Items, versions, layers, tables, hosted and published layers, editable layers, linked items, hard copies, snapshots and rooms — what each is, and one table saying what each can do.
Everything you keep on Haiyz is a data item: a named container you own, with a version history inside it. The item is not the file. The files are its versions, and the shape of the newest clean version decides what the item can do: draw on a map, become a Hyz Layer, be published as a service, be edited by other people.
This page names every shape once, says where each comes from, and ends with one table you can read across: can this draw, can it be hosted, can it be published, can it be edited. The pages after it follow the same order: the life of a data item walks the states, and editable or not answers the one question people ask most.
A version is one data file, stored exactly as uploaded, and it has a format and a scan status. The file name names the format and the content must match it: a renamed file, code, or an ordinary document is refused, with the reason. Documents that belong with the data — a data dictionary, a licence, a report — go in the item's attachments instead (below).
| Shape | Files | What Haiyz can do with it |
|---|---|---|
| Layer | Shapefile (zipped), GeoJSON, GeoPackage, KML, KMZ, a CSV with coordinate columns | Draws on a map, opens in the Workspace, becomes a Hyz Layer, can be published and edited |
| Table | A CSV without coordinate columns | Reads as a Table from the moment it is uploaded; queryable and chartable in dashboards and the Workspace; never a Hyz Layer |
| Raster | GeoTIFF | Stored, downloadable, usable in the Workspace; not hosted, not published, not editable |
An item can carry up to 20 attachments: PDF, Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OpenDocument files, images, text and Markdown, or a zip with no programs inside — 25 MB each. They are scanned before they are kept, count against your storage, and travel with the item: anyone who may view it can download them, and a share link or a data room hands them over with the data. They are never versions — no map, layer or service reads them — and they are deleted with the item.
Items also take up to ten tags, free words that help you and your team find them, and an item with several layers can give each layer a name in both languages and an order.
A CSV is a Layer only when Haiyz finds both coordinate columns by name: X from
x, lon, lng, long, longitude, easting or خط الطول; Y from y, lat, latitude,
northing or خط العرض. Rows whose coordinates fall outside the world are kept as rows without
a point. A zipped archive with no spatial file inside is stored but marked as carrying no
geometry, so no map picker offers it.
A multi-layer archive (a GeoPackage or a File Geodatabase with roads, parcels and points inside) is one version. When it is hosted, Haiyz asks whether to take one layer or all of them, and each becomes a Hyz Layer of its own under the same item.
The ordinary case: you uploaded a file, or saved a Workspace result, or duplicated another item. Every new upload adds a version; nothing is overwritten. The item's shape follows its newest clean version.
When hosting is on for your instance, every clean version that carries geometry is copied into the platform's spatial database as a Hyz Layer, in a schema that belongs to you or your organization. The Hyz Layer is what maps query, what services publish and what people edit. The uploaded file stays untouched beside it. A Hyz Layer has a state (queued, importing, ready, failed, or needs a mapping when the coordinate system or the layer inside an archive could not be decided), a geometry type, a field list and a feature count.
A ready Hyz Layer can be published as a service: vector tiles, features and, on request, OGC endpoints, each under a stable reference and a revision that moves when the data moves. Publishing changes who can read the layer without a Haiyz account and how maps use it (by reference rather than by copy). It does not change the layer itself. See published layers.
A ready Hyz Layer whose owner switched editing on. From that moment the hosted rows are the live copy: people with permission change them in the browser, in Hyz Desktop and from Hyz Field, every change is logged, and the layer can be frozen into snapshots. The item wears an Editable chip on every list. See editable layers.
A window onto a layer that lives in someone else's portal (desktop GIS, WFS, a GeoJSON endpoint). Nothing is uploaded by you: sync pulls the layer and stores the result as a version, by hand or on a schedule, so downstream the item behaves like a file item and is marked Live. It is owned by whoever owns the portal connection. See linked and live sources.
Freeze turns the newest clean version of a linked item into a new, ordinary file item with no connection and no refresh. The copy remembers what it was frozen from and when, and is then simply a file item.
A snapshot is a version of a special kind: not a file you uploaded, but the rows of an editable layer at one moment, exported and stored by the platform. It shows a Snapshot pill in the version history, downloads and shares like any version, and can be restored to put the layer back. Snapshots are never re-hosted as layers of their own, because they are records of the layer, not new data.
A named bundle of specific versions from several items, handed over as one thing, with its own access log. A room holds references: removing an item from a room deletes nothing. See data rooms.
The public catalog of open geospatial sources. Nothing in it is yours, and no account is needed to read it. A source becomes yours the moment you bring it into a Workspace or save it as an item. See the Open Data catalog.
Three products keep their own copies of your data, and only one of them writes back to the item:
| Copy | Where | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Workspace layer | Hyz Workspace | The bytes of a version materialised into a project, or a reference to a published layer re-read when the project opens. Tools make new layers; a result is saved as a new item or a new version, never written into the source |
| Map layer | Hyz Maps | Live when added from a data item — the map reads the item's Hyz Layer, nothing is copied — or a copy sealed at one version (file uploads, tool results, service revisions, maps from before the live rule); Switch to live and Save a copy move a layer between the two on purpose; sketches and Add sketch to layer change a copy only |
| Project layer | Hyz Desktop | A local file, a data item copy, a service layer, a read-only PMTiles archive, or a checked-out editable layer that syncs back |
Only the checked-out Hyz Layer in Hyz Desktop sends changes back to the platform. Every other copy is yours to change without touching the item. A live map layer and a dashboard widget are not copies at all: they read the Hyz Layer, and Save as version on the item writes that layer — edits and approved field records included — back to a file version for backup and hand-over.
| Chip | Where | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Layer | item lists and cards | The newest clean version carries geometry Haiyz could read |
| Table | item lists and cards | Rows without geometry: queryable, not drawable |
| Live | item lists and cards | A linked item; its provider and last sync state show in place of a kind chip |
| Editable | item lists and cards | At least one of the item's Hyz Layers has editing switched on |
| Snapshot | the version history | This version was cut from an editable layer, not uploaded |
| Published, revision | the item's Hyz Layer panel | The layer is served; the revision is what maps pin to |
| Kind | Draws on a map | Hyz Layer | Published service | Edited by people | Counts against |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| File item, Layer shape | yes | automatic when hosting is on | yes, when the Hyz Layer is ready | yes, when editing is switched on | items, storage |
| File item, Table shape | no | no | no | no; upload a new version | items, storage |
| File item, Raster | in the Workspace | no | no | no | items, storage |
| File item, Other | no | no | no | no | items, storage |
| Linked item | yes, from its stored version | yes, from each synced version | yes | avoid: the next sync replaces the edited layer | items, storage per sync |
| Hard copy | yes | yes | yes | yes | items, storage |
| Snapshot version | downloadable | never | no | no; restore it instead | storage |
| Data room | no, it bundles items | no | no | no | rooms |
| Open Data source | yes, once brought in | once saved as an item | once saved as an item | once saved as an item | nothing until saved |
| Workspace, map or desktop copy | yes | no | no | yes, in that product only | workspaces, maps |
Every "yes" in the edited column still needs permission on the item and a feature that is not locked. Editable or not spells that out.