Submit-ready California DPR 523 forms
in minutes, not days
California's Department of Parks and Recreation 523 series is the standard for archaeological and historic resource recording across the state — and the most reformatted, hand-keyed paper form in CRM. FieldTap FormMap eliminates the rework.
Why state forms break every other tool
Every state has its own paper site form. California's is California DPR 523 forms — a fixed PDF layout OHP expects to receive exactly as published. Generic field tools give you two bad options: rebuild the form by hand in their form builder (and still retype results into the official PDF), or pay for a professional services engagement to digitize each form.
Either way, every revision the agency publishes restarts the cycle. CRM firms end up paying for software and still doing the typing.
Import once. Map once. Done forever.
FormMap is the only feature on the market that lets a CRM firm digitize a state's official PDF form themselves — no professional-services bill, no rebuilding the form by hand. Map the fields once and every record auto-exports a submit-ready OHP PDF for the life of your firm.
Forms covered for California
FieldTap ships with FormMap templates for the official California Office of Historic Preservation forms below. Use them as-is, customize them, or import your own variant.
Required for every recorded resource. Captures permanent identification, location, attributes, and recorder information.
Used in addition to the Primary Record for built environment resources.
Used to record historic districts and groups of related resources.
Required attachment showing resource location on a USGS quad or equivalent.
Continuation of any DPR 523 page when content overflows.
What OHP reviewers expect
- All DPR 523 forms must be submitted as PDFs that match the official OHP layout — handwritten scans are routinely returned for revision.
- Photographs require GPS coordinates, direction, date, and a descriptive caption tied to each resource record.
- USGS quad references and UTM/lat-lon coordinates are required and must agree across the form, the location map, and any GIS deliverable.
- Multi-component sites must use the Primary Record plus the appropriate component form (523B for buildings, etc.) — FieldTap routes records to the correct form automatically.
California SHPO FAQ
Does FieldTap really export submit-ready DPR 523 PDFs, or do we still have to retype things?
Submit-ready PDFs. You import the OHP DPR 523 PDF into FormMap once, drag-map FieldTap fields onto it (location, attributes, photos), and every record going forward exports a fully populated PDF in the official layout — no retyping, no third-party services.
What if OHP updates the DPR 523 forms?
You re-import the new PDF and remap any changed fields. Existing records keep working — FormMap is designed to handle revisions without rebuilding your project.
Does this work offline?
Yes. Field data collection runs fully offline, including GPS, photos, and form filling. Exports require connectivity, but recording does not.
We use a custom in-house version of the DPR 523 — can we map that?
Yes. FormMap accepts any PDF, not just the official OHP version. If your firm has internal QA forms or county-specific addenda, you can map those too.
What about shapefiles for OHP GIS submissions?
FieldTap exports shapefile, GeoJSON, and CSV alongside the PDF — all generated from the same record, so coordinates and attributes always agree.
Map California DPR 523 forms once. Submit forever.
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