We’ve run through a similar learning experience on survey techniques.
Since our initial testing was outdoors and fairly large distances between points we rapidly abandoned laser ranger finders, aiming them accurately over longer distances in the sunlight is very tricky.
Instead we used RTK GPS for positions which worked reasonably well but involved a conversion from latitude/longitude to meters and was still fairly manual.
We’ve ended up with a total station as well only we use a robotic version. This allows us to have the total station automatically track and measure a prism. We 3d printed a holder that fits over the anchors and positions the prism over them in a repeatable way. Survey then consists of 1 person walking to each anchor in turn, placing the prism on it and pressing a log button on a tablet computer. At the end of the process you get a text file of x/y locations which we can drop directly into our setup software.
Its more expensive than a non-robotic total station but reduces the skill required to operate it. It can also be used to automatically track and log positions at around 1 Hz giving a good truth measurement for testing as long as you aren’t moving too fast.