Editing layers

Felt allows you to add data to layers, edit attributes in the table, and adjust the locations and geometries of existing data.

Data editing in Felt lets you modify features and add new features to existing layers in your maps. You can change feature attributes (like names, population values, or any other properties), adjust geometries by moving or reshaping features, and create entirely new features with custom attributes—all while seeing your changes reflected instantly in your map styling, labels, and statistics.

This page walks through the available data editing workflows in Felt. These workflows are available to members with Edit permission on a map (Professional and Enterprise plans), when viewing a map in edit mode.

Creating new layers

Felt allows you to create new spatial data layers from scratch and edit them from the Field App or on desktop. This is useful when you need to build and maintain a structured dataset, manage assets on the ground, collect records that will persist long-term, and to run reporting from field observations. You need Edit access to create new features or edit data layers on the map. All online edits are immediately reflected for other viewers and collaborators looking at the map.

There are multiple ways to add a new feature to a layer:

• Use the pencil icon in the toolbar (steps using the toolbar are outlined below)

• Click on the Felt menu (top-left) > File > select Create layer

• Use the Cmd+K shortcut menu and search for Create layer

Steps

1. Click on pencil dropdown menu in the toolbar and select + Create layer

   
2. Enter a name for the new layer and select feature types you want to create (point, line, or polygon)

   
3. Add attributes to the layer (+ Add attribute). (For adding dropdown values, see Surveys below.)

1. Click Update layer and start drawing your first feature by clicking on the map to place points / vertices

2. Once the feature is drawn, fill out the attributes in the attributes panel on the right side and click Done

   

Your new layer will appear in the legend, and features can be edited on mobile or desktop, viewed in table view, or styled like any other vector layer in Felt.

Surveys

Text and Number attribute types can support dropdowns of pre-set values. When creating the attribute for the new layer, under Basics, set Form type to Single select and then add in all possible values you want to be available from a dropdown menu. You can sort the values that appear in the dropdown manually or alphabetically.

The values will appear as a dropdown when anyone creates a new feature. Blanks or dropdown fields that have not been filled in yet are noted with a — value.

Required fields

For any attribute or column you create, you can make it required in the survey under Basics.

This requires that the field must be filled out when adding a new feature to the layer. Required fields have an asterisk (*) next to their name.

Show if conditions

You can set an attribute to only appear in the survey when another field's value meets a condition. This lets you build forms that adapt to earlier answers—for example, only asking for a damage severity rating if a "Damage observed" field is set to true, or only showing "Other (please specify)" when a dropdown value is set to "Other."

To add a condition:

1. Open the attribute settings for the field you want to show conditionally (from the + Add attribute panel while creating a layer, or Edit attributes on an existing layer).

2. In the Survey section, next to Show if, click Add condition.

3. Choose the attribute to check, a comparison, and a value. You can add multiple conditions and combine them with and/or.

Fields with a condition are marked with an icon in the attribute list. A condition can reference another conditional field—if the field it depends on ends up hidden, the dependent field stays hidden too. If a feature already has a value in a field whose condition later stops being met, that value is cleared the next time the feature is saved.

Show if conditions only affect the survey (the feature form used when adding or editing a feature on the map or in the Field App); they don't hide the field from table view or exports, where all attribute values remain visible.

Additional field settings

Editing a layer's attributes also gives you a few other per-field settings, alongside Survey and Required:

• Hidden (Survey section) — removes the field from the feature editor, without deleting its data. Useful for fields that get their value some other way (like imported data) and shouldn't be part of manual data entry.

• Hidden (Table section) — removes the field from table view, without deleting its data. Useful for fields you want people to fill in without cluttering the table.

• Allow (Person fields only) — choose whether a Person field can be assigned to All workspace users or only specific Selected users.

These settings are available both when creating a new layer and when editing an existing one's attributes (see Editing attribute columns).

Supported attribute types

Felt allows you to create point, line, and polygon layers with the following attribute types:

Attribute Type	Examples, or supported types
Text	Area 1; Reviewing proposal; Testing!
Number	10; 0.54
Boolean	true; false
Date	2027-01-01 16:30
Image	.jpg; .png; .pdf
Person	Nora Smith

• You can add multiple images to individual features. Image attributes can be used in the Image option for standard popups.

