Share a task with a public link
Give a contractor, a municipality or a neighbouring club access to a single task — map, photos and GPS file — without creating an account for them.
Sometimes a task has to leave the network. The excavator operator coming to fix the culvert is not a member. Neither is the municipality that has to approve the work. Nor the neighbouring club that manages the next section.
The public link answers exactly that need: a web address showing one single task — its position, its track, its annotations, its photos — to anyone who opens it, with no account and nothing to install. The rest of your network stays invisible.
The link can be switched off at any time.
Where: on a task's detail view — the Share button in the toolbar on the Web, the Share button in the action bar on mobile.
Create the link
Open a task, then Share.
On the Web, a dialog opens with a Public link toggle. Switch it on: the address appears right below, with a Copy button.
The share dialog, public link switched on.
- 1The Public link toggle: everything starts here.
- 2The Copy button; to its left, the address truncated on screen.
- 3The photo checkbox, with their count in brackets.
The box at the bottom spells out, before you switch anything on, what the public page will show and what it will never show.
On mobile, a sheet slides up offering two things that should not be confused. Share with members sends a link that only opens the task for network members. Create a public link is the one we are after here: it then opens your phone's share sheet, and you send the link by message, by email, or copy it.
The share sheet on a task that is still private.
- 1Create a public link — the row that makes the task visible to everyone.
Once the task is public, the sheet changes: a banner shows the address at the top — tap it to share it again — and the only other option is Disable public link. You will never see "create" and "disable" side by side.
The same sheet, once the task is shared.
- 1The status banner: tap it to share the address again.
- 2Disabling replaces creating, in red.
Once the task is shared, the Share button carries a globe badge. That is your visual cue: one glance at the task tells you it is public.
What the recipient sees
A plain page, in your colours, that works on a phone as well as on a computer:
- the task name, its type and its status;
- a map with the point or the track, the trail concerned and your annotations, switchable to satellite view and expandable to full screen;
- the GPS coordinates with a button to copy them, for a point task;
- the description;
- the photos, viewable one at a time;
- three downloadable files: GPX, KML and GeoJSON.
What does not appear: your members, the assignment, the materials, the logged time, the discussions. Nor the project, the folder, or your other tasks. The page shows the task and nothing around it — and the share dialog reminds you of both lists before you switch anything on.
The page is not indexed by search engines. It is reachable by whoever holds the link — treat the link as a key.
The GPS files
The three formats exist because field tools do not read the same files.
| Format | For whom |
|---|---|
| GPX | The most universal one. Garmin units, Polaris Ride Command screens, onX. Your default choice. |
| KML | Google Earth, and anything that needs areas rather than plain tracks. |
| GeoJSON | Mapping software such as QGIS. |
The contractor downloads the GPX, loads it into their unit and drives to the exact point. No account, no app, and no phone call to have the route described to them.
Open the task in Sentinel
At the bottom of the public page, an Open in Sentinel button is there for network members who receive the link like everybody else.
It takes you to the right place for your device, with nothing to choose:
- on a phone with the app installed, the task opens in the app;
- on a computer, it opens in Sentinel on the web;
- on a phone without the app, it opens on the web too.
If you are not signed in, Sentinel asks you to sign in and then takes you straight to the task.
The button grants no extra access: it opens the task with your usual permissions. If the link points to a network you are not a member of, the app tells you so clearly instead of leaving you on an unchanged screen.
Photos, your call
The share dialog offers an Include photos checkbox. It is ticked by default, and the counter tells you how many photos would go out.
Untick it when the photos show something that should not leave: a licence plate, a private building, a person. The page stays complete for everything else — map, position, description, GPS files.
Close the link
The work is done and the contractor has left: reopen Share and use Disable public link (on the Web, switch the Public link toggle back off).
The address stops working immediately. Anyone reopening it sees a message saying the link is no longer available — not the task, and no trace of its content.
Switching it back on later reuses the same address. That is handy when you reopen a file with the same party. It matters if you closed the link because it had travelled too far: switching it back on puts it back in service for everyone who still had it.
What can go wrong
The recipient sees no photos. Check the Include photos box in the share dialog — it may have been unticked.