Managing data

A complete reference for working with data in Felt: supported formats, live connections, in-app editing, and how to build a reusable layer library your whole team can use.

Felt is built around layers—every dataset you bring onto a map becomes a layer you can style, filter, edit, and share. You can get data into Felt in a number of ways, from dragging in a file to connecting a live database, or even creating it from scratch in Felt. This guide covers every method for bringing data in, how to work with it once it's there, and how to build a shared data library your whole team can draw from.

1. Getting data into Felt

Felt's Upload Anything feature is robust enough to visualize practically any geospatial dataset you have on hand.

Option A: upload a file

Drag and drop files directly onto your map, or use the Upload Anything tool from the Felt toolbar. Felt files up to 5GB in their original format or compressed (.zip, .gz, or .tar).

Supported file types include:

• Vector: ESRI Shapefile (.shp), GeoJSON (.geojson), GeoPackage (.gpkg), GeoParquet (.parquet), Geodatabase (.gdb, zipped), KML/KMZ, GPX, ArcGIS Layer/Map Packages, and anything supported by GDAL or GPSBabel.

• Raster: GeoTIFF (.tif/.tiff), Raster GeoPackages, ASCII grids, PNGs/JPEGs with a World File.

• Spreadsheets: Excel (.xlsx/.xls), CSV/TSV/TXT, Numbers (.numbers) — Felt can plot these by coordinates, street address, or boundary codes (FIPS, ZIP, etc.).

• Other: Images and PDFs (.jpg, .png, .pdf, etc.), AutoCAD .dxf files with geographic coordinates.

Option B: add via URL

Felt can read data directly from public URLs, including Google MyMaps, public Google Sheets, XYZ raster tiles, Esri FeatureServer/MapServer/ImageServer, OGC Web Services (WMS, WMTS, WFS), and flat files hosted at a URL.

Option C: connect a database (Enterprise plans)

Enterprise customers can directly connect a database to access tables, views, and files as a live catalog in Felt. Supported databases include BigQuery, Databricks, Microsoft SQL Server, Postgres, Redshift, Snowflake, S3, Azure blob, GCS, Wherobots, ESRI Feature Service, WMS/WMTS, and WFS.

Go to Library → + New Source → select your database type → enter connection credentials → click Connect. Once connected, you'll see a catalog of your data and can add layers directly to dashboards.

Best practices:

• Create a dedicated read-only user for Felt access for cleaner IT auditing

• Maintain only 1 connection per database to avoid unnecessary query load

• Felt connects from specific IP addresses; add these to your allowlist if you restrict database access by IP

Option D: create a new layer (Enterprise plans)

You can create new vector data directly in Felt without any source file. Select the edit pencil in the toolbar and click + Create layer... to get started. This is useful for building a dataset from the ground up inside Felt without needing an external GIS tool first.

2. Inspecting data layers

When managing data, it's important to have tools to explore and inspect each dataset. Table view makes it easy to explore, validate, and edit data without leaving the map.

Every point, line, or polygon data layer in Felt has an associated table view that shows the underlying attribute data in a spreadsheet-like format. Open it by clicking the table icon in the toolbar, or from the ... menu on any layer in the Legend.

From table view you can:

• Inspect all features and their attribute values

• Review geomatching settings (addresses, matching regions, etc)

• Sort and filter columns

• View statistics for each attribute column

• Format or rename columns

• Search for data

• Filter the table to Visible features in the current map viewport

• Select rows to highlight the feature on the map

• Zoom to features on the map by double-clicking on a row

• Comment on features from the table

• Edit values directly in the table (Enterprise plans)

• Edit attribute schema (Enterprise plans)

3. Keeping data up-to-date

Data changes over time — new rows get added, columns get updated, records get removed. Refreshing data lets you bring in a new version of the dataset without losing any of the styling or settings already configured.

• Any file upload can be refreshed by clicking Upload New Version in the Data tab of the Layer menu

• Team customers with a URL layer upload can refresh the layer by clicking Refresh in the Data tab of the layer menu.

• Enterprise customers have access to "Live data," which means they can configure layers to automatically refresh on a set cadence, spanning once every 15 minutes to once a month. This applies to both URL uploads and uploads coming from a database source.

  • Live layers have a broadcast indicator in the legend

  • Live data is toggled on by default for layers coming from a cloud source connection

  • The Live cadence can be set when adding the source or edited in the Data tab of the layer menu

4. Editing data (Enterprise plans)

This feature is only available to customers on the Enterprise plan. To upgrade, contact sales.

Felt's data editing tools let Enterprise customers modify geometry and attributes directly in the map or table view, without needing to export to an external tool. This works for any vector layer, regardless of format or original source.

Key things to know

• You can edit both geometry and attributes within Felt

• Felt handles edits in real-time; edits to the data appear immediately for all map viewers when collaborating

• Felt's mobile Field App supports data edits

• When you edit a layer in Felt, you're editing the specific copy of that layer in your current map. Your edits don't affect the original data source or any other maps using that layer.

  • For this reason, "Live layers" cannot be edited in Felt. Toggle

• Editors and Contributors can edit data on maps

5. Centralizing data

For Enterprise customers, the Layer library is Felt's central repository for reusable, shared data layers. It gives teams a shared catalog of their own layers that anyone in the workspace can use across maps. This is accessible from the Library panel in the toolbar.

To get started, click on ... next to a layer and select Actions > Publish.

Here's how the library works in Felt:

• Felt stores the full layer configuration—styling, component settings, filters, and data source—not just the raw data.

• Because it's centrally stored, adding a Library layer to multiple maps doesn't re-upload or re-process the data each time, saving processing time and storage overhead.

• Live Library layers connected to database sources will reflect the latest data on the configured refresh cadence. You don't need to re-publish or update layers manually when the underlying data changes.

• Any workspace Editor can view and add Library layers to their maps.

For Team and Free plans

On the Team and Free plans, Felt offers a built-in library of layers, which includes 50+ curated public datasets: boundaries, demographics, land use, and more. This is available to all users without any upload required.

For Team plans, there are some features and best practices to streamline data management:

• Build template maps: Build a map with your commonly used layers already added, styled, and configured. Teammates can duplicate it as a starting point for new projects rather than rebuilding from scratch each time.

• Copy and paste layers: Copy a layer from one map (... menu on any layer) and paste it directly into another. The layer arrives with its styling intact, so this works well for one-off reuse without needing a central library.

• Copy and paste FSL: Felt Style Language (FSL) defines a layer's styling. You can copy the FSL from a styled layer and paste it onto another layer of the same geometry type, which is useful for applying a consistent look across datasets. Click on ... > Actions > Edit styles from the styled layer, and then copy and paste that FSL block into the styles for the new layer.