• Person is a data type for assigning teammates in the Felt workspace to specific assets or features

Metadata fields

Felt supports a set of metadata fields that are captured and populated automatically based on information about the layer. You can add them like other attributes in the Edit attributes modal, and they will only appear in the table view and in exports (not popups or the attributes panel). Because metadata fields are captured automatically, they are read-only and cannot be edited directly.

The metadata fields supported include:

Metadata field	Data type	Examples
Created at	Date time	2026-01-01 00:00
Created by	Felt username	Nora Smith
Modified at	Date time	2026-01-01 00:00
Modified by	Felt username	Nora Smith
Length (m)	Number	3,286.50 m
Perimeter (m)	Number	3,148.46 m
Area (m2)	Number	606,845.84 m²

• Length is captured for lines only.

• Area and perimeter are captured for areas only.

Adding new features

Example

Create a new store location point with a monthly revenue of $8,000 that automatically inherits your layer's styling.

There are multiple ways to add a new feature to a layer:

• Use the pencil icon in the toolbar (steps using the toolbar are outlined below)

• Look for the + or pencil icon in table view

• Click the + (Add feature) from the style editor

• Use Measure's Add as button to convert a measurement into a new feature on a compatible line or polygon layer

Steps

1. Click on dropdown next to the draw icon in the toolbar

   
2. Select the layer you want to add features to

3. Draw on the map - Click on the map to create your new feature

4. Add attributes - fill in any attribute values in the attributes panel on the right

   
5. Click Done - Your new feature is added to the layer and styled automatically

Felt saves the last layer you edited in the toolbar—you will see the pencil icon has the layer's color on it . You can continue adding features to the existing layer by selecting the pencil icon directly.

Bulk add mode

When you're adding a lot of features to the same layer, bulk add mode keeps the draw tool armed so you don't have to restart the flow after every feature. Finish one feature and the next click on the map begins another of the same type, running the same required-field checks as saving.

There are two ways to turn it on:

• Click Add in bulk in the feature editor header while editing any feature in an editable layer (new or existing)

• Press ⌥A (Option+A). While you're editing, ⌥A toggles between bulk and single add and keeps your current feature; with nothing selected, it starts a bulk run on the layer currently set as the toolbar's add target. You can also start it from the Cmd+K menu with Bulk add to map.

Once bulk add mode is on:

• Points — each click on the map drops a new point and selects it so you can fill in its attributes.

• Lines and polygons — draw and finish a shape, and the next click starts the next one.

You can control how attribute values carry over between features from the small settings menu in bulk add mode. Choose whether each new feature copies the values you've entered in the attribute fields—useful when many features share the same attributes—or resets the fields with each new feature so you start fresh each time.

To leave bulk add mode, click X or Finish in the editor header, press Esc (when you're not mid-draw—mid-draw, Esc just finishes the current shape), or select something else, such as a layer in the legend.

Snap to vertices

When you create or edit features, Felt snaps your cursor to vertices of nearby visible features so your geometry lines up exactly with existing data. Annotations also snap to feature vertices in the same way.

Snapping is a user setting that's enabled by default. To turn it on or off, from a map select Felt > View > Snap to vertices, or open the Cmd+K menu and select Enable snap to vertices or Disable snap to vertices.

Undo changes

Press Command-Z (Mac) or Control-Z (Windows) to undo recent edits while working in the map.

Editing geometries

Example

Resize a boundary or move a building location to reflect updated information.

There are multiple ways to edit a feature:

• Double-click on a feature

• Click on the pencil icon in the popup interaction

Steps

1. Select a feature - Double-click any feature on the map to enter edit mode

2. Modify the geometry - Use the same controls as annotation editing:

   1. Drag vertices to move them

   2. Right-click to add new vertices

   3. Right-click to delete vertices

   4. Drag the entire feature to reposition it

3. Click Done - Your geometry changes are saved

You can also enter edit mode by clicking a feature once and then clicking the pencil icon.

