Instructions

Contents


Overview 

Project Tracker consists of separate forms that group similar fields of information together for ease of data entry and review. Once approved by a regional manager, projects entered through Project Tracker can be viewed in EcoAtlas. 


Quick Start

  1. Login or Register for an account. New accounts can take up to 48 hours to be approved.
  2. Click Add or Edit Projects in the left Navigation panel. 
  3. Click Create New Project to create a new project or select a project from the list to edit an existing project. Note: 
    • The list of projects displayed only includes those created by you or anyone in your organization. Regional Managers will also have the ability to view any projects within their Administrative Region. 
    • You may want to check EcoAtlas to determine if a project you want to add already exists. EcoAtlas displays all public projects approved for display.
  4. Populate the fields within each form. Field metadata can be found and downloaded online. The forms are grouped into four primary sections:
    • Project Information
    • Site Information (including map)
    • Activity Information
    • Funding Information
  5. Draw or upload a map via the Site > Map form.
  6. Click Save to save your entered data. Error messages will appear in red at the top of the screen. They must be resolved before saving can occur. Blue messages are simply warnings and don’t prevent saving.

A project must be approved by the manager of the project’s administrative region before it will appear on EcoAtlas. 

If you need further assistance, you may find more details in the sections below. If you can’t find what you’re searching for, you can reach out to [email protected] for support.  


Detailed Instructions  

Entering Project Information

In general, we recommend saving often and address error messages as you go. Error messages are displayed in red at the top of each form. They must be resolved before saving can occur. Warning messages are displayed in blue and do not prevent saving.

To add a new project, select Add or Edit Projects followed by Create New Project. To modify a project, click on a project from the list on the screen.

Once a project form is open, you may populate the fields. Required fields are marked with an asterisk (*). Hovering over the information icon next to field headers will provide fuller descriptions and lookup lists where appropriate. Additional field information can be found and downloaded online.

For the Administrative Region field, select the entity requiring you to enter this project. For Project Type, select “Non-mitigation” for wetland restoration projects not requiring a permit. Projects with temporary impacts should have Project Type set to “Impact” and the Activity Type field of the Activity form set to “Temporary Impact”. Once the “Project Type” is selected and saved, it cannot be modified.

If monitoring is required for your project and you have selected “yes” for the Monitoring Required field, you can include more details in the Activities form with an Activity Type of “Monitoring & Evaluation”.

Project Events

Events are any kind of noteworthy event or important date related to a project or site.

To add new event information for a project, click on the Project Events form and then on the Add Project Event button. You may add multiple events for a project. (To add events for a site, go to a site within the project and then to Site Events.)

For both Project and Site Events, the Event Date is required in the format “mm/dd/yyyy”. If the exact month and day are unknown, use January 1st.

To edit event information, click on the Edit button next to the Event you want to update.  If there is only one event for a project or site, it will already be in edit mode.

Start and end dates are not required, however, this information is needed when generating yearly summary reports and therefore we highly recommend providing date information. Additionally, groundwork end dates are required for certain dashboard visualizations.

Contacts

Contacts represent a person that has a relationship to a project. Each contact is assigned a role that defines this relationship.

To add a new contact, click on the Contacts form and then the Add New Contact button. Alternatively, you may use the Search Contacts feature to find an existing contact. Then click on the Add button next to the contact you want to add. You must select a Contact Role from the list provided. You may associate multiple contacts with a project.

To request a new organization, go to the Project Tracker home page and select "Submit request for new values”.

To edit contact information, click on the Edit button next to the Contact you want to update. If there is only one contact, it will already be in edit mode. 

Alternate Project IDs

A project may be tracked by a number of governmental and non-governmental entities. Typically, each entity assigns its own internal identification number or code to the project.

To add a new alternate project identifier, click on the Alternate Project IDs form and then on the Add Alternate Project Identifier button. You may add multiple alternate project identifiers for a project.

To edit Alternate Project ID information, click on the Edit button next to the Alternate Project ID you want to update.  If there is only one Alternate Project ID, iit will already be in edit mode.

The Date Issued field requires the date format “mm/dd/yyyy”. If the exact month and day are unknown, use January 1st.

Performance Measures

Performance measures typically describe the required environmental goals of the project, how to measure them and what to do if they are not met. Original goals are defined at the beginning of a project and progress towards achieving those goals are tracked.  

