to the public. Finish configuring it before setting it to open.
Configuring a campaign
Open the campaign settings by clicking the edit icon next to the campaign name in the Share dialog or Engagement dashboard.
Status and scheduling
| Status | What it means |
|---|---|
| Draft | Not yet visible to the public. Safe to configure and test. |
| Open | Accepting responses. Citizens can access the feedback form. |
| Closed | No new responses accepted. Results remain visible to the team. |
| Archived | Hidden from default views. Data is preserved. |
Set open and close dates to let the platform manage status transitions automatically. Without a close date the campaign stays open until you close it manually.
Feedback categories
Feedback categories allow citizens to tag their response with the topic it relates to. The default set is:
- Visual impact
- Traffic
- Environment
- Noise
- Accessibility
- Property value
- Community
- Safety
- Other
You can remove any of these or add your own. Citizens may select more than one category per submission.
Scenario voting
If your project has multiple scenarios, you can ask citizens to vote for their preferred option.
- Enable Voting on scenarios in campaign settings.
- Select which scenarios to include in the vote.
- Optionally enable Show voting results to public so citizens can see the running totals after submitting.
Scenario vote counts appear in the Engagement dashboard.
Demographic questions
Collect optional background information to understand who is responding. Available fields are:
- Age range
- Housing type
- Household size
- Connection to area (e.g. resident, worker, visitor)
All demographic questions are optional for the respondent by default. Enable the fields you want to collect in campaign settings.
Guided camera tours
A guided tour walks citizens through key views of the 3D map before they submit feedback. Add waypoints in campaign settings — each waypoint has a camera position and an optional label. When citizens open the public link, they can follow the tour to understand the proposal before responding.
Respondent requirements
- Require email — toggle on if you want to collect an email address from each respondent. When enabled, citizens must enter a valid email to submit.
- CAPTCHA — enabled in production environments to prevent automated submissions.
- Rate limiting prevents more than 5 submissions per hour from the same IP address or session.
Custom branding
Match the engagement form to your organisation's visual identity:
- Upload a logo to appear at the top of the feedback form
- Set primary and accent colors
- Add custom header text
Multi-language support
Add translations for your campaign title, description, and category labels. Citizens see the form in their browser's preferred language if a translation is available, with English as the fallback.
How citizens submit feedback
When a citizen opens the public share link, they see the 3D map alongside a feedback panel. They can:
- Explore the map — navigate freely or follow a guided tour if one is configured
- Choose a sentiment — select one of five options on a scale from Strongly support to Strongly opposed
- Select categories — tag the feedback with relevant topics (e.g. Traffic, Noise)
- Write a comment — free-text field for any detail they want to add
- Place a pin — optionally click the map to anchor their feedback to a specific location
- Vote on a scenario — if voting is enabled, pick their preferred option
- Answer demographic questions — optional fields if you have enabled them
- Submit — click Submit to record the response
Sentiment scale
| Option | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Strongly support | The respondent strongly approves of the proposal |
| Support | The respondent broadly approves |
| Neutral | No strong opinion either way |
| Concerned | The respondent has reservations |
| Strongly opposed | The respondent strongly disapproves |
Viewing results in the dashboard
Once your campaign has responses, click the Engagement button in the viewer toolbar (chart icon) to open the dashboard.
If the project has more than one campaign, use the campaign selector dropdown at the top of the panel to switch between them.
Dashboard widgets
| Widget | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Total responses | Count of all submissions received |
| Sentiment breakdown | Distribution across the five sentiment options |
| Category breakdown | How many responses were tagged with each category |
| Scenario votes | Vote counts per scenario (only shown if voting is enabled) |
| Responses over time | Bar chart of submission count by day |
| Sentiment timeline | How sentiment has shifted over time (hourly, daily, or weekly view) |
| Demographic breakdown | Age range, housing type, household size, and connection to area |
| Sentiment heatmap | Geographic overlay on the 3D map coloring each response pin by sentiment |
Sentiment heatmap
The sentiment heatmap overlays response pins directly on the map. Each pin is colored by sentiment — from green (support) through yellow (neutral) to red (opposed). This makes it easy to spot geographic patterns, such as opposition concentrated near a particular site or street.
The heatmap is toggled on and off from the dashboard header.
Action items
Action items let you link citizen feedback to concrete plan changes. In the dashboard, click + Add Action to create an action item:
- Give it a title describing the change (e.g. "Reduce building height on north elevation")
- Link it to one or more feedback categories (e.g. Visual impact, Noise)
- Optionally reference a before scenario and an after scenario to show what changed
Action items give you an audit trail connecting public feedback to planning decisions.
Exporting data
Two export options are available from the dashboard header:
| Export | Format | Contents |
|---|---|---|
| Raw data | CSV | One row per submission — sentiment, categories, free-text comment, location coordinates, demographics, timestamp |
| Comparison report | Summary of sentiment, categories, scenario votes, and action items side-by-side |
Privacy and data handling
- All submissions are stored within your organisation's data environment
- Editors and above can view individual responses including email addresses (if collected)
- Anonymize an individual response by clicking the shield icon next to it in the response list. This strips the name, email, and precise location while preserving the sentiment and category data for aggregate analysis
- Deleted campaigns permanently remove all associated response data
- Avoid collecting more personal data than your engagement process requires — only enable demographic fields and email collection if there is a clear purpose
Before launching a campaign that collects personal data (email, demographics), ensure your engagement process complies with your organisation's data protection policy and applicable regulations such as GDPR.
Tips
- Set a close date when you launch so the campaign closes automatically — it avoids responses arriving after the consultation period has ended.
- Use guided tours to direct citizens to the parts of the proposal that matter most. A well-placed waypoint can significantly improve the quality of feedback.
- Check the sentiment heatmap early. If opposition is concentrated in one area, you may be able to address a specific concern rather than a general one.
- If you are running multiple options, enable scenario voting to get a clear preference signal alongside the qualitative comments.
- Export the raw CSV data for further analysis in your GIS or spreadsheet tools — it includes coordinates for every geo-anchored pin.