Introduction

The QGIS ecosystem offers powerful capabilities for building domain-specific geospatial workflows through plugins and customized projects. However, in professional environments, these workflows rarely rely on a single component. Instead, they typically combine a database schema, configured QGIS projects, and one or more custom plugins. Ensuring that all these elements are consistently deployed and maintained across users and systems remains a major challenge.

Solution

This talk introduces oQtopus as a solution to this problem. For users, oQtopus is a QGIS plugin designed to deploy domain-specific modules that encapsulate not only plugins, but also associated resources such as project configurations and database-related components. Through a centralized and automated approach, users can install and update entire modules with minimal effort, ensuring that all elements remain synchronized.
From a technical perspective, oQtopus relies on a modular architecture in which each package represents a consistent deployment unit. These packages include versioned plugin code, QGIS project files, and conventions for integrating with PostgreSQL schemas and roles. This approach guarantees reproducibility, simplifies maintenance, and allows administrators to retain control over versioning and distribution.

Example with TEKSI

TEKSI is a Swiss community providing open-source modules for public infrastructure management (e.g. wastewater, water supply, and district heating). Within TEKSI, modules are based on three core components: a PostgreSQL data model with predefined roles and permissions, a preconfigured QGIS editing project with translations, and a domain-specific QGIS plugin. Together, these elements form a coherent and reproducible working environment.
However, the TEKSI community faces challenges in distributing reliable stacks, while users struggle to keep their systems up to date and to test upcoming releases. Building on over fifteen years of experience, TEKSI initiated the development of the TEKSI Management Module Tool (TMMT), a dedicated branding of oQtopus.
With TMMT, service providers significantly reduce installation and maintenance time: tasks that previously required half a day can now be completed in 15 to 30 minutes. This also accelerates testing and integration of new developments, reducing overall costs and improving the professional quality of TEKSI deployments.

Conclusion

Although initially developed for TEKSI, this architecture is not domain-specific. It can be applied to any organization relying on database-backed workflows, customized QGIS projects, and internal plugins. Public administrations, engineering firms, and research institutions can use oQtopus to distribute standardized environments, enforce data models, and streamline onboarding.
By presenting both the conceptual architecture and practical implementation of oQtopus, this talk demonstrates how integrating database design, project configuration, and plugin management into a unified deployment strategy improves consistency, scalability, and user experience. Attendees will gain practical insights into managing complete geospatial application stacks within QGIS. Ultimately, oQtopus provides not only a tool, but a reusable framework for building more robust and maintainable QGIS-based solutions.