REDOG is a Swiss voluntary organisation that trains and deploys rescue teams consisting of people and dogs to locate missing or buried individuals. It is made up of volunteers who are often called upon at very short notice and then set out on the search.

The searchers are organised by an operations manager. This person assigns search areas to the searchers and their dogs, thereby coordinating the operations. The searchers have a tracker or a smartphone with which their search routes are recorded and ultimately visualised at the operations centre. The technology used must be easy to operate and robust.

REDOG has opted for the GI-ANT solution from GEOTEST. This solution is based on QField and is therefore technically processed and organised via QGIS. A cloud solution in the background enables the real-time synchronisation of the collected data (search areas and routes). QGIS would also be the tool for visualisation. However, as it is too much of an expert system, it is deliberately not used. Thanks to web solutions such as Lizmap or the QField Desktop App, it is nevertheless possible to use QGIS as the main organisational tool for project administration – in the background, visible and usable only by experts.

Thanks to the now very extensive QGIS ecosystem, expert solutions can nevertheless be very simple for users and reduced to the essentials. This means that searchers can be equipped with the necessary technology, which also functions under adverse conditions. At the same time, thanks to real-time synchronisation, the operations command centre has an overview of the areas already searched at all times. As REDOG, being a voluntary organisation, has very limited financial resources, open-source tools are very helpful in keeping costs low and, in particular, largely avoiding licence fees.

The presentation introduces the project and explains how the components mentioned are coordinated. It also discusses the challenges involved in implementing and maintaining such a project.

For many years, our organisation Geotest AG relied on FeldApp, a custom-built field data collection tool that emerged as a modern digital solution when mobile GIS options were limited. Over time, however, maintaining and extending this homegrown application became increasingly demanding. With frequent updates, limited staff, and growing amounts of data and expectations, our in‑house capabilities reached their limits.
We decided to rethink our strategy and evaluated modern solutions with a clear focus: sustainability, interoperability, and full control over our data. Open source emerged as the strongest foundation. Among several candidates, QField stood out thanks to its seamless integration with QGIS, its customizability and an active community including opengis.ch as a local partner and supporter.
This led to the development of GI-ANT, our new field data ecosystem built around opensource components. GI-ANT combines:
• QField for mobile data collection
• A QFieldCloud instance, hosted by opengis.ch, to ensure data sovereignty
• A PostgreSQL/PostGIS backend
• Custom QGIS plugins based on qfieldcloud-sdk for project creation, cloud synchronization and export
• A WebGIS solution (currently under evaluation and development) to provide browser‑based access also for external customers
The migration from FeldApp to GI-ANT required reengineering workflows, automating maintenance processes, and aligning data models with modern standards. This has produced a powerful, scalable system that lowers maintenance demands while providing users with efficient, QGIS native tools. In doing this we can now concentrate our efforts on increasing functionality, capability and support for our users.
Our presentation highlights the strategic reasoning, migration experience, and lessons learned while transitioning from a homegrown solution to an open, future-proof architecture.