For existing line features, you can also extend the existing lines to continue drawing a segment. Clicking on an endpoint vertex gives you the option to extend the line segment.

Undo changes

Press Command-Z (Mac) or Control-Z (Windows) to undo recent edits while working in the map.

Editing attribute values

Changes to attributes update your map styling, labels, and statistics dynamically as you make them.

Example

Update a census tract's population from 8,000 to 11,000 and watch the color change immediately based on your symbology.

There are multiple ways to edit a feature:

• Double-click on a feature

• Click on the pencil icon in the popup interaction

• Double-click on a cell in the layer's table

Steps from the map

1. Double-click any feature on the map

2. In the attributes panel, click into any attribute field

3. Update the value

4. Click Done

Steps from the table

1. Open the layer's data table

2. Double-click any cell in the table

3. Update the value

4. Press Enter or click outside the cell

Collaborative editing

When multiple editors are editing the map at once you will see their presence at the top of the map, where their cursor is on the map, and in the attribute table for the layer. When a feature is being edited, that row will be highlighted in the table, and the relevant editor's name will be displayed

Editing attribute columns

Update existing Felt layers by adding and removing columns from the layer. You can also rename the header titles for the attribute headers. Edits made to the columns affect the columns available everywhere else in Felt: table view, popups, the style editor, etc.

Examples

• Adding new columns to an existing dataset to collect new data for an existing layer

• Removing unwanted columns from the Felt table

• Renaming a column to make it easier to understand the data for viewers

There are multiple ways to edit the columns available in a layer:

• Click on the layer's ··· menu and select Edit attributes

• In the Data tab of the detail panel, select Edit attributes

• Click on a column header and select Edit attribute

• Click on ··· from the table view and select Edit attributes

Steps

1. Click on the layer's ··· menu and select Edit attributes

2. You will see a panel that allows you to edit or delete any existing columns.

3. And you can also add new columns in this panel (see + Add attribute bottom-left)

Deleting features

Example

Cleaning up or updating a dataset to remove outdated or erroneous features.

There are multiple ways to edit a feature:

• Click on a feature and hit the Delete key

• Click on Delete from the overflow menu ··· in the popup interaction

• Right-click on a row in table view and select Delete

Steps from the map

1. Click any feature on the map

2. In the popup panel, click the ··· menu

3. Select Delete from the menu

Steps from the table

1. Open the layer's data table

2. Right-click any cell for the feature you want to delete

3. Select Delete from the menu

Undo changes

Press Command-Z (Mac) or Control-Z (Windows) to undo recent edits while working in the map.

Mobile editing

With the Field App, Felt's native mobile app, data editing is available on mobile devices with the same capabilities as desktop. Use tap gestures to add and edit features and feature attributes through the attributes panel. To get started with the Field App see Getting started and download the Felt app on your Android or iOS device.

Technical details

How edits are stored

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.

Collaborative editing

Multiple collaborators can edit the same map simultaneously. Each person's edits are saved to the layer in real-time. You won't see each other's undo/redo history—only the final saved changes.

When multiple editors are editing the map at once you will see their presence at the top of the map, where their cursor is on the map, and in the attribute table for the layer. When a feature is being edited, that row will be highlighted in the table, and the relevant editor's name will be displayed

Layer copying behavior

When you copy a layer, you copy all edits that have been made to it up to that point. However, the copied layer becomes independent—any further edits to either the original or the copy won't affect the other.

Complex geometries

You can edit features with complex geometries (like multi-polygons or polygons with holes), moving or adjusting the existing parts. However, you currently cannot create new complex geometries from scratch.

API and SDK

The REST API and JavaScript SDK currently don't support data editing. The JavaScript SDK is view-only and doesn't reflect editing capabilities. API references to "elements" refer to annotations, not data layers.

Tips and best practices

Add features quickly with the toolbar

Felt saves the last layer you edited in the toolbar—you will see the pencil icon has the layer's color on it . You can continue adding features to the existing layer by selecting the pencil icon directly.