On the Performance Measures form, the target values and actual values for the same Program/Plan Name, Plan Goal and Performance Measure are aligned on the same row.    

To add new performance measures, click on the Performance Measures form and then select either the Add Target Value or Add Actual Value button. Once within the edit screen of a Target or Actual value, you must select a Program/Plan Name, Plan Goal and Performance Measure value. You may add multiple performance measures for a project. Once these performance measures have been saved, they cannot be modified although they can be deleted.

If there is an existing Target or Actual value, you may also add the related counterpart Target or Actual value by clicking the Add Target Value for Goal or Add Actual Value for Goal buttons. These buttons only appear if the respective target or actual value doesn't already exist.

The Date fields are required in the format “mm/dd/yyyy”. If the exact month and day are unknown, use January 1st.

Program Priorities

Program priorities are used to associate projects with individual program priorities.

To add a new priority, click on the Program Priorities form and then click on a Priority listed under Available Priorities. You may add multiple priorities to a project. To remove a priority, click on the priority listed under Selected Priorities and it will move back to the Available Priorities section.

If you don't find your Priority listed, please contact [email protected].

Climate Adaptation

A project's climate adaptation features describe the aspects of the project design related to how the project is anticipated to adapt to existing and future conditions of sea level rise and other flood hazards, as well as the additional shoreline resilience benefits and outcomes the project provides.

To add climate adaptation information, click on the Climate Adaptation form, and then click on the Climate Adaptation button.

Files & Links

The Files & Links form enables you to upload files or cite links related to your project. 

To upload a file, click on the Add File or Link button. Populate the required fields for Title and Type. You must click on the Save button to save the required information before uploading file(s).

Alternatively, you may simply cite a link to a related site or online document without uploading a file.

The file or link entry will be displayed in EcoAtlas when the Ecoatlas Display Status is updated to “Approved”.

To edit file information, click on the Edit button next to the file you want to update.  If there is only one file for a project, it will already be in edit mode.

Linking Impact and Mitigation Projects

To associate mitigation with the impacts, it is necessary to create two separate projects. Follow these steps:

  1. Create a project with Project Type set to “Compensatory mitigation”.  
  2. Create a second project with Project Type set to “Impact”. 
  3. In the Mitigation Project field of this Impact project, select the name of the mitigation project you entered in Step 1 from the drop-down list.  

Entering Site Information

Click on the Add New Site to Project button. This will display a new Site form that encompasses multiple sub-form tabs: Site Details, Location, Activities, Site Events, and Map. The Map tab is where you can draw or upload the site polygon. Note: Each project must have at least one site for it to be included in EcoAtlas.

Entering Activity Information

The Activities form is flexible in its design to store both habitat type and amount details for an activity, as well as informational activities where such detailed information is not available or applicable.

To add new activities, click on the Activities form within the Site form and then on the Add Activity button. Generally, activities represent physical changes in habitat that the project's proponents intend to carry out.

Select the Activity Type and Habitat Type associated with the activity. You may select multiple Subactivity Type values though it is not a required field. The Subhabitat Type field is required and you may only choose one value.

If the Habitat or Activity Size is known, enter this value. If you don’t know the acreage amount, you can instead enter the length and width values in feet, and have the acres automatically calculated. To do so, select “Yes” under Calculate Habitat or Activity Size?

A project site may consist of multiple activities and habitat types. The total project size should equal the sum of its activities as recorded in the Habitat or Activity Size field. Note: Only acres are displayed on EcoAtlas.

To add additional habitat types for an activity, click on Add Activity, select the same Activity Type and select the additional Habitat Type. Enter the Habitat Size for the dominant Habitat Type.

Other activities are informational, such as “Monitoring and Evaluation”, “Environmental Education/Outreach”, and “Demonstration". In these cases, select the Habitat Type of “Unknown/Unspecified”.

To edit activity information, click on the Edit Activity button next to the Activity you want to update. If there is only one activity for a site, it will already be in edit mode.

Entering Funding Information

To add new funding information, click on the Activities form and then on the Add Funding button. You may add multiple funding entities/programs for a given site activity.

To request a new Funding Entity/Program, please contact [email protected].

To edit funding information, click on the Edit button next to the Funding Entity/Program you want to update. If there is only one funding entry for a site, it will already be in edit mode.

Adding a Map 

Project site boundaries are displayed as a data layer in EcoAtlas and can be viewed within the larger landscape context. If you do not submit a map, your project cannot be displayed on EcoAtlas. 

