Maps owned by an Organization
A Map is owned by exactly one person — or by exactly one Organization. An Organization is a venue or a company rather than an individual, and its Maps are managed by its Org Admins.
Most map creators will never see this. It exists so a venue’s Map does not depend on one employee’s personal account.
Why a venue would want one
Because a personal Map goes when the person does. A Map owned by an individual who leaves the organisation — or who deletes their FriendTrack account — cannot be handed over: ownership does not transfer, and a published Map whose owner deletes their account becomes unowned and frozen for good. An Organization outlives its staff, so its Maps do too.
What is different
Almost nothing. An Organization Map is uploaded, calibrated, drawn, submitted and versioned exactly like a personal one, in the same editor. When you are acting for an Organization the editor says so, and your library shows the Organization’s name.
The differences are about who, not what:
| What differs | Personal Map | Organization Map |
|---|---|---|
| Owner | One person | The Organization |
| Who can manage it | The owner | Its Org Admins |
| Reviewed before listing | Yes | Yes, the same review |
| Editable once published | No | No, the same rule |
⚠️ The one behavioural difference worth knowing
An unpublished Organization Map is not readable by anybody who shares a Group with an Org Admin.
For a personal Map, being in a Group with the owner is enough to use their unpublished Map — let your Group use an unpublished map. That rule works because there is a person to share a Group with. An Organization is not a person, so there is nothing to co-occupy a Group with, and the carve-out does not apply.
So an unpublished Organization Map is visible to its Org Admins and to nobody else. If a venue wants its staff or its visitors to use a Map before it is published, either publish it or have a person own it.
Getting an Organization
Organizations are not something you create yourself in the app. If you are a venue and you want your Maps owned by the venue rather than by a member of staff, Contact is the way to ask.
Not the same thing as a branded app
Some venues have their own branded version of FriendTrack, locked to their own Map. That is a different arrangement from owning a Map, it changes what a visitor sees rather than who owns anything, and everything about Groups and Sharing works identically — a person using a branded build and a person using ordinary FriendTrack can be in the same Group.