Control who can edit

Pay attention to who has Edit access to your maps. Anyone who can edit the map can modify the underlying data.

Use layer copying as checkpoints

Since there's no edit history beyond the in-app undo stack, create copies of your layer at important milestones. This gives you a way to checkpoint your work:

• Make edits to your layer

• When you reach a stable state, copy the layer

• Continue editing the original

• If you need to revert, delete the edited version and work from your copy

Create playground versions

If you want to experiment with data without affecting your main map, copy the layer first and work on the copy. You can always delete experimental versions or keep them if the changes work out.

Consider your workflow

Think about layer copying as version control for your map data. Build up changes incrementally and create copies when you want to preserve a particular state.

Frequently asked questions

Who can edit data layers in Felt?

Members with Edit permission on a map can edit layers. Layer editing is available on Professional and Enterprise plans.

When should I use Layers instead of Annotations (formerly called "elements") for editing data on the map?

For most workflows, editing data layers in Felt is the better choice. Annotations work well for quick markup and very small datasets. Here's when to use each:

Layer editing is best for:

• Asset tracking and managing datasets with more than 100 features

• Using table view to see and edit all your data at once

• Advanced styling options (categorical symbology, graduated colors, zoom-based visibility, label control, etc.)

• Better map performance through tiling (especially important for large datasets)

• The ability to export and reuse your data across multiple maps

• Mobile data collection (see Field App)

• Professional and Enterprise workflows in Felt

Annotations are best for:

• Quick visual markup for presentations or comments

• Simple styling for a handful of features

• Lightweight additions that don't need structured data management

• Personal plans in Felt (uploads aren't available on Personal, but annotations are)

You can convert annotations to a data layer to get started with editable layers. Right-click your group of annotations and select Actions → Convert to layer to unlock full layer functionality.

Does Felt support survey responses?

Yes, Felt supports dropdown menus with predetermined values for editable data! See Surveys to learn more about setting up dropdowns for new layers.

Can I undo changes after I've saved them?

You can use the undo stack (Command-Z or Control-Z, or tapping the undo buttons on the mobile Field App) for recent changes, but once you've closed the map or cleared your browser, those changes are permanent. Create layer copies as checkpoints if you need the ability to revert to previous states.

Do my edits affect other maps using this data?

No. When you edit a layer, you're editing only the copy in your current map. Other maps using the same original data source remain unchanged.

If I edit a layer, do those changes appear in other maps?

No. Edits are specific to the layer instance in your current map and don't propagate to other maps using the same data source. Each map has its own independent version of the layer.

Can multiple people edit at the same time?

Yes. All collaborators with Edit access can modify the map simultaneously, and changes save in real-time. However, you won't see each other's undo history—only the final saved changes.

Why don't my statistics/symbology update immediately when I make large changes?

Most changes reflect instantly, but in some cases (like when you exceed the current range of a numeric style), updates may take time to process. Symbology and statistics are recalculated nightly for all layers.

Can I edit data I've imported from cloud sources or live layers?

Yes. Once data is in Felt, you can edit it regardless of the original source. However, edits only apply to the Felt version—they don't sync back to your original files or databases.

Is there a permanent edit history?

Not right now. You can use the undo stack (Command-Z or Control-Z) for recent changes, but once you've closed the map or cleared your browser, those changes are permanent. Create layer copies as checkpoints if you need the ability to revert to previous states.

Can I create empty layers from scratch?

Yes, see Creating new layers.

Can I show or hide survey fields based on other answers?

Yes. Use show if conditions to have a field only appear in the survey when another field's value meets a condition you set. See Show if conditions.

What can you delete with this feature?

You can delete features / rows from the map view or table view (see Deleting features). At this time, you cannot delete columns within layers.

To control what viewers see in popups, check out our popup styling page.

How do I edit a feature when popups are disabled?

You can edit the feature from table view, or by right-clicking on the feature, hovering over the Select option in the menu, and selecting the feature from the menu.

Is there a max size limit for uploading images to comments or features?

The max size an image can be is 20MB.