Hi Everyone! My name is Darlene and I'm a surveyor's assistant at a small LA surveying firm. I'm doing some research on GIS programs but there's a lot of confusing information out there. I would like to hear straight from other surveyors to see what's working for you. Is anyone using a GIS system internally in your firm for projecting tracking and/or for projecting location? If so, what software/programs are you using and why does it work for you? Thank you for your time and suggestions!
My opinion, the best option is going to be one that you implement and will carry forward. Much will depend on the requirements for the work your company does. Some trial and error might be needed to figure out what works best for your office.
I've used Global Mapper in the past to track completed project locations. There is is much more of the information (i.e. billing, time, etc.) aspect of GIS that can been incorporated with planning those fields in advance. It can provide for some very nice querying capabilities, but my main goal was simply locating surveys. This worked well, requires advance planning to keep things neat, it does take time to keep on top of it. This options does afford the opportunity to incorporate all kinds of online available data such as imagery, DEMs, road files, etc...
QGIS is an open source GIS that would provide essentially the same features, but might require more of a learning curve if you haven't used GIS software much. It does have some really good community support.
As of late, I moved to just place marking in a "jobs" map in Google My Maps. I can search using Google's addressing and find a pin I place with the job number. Finding the files is just a simple go to the directory for that job number and there it is. You can include a link with the pin location which would take you right to the directory. This is very simple and quick to do and the data is available anywhere and device that you can log in. I've found that I am more likely to spend the time doing this type of update than to add more into the actual GIS software. If you want a very easy way of just keeping track of where you have done a job, this works well. You do sacrifice the ability to query and the abundance of additional data in the same location.
I don't know a great deal about GIS and its programs but I have been told that QGIS is very good. And being free, I can't see going any other way, at least not at the start.
Landon Blake at Redefined Horizons is a surveyor who is an evangelist for GIS in surveying. Check out his youtube channels.