Refresh a Layer

Edits — whether drawn on the map, imported from a spreadsheet, or emailed in as photos — are stored as pending changes and applied to the layer when you refresh it. Refreshing is also what pushes those changes out to the webmap and other outputs.

Each layer in the Admin Console has a Refresh menu with up to two options.

Update (apply edits)

Applies pending edits on top of the current layer, and updates the products that show it (webmap, and so on). This is the everyday choice — fast, and safe for any layer.

Most editing surfaces already apply your change immediately, so you usually only need Update to gather several accumulated changes at once, or to refresh a layer whose edits were made in bulk.

Rebuild from source

Only offered for layers that come from an external source (for example, roads pulled from OpenStreetMap). Rebuild re-fetches that source to get a fresh base, then re-applies your pending edits on top.

⚠️ Edits applied in past refreshes are not replayed by a rebuild. A rebuild reflects the fresh source plus whatever edits are currently pending. Use it to pick up upstream changes or to reconcile a layer — not as a routine refresh.

After refreshing

The webmap and other layer-driven views update automatically. Printable products (runbook, gazetteer) are heavier and are built separately — see Build an Output. When your data is the way you want it, publish a new version to make it permanent.