How to Highlight Veteran Burials in CIMS

An American flag placed in front of a veteran's tombstone at a military cemetery.

Imagine this. You’re leading your cemetery’s Memorial Day efforts.

Every year, you and a group of local volunteers walk your cemetery grounds, placing American flags in front of veterans’ graves. It’s an important tradition. It honors their service and sacrifices. It brings your community together, too.

You’ve marked the holiday this way for as long as you can remember. You even have a friendly flag vendor in town. And of course, you have your trusted handwritten log of veteran burials. It has stood up to the test of time—that is, until this year.

Come Memorial Day weekend, you realize that your paper map is missing. Yikes!

Accidents happen. But a missing document shouldn’t derail your cemetery operations. The good news? For CIMS Platinum users, it won’t.

In this post, we provide a step-by-step guide for highlighting veteran burials at your cemetery using CIMS Platinum.

 

highlighted veteran burials

 

Why cemeteries need to know where veterans are buried

 

Cemeterians need to know where every veteran grave is so that they can commemorate their sacrifice. Veterans of the United States Armed Forces risked everything to serve their country. Many cemeteries honor their service with special decorations. When national holidays like Memorial Day and Veterans Day come around, cemetery staffs busy themselves by marking veteran burials with wreathes, flags, ribbons, and other special objects.

Highlighting these burials on your CIMS cemetery software map helps staff quickly identify where to place decorations every year. Plus, using CIMS Platinum to mark veteran graves helps prepare your cemetery staff for inquiries. Veteran burials matter to the public. Fellow veterans and community members may want to visit the graves of deceased service members.

 

Highlight veteran burials in CIMS Platinum

 

Using CIMS Platinum, cemetery managers can highlight veteran burials with colors of their choosing. The best part? It’s easy to do.

Follow these steps to identify all veteran graves on your cemetery map.

 

 

Open CIMS Platinum

 

Access your CIMS Platinum account using any device that connects to the Internet. Enter your credentials to log in and view your cemetery’s map.

Note: Color-coding veteran burials is only available for users with CIMS Platinum cemetery maps.

 

login

 

Click Layers in the menu bar

 

Locate the Layers button in the top menu. Click it. A new window will display your current map layer settings.

 

layers

 

Select the Burials tab

 

Several tabs should appear on the left side of the map layer settings window. Click the Burials tab. This tab allows you to update your settings for viewing veteran burials.

 

burials

 

Check the Highlight Veterans checkbox

 

Click the checkbox next to the phrase Highlight Veterans. After you check the Highlight Veterans box, a new Veteran Color field will appear.

 

checkbox

 

Choose a color to designate veteran burials on your cemetery map

 

Using the Veteran Color selection tool, choose a color for veteran burials. All veteran graves will be highlighted with this color.

 

color

 

Click Save

 

Don’t leave without saving your changes! Click Save in the lower right corner of the map layer settings window to update your CIMS Platinum map.

 

save

 

View all veteran burials on your CIMS map

 

You did it! After you save your changes, all veteran graves will be highlighted with the color you selected.

Pro tip: Print this map to help your staff find veteran burials while navigating your cemetery grounds.

 

See what else you can accomplish with CIMS cemetery software

 

Cemetery mapping software helps cemeteries simplify management and serve customers in new ways. Want to explore how cemeteries like yours are using CIMS to streamline operations? Schedule a demo with a CIMS expert.

You can sign up for your virtual conference here.