Mark-a-Spot is an AI-powered open-source citizen reporting platform for municipalities: residents report issues with photo and location, staff process them in a dashboard, and every report stays publicly traceable. It is built on the open Open311/GeoReport v2 standard.

Is Mark-a-Spot really open source, and what does it cost?

The backend and the citizen frontend are open source (GPL and MIT) and can be operated without licence fees. Paid components are the Pro staff dashboard and operations, support and maintenance as services.

Self-hosted or cloud?

Both. Self-hosting on your own infrastructure is fully supported; alternatively we run Mark-a-Spot as a managed cloud on servers in Germany. Both options use the same code, at the same price.

What does the AI do, and what happens to personal data?

The AI suggests categories, detects possible duplicates and flags potential hazards. Before any external AI image analysis, photos pass through our blur service, which masks faces and licence plates. Personal contact and case data are processed separately from image analysis. AI processing runs on EU infrastructure.

Can Mark-a-Spot integrate with existing government systems?

Yes, that is what the architecture is built for: headless, API-first, Open311 standard. Systems such as WinOWiG and SAP have been connected in production through it; integration works via the open API, not through proprietary connectors.

Who uses Mark-a-Spot?

More than ten municipalities and public-sector customers, including the City of Munich and the City of Bonn. Mark-a-Spot has been developed as an open-source project since 2011.

Yes. The public demo at demo.mark-a-spot.com shows the citizen view with test data and resets hourly. Dashboard access is available on request.

Open Source · Open311 · GDPR

The open-source citizen reporting platform for municipalities

Citizen reports, staff dashboards, and case workflows in one system.

Software, self-hosted or as SaaS. Modular, multilingual, ready to launch.

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Why email and phone are no longer enough

Citizens expect digital services. Administrations struggle with fragmented channels and rising demands.

Too many channels

Phone, email, mail, social media: reports land everywhere, just not in one place.

Black box for citizens

What happens to my report? Without transparency, frustration grows.

Manual assignment

Every report must be read, categorized, and forwarded. That takes time.

No analysis

Where do problems cluster? Without structured data, planning is guesswork.

One platform, every channel

Mark-a-Spot consolidates all channels, creates transparency, and delivers data for better decisions.

Upload photos and let the AI automatically suggest the right category, prioritize reports, and detect hazards. Saves time and improves data quality.
Incoming emails turn into reports and cases automatically. Citizens and staff can submit straight from their inbox.
Connect Mark-a-Spot to SAP, municipal CRMs, GIS tools, CityKey, and other citizen-service apps.

Field Service Management

Reports go to your own departments or to external contractors. Contractors receive a link by email, see photos, address and description, and report completion themselves. The status is updated automatically.

Kubernetes or Managed Server. We support you with hosting or installing our software in your data center or cloud provider.
Set per category when a report is escalated, when it comes back for follow-up, and when it is archived and anonymized.
Use the freedom of simple, data protection-compliant data export and import for a flexible and hassle-free flow of information.

Transparent Case Workflows

Features

Mark-a-Spot turns citizen reports into structured cases: intake, routing, status updates, dashboards, and integrations for municipal teams.

Urban Resilience & Emergency Mode

Crisis mode at the push of a button. Citizens report damage and offer help, your team keeps the overview.

Location Capture and GIS Integration

Citizens set the location on the map, by address search or via GPS. Base maps come from OpenStreetMap or official government base maps, and your own WMS layers can be added.

Configuration

Categories, statuses, form fields, boilerplate texts, branding, map layers, and navigation are set up in the admin interface, without writing code.

Multilingual User Interface

The interface is available in 17 languages, including Arabic with a right-to-left layout, plus German Easy Language (Leichte Sprache).

Forms per Category

Each category gets its own required and optional fields, for example the type of fault for a broken traffic light. Staff get structured details alongside the description.

CAP Export

Export reports in Common Alerting Protocol (CAP) format. Interoperable with warning systems like NINA, MoWaS, and EU Alert.

Open Core

Open Source, Pro and Enterprise

Mark-a-Spot follows an open-core model. The core with the case-handling logic is open source: you can audit it, run it yourself and have third parties extend it. Pro adds the workspace for staff, Enterprise adds managed operations.

Open Source

The backend, built on Drupal 11, is licensed under the GPL. It includes categories with their own form fields, status notes with text templates, routing, escalation and delegation, scheduled email reminders for follow-ups, ECA workflows, and AI modules for duplicate detection and redaction of personal data. A single agency or municipality can handle reports directly in the Drupal admin interface. The Open311 API (GeoReport v2) connects your own applications and back-office systems.

Pro

Staff work in the dashboard without opening the Drupal backend. Everyone has their own work list, phone calls are logged as reports directly, and related reports can be linked or split. Replies go to the reporter straight from the case, using text templates. While editing, the AI suggests category, status and responsibility and shows the hazard level it detected in the photo. Processing times are analyzed in charts, and the data can be exported as CSV.

Pro is commercial and part of Enterprise and of the CivicSpot SaaS.

Enterprise

With Enterprise, Civic Patches supports the operation of your Mark-a-Spot installation. You choose where it runs: as managed hosting in a dedicated environment in Germany, or on premises in your own data center or at your IT service provider. Both include maintenance, an SLA, assisted setup and training. For German public bodies, we offer contracts under EVB-IT on request.

One installation for several jurisdictions

In an Enterprise installation, several agencies and jurisdictions work side by side, each with its own categories, statuses and responsibilities. In the dashboard, each jurisdiction sees only its own reports.

Public works and utilities

Public works departments and municipal utilities, for example for waste collection or street maintenance, work in their own environment and handle their reports independently.

Boroughs and city districts

Boroughs and city districts handle the issues in their own area. Anything that falls to the city as a whole is passed on with one click.

Counties and regions with their municipalities

A county or regional body runs a shared installation for the towns and municipalities within it. Each municipality has its own interface, while operation and maintenance are handled in one place.

References

In Production Since 2011

Mark-a-Spot runs in German municipal and public-sector environments, from smaller cities to large metropolitan deployments. Continuous development keeps the platform aligned with Open311 integrations, staff workflows, and new reporting channels.

15+

Years in municipal production

10+

Public-sector customers

Open311

Native API standard

Selection of Our Project Partners

State Capital Munich City of Cologne Federal City of Bonn City of Gronau Wirtschaftsbetriebe Duisburg Süddeutsche Zeitung City of Brühl City of Krefeld (KBK)City of Paderborn The World Bank

Screenshots

Customer installations and product interface.

Try it yourself or get a demo

Try it out!

Mark-a-Spot is the product and open-source platform. CivicSpot is the hosted SaaS entry point for teams that want a live reporting map without operating infrastructure.

Built on Drupal 11 and Nuxt, with Open311/GeoReport v2 APIs and open-source modules for routing, analytics, AI and image analysis.

Schedule a Demo Appointment!

Are you a key decision-maker in your organization? Contact us for an installation in your city.

Try It on CivicSpot

Use CivicSpot when you want the hosted version of Mark-a-Spot: no server setup, a free entry tier, paid subscriptions, and EU hosting.

Install the Docker Image!

Interested in a test? Install Mark-a-Spot using the Docker image.

FAQ

Frequently asked questions

Short answers to the questions municipalities ask us most often.

Contact us

Open-source Open311 software for municipal issue reporting with routing, analytics and AI modules. Self-hostable; Pro adds the premium staff dashboard.

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