From the Map form, several different options are available to add or edit your site polygon or boundary.

To add a site polygon, select either Draw a site polygon to draw a polygon or circle, or Upload a map file to upload a KML file or an ESRI Shapefile. Note: A file upload cannot contain more than 20 features.

To edit an existing site polygon, select Edit a site polygon to drag the polygon edges to create an altered shape. 

You also can select Upload a map file to upload a new KML file or an shapefile. A file upload cannot contain more than 20 features. If there is more than one feature in your map file, you will be prompted to select one. 

To delete a site polygon, select Remove a site polygon.

Note: Habitat size is summarized by the data entered in the Activities form and is not determined by the spatial data.

Viewing and Downloading Projects

All projects marked for public display can be viewed and downloaded from the EcoAtlas interactive map. 

To view projects on the map, select Habitat Projects from the Layers list. Click on a project polygon for a link to the Project Details. You may also go to this link where the layer has already been enabled on the map.

To filter the display of habitat projects on the map, select Show Tools > Habitat Projects. You can filter the display by several attributes including Administrative Region(s), Group(s) and Water Board Region among others.

To download project data, click on the Download Habitat Projects Data button. You may download data in multiple formats (Excel, CSV, KML, shapefile). You may download a list of Projects or more detailed information with Project and Sites. Note that CSV/Excel download from the Habitat Projects Tool also contains projects that are not mapped.

To view a list of all projects, click on Projects from the EcoAtlas home page or go directly to the Project List Page. Click on an individual project link to view the project’s information page and access Files & Links uploaded to the project’s file repository.


Troubleshooting

If the forms are not rendering properly, check you have disabled uBlock or Adblock extensions. Also, at present, we recommend that you use the Chrome or Firefox browser when using Project Tracker. 

If your map file isn’t uploading, some possible causes might include:

  • the polygon is too complicated and contains too many vertices
  • the map file contains slivers or overlapping polygons
  • the shapefile is missing required files 

FAQ

Do you have more information on each field within the forms?  

Field metadata is available on the Project Tracker Field Definitions page.

How do I add a map for my project? 

You must first add a Project Site. The Map form is available within the Site form.

I added latitude and longitude values for my project, but it’s not showing up on the EcoAtlas map. Why?  

User-supplied Latitude and Longitude values on the Site Location form are not used in the mapping functionality. The EcoAtlas map only displays polygons defined on the Map form.

How can I get Latitude and Longitude values for the Location tab?  

You can generate them with the following steps:  

  1. Open Google Maps.  
  2. Right-click on the desired location  
  3. Select "What's here?"  
  4. A section appears at the bottom of the screen with latitude and longitude values.

How do I add a funding source?  

You must first add a Project Site and an Activity. The Funding form is available at the bottom of the Activity form.

How are project status values displayed on EcoAtlas? 

There are two ways status is displayed on EcoAtlas. One can view the overall project status on the Project List Page. Since there is no specific project status field in Project Tracker, the project status value is derived from the site status value(s) as listed in the table below. The values are listed in order of precedence. For example, if there are two sites associated with a project and one is Permitting and one is Planning, then the Project Status will be Planning.

Table of Site Status values

There is also a Legend Status that appears in the EcoAtlas map. Since the map displays individual sites, each site status is displayed in EcoAtlas individually. However, the site status values are simplified from their Project Status values and grouped accordingly:

Table of Legend Status values

Where do I upload files for my Project? 

Use the Files & Links form within the Project form.

How can I delete information in Project Tracker? 

At this time, you can only delete a limited number of elements within the Project form (e.g. contacts, performance measures, climate adapation). If you need to have information deleted for your project, please contact [email protected].

I've entered a Project. Why is it not appearing on EcoAtlas? 

For a Project to be displayed on EcoAtlas, it must have at least one Project Site with a valid polygon or boundary, a Public Status set to “Public”, and a Display Status set to “Approved”.

How do I update the display status?

Contact the manager of the Administration Region to approve your project for display. If you don't know the name of the manager, contact [email protected].

How do I associate a project with a mitigation bank? 

Use the Groups form and select the appropriate mitigation bank.

How can I get a new value added to a drop-down list?

To request a new organization, go to the Project Tracker home page and select "Submit request for new values”. If it’s another type of value, contact [email protected].

How can I get more help? 

If you have further questions or need assistance, please contact [email protected].