The coordination of geoinformation within the federal administration takes place under the strategic management and supervision of the Federal Coordinating Agency for Geoinformation (GCG), which comprises one or more representatives from each of the seven Federal Departments plus the Federal Chancellery. The Director of swisstopo is President of this body, while the practical implementation of its defined strategy is the responsibility of COGIS.

At the federal level, COGIS is responsible for further developing and implementing the Swiss Geoinformation Strategy, harmonising official geodata and geoservice, and promoting and implementing a national spatial data infrastructure in cooperation with the cantons and municipalities.

COGIS develops and operates the federal geodata infrastructure as a basis for the storage and publication of the federal administration's geodata in the federal geoportal (www.geo.admin.ch/map viewer: map.geo.admin.ch). 

Within swisstopo, COGIS supervises and coordinates ongoing projects relating to geoinformation systems and information technology to support the production, management and provision of swisstopo's geodata.

COGIS is responsible for the following main tasks: 

• Securing the operation of a federal coordination centre responsible for further development and implementation of the Swiss Geoinformation Strategy and for coordinating the activities of the federal administration in the field of geoinformation.
• Harmonising official geodata under federal law and simplifying the organisational, legal, financial and technical requirements for access to geoinformation.
• Coordinating, developing, providing and operating the Federal Spatial Data Infrastructure (FSDI) together with the federal geoportal and providing the associated services to the entire federal administration.
• Promoting the implementation of the Federal Spatial Data Infrastructure (FSDI) and coordinating the associated activities with Swiss (cantons, municipalities and involved organisations) and international partners
• Supervision and coordination of ongoing swisstopo projects relating to GIS and information technology and operation and further development of the corresponding infrastructure.
• Development of the enterprise and security architecture of swisstopo and the FSDI/NSDI; maintenance and development of architectures at all levels (business processes, data, information systems, platforms, technologies) and timelines (actual and target architectures).

COGIS includes the Enterprise Architecture Unit and the following four processes:

• Coordination and steering of geoinformation
• Spatial data infrastructure development and maintenance
• Geoinformatics
• Geoservices Defense & Security