Groups and Projects

Using this application, you can select records simultaneously from several of your groups. Open Groups and Projects, and check the groups whose records you want to include in the results. Once a group is checked, you can limit the results to one or more projects belonging to that group. If you do not select any projects, all projects are included.

At the top of the list of groups is a special entry:

All Published Records

When you select this entry, records from other groups (groups that you are not a member of) are also included in the results if they are published. Records from Independent contributors are also included if they are published.

This is a useful option when you want to see any records that meet your search criteria (e.g. invasive plants in the immediate area) -- not just the records from your own groups.

If you are viewing the results through a column set that comes from one of your group's data collection forms, you will be able to see values for the extra fields (treatment fields) for records that belong to one of your groups, but you will not be able to see values for these fields for records that belong to other groups. In other words, you will not be able to see treatment information from other groups.

Member of a Coordinating Group

If the user is member of a coordinating group (CG), the CG appears in Groups and Projects, followed by the affiliate groups of the CG. The user can ask to see records from any of the affiliate groups.

Whether the user can see unpublished or private records from an affiliate group depends on the relationship between the CG and the affiliate group.

If the user is member of a regular group that is affiliated with a coordinating group, they will be able to see and use resources (shapes, plant lists) owned by the coordinating group.

Who Can Edit?

1. You can edit your own records in the selected group(s). To limit results to your own records, check
   only my records

2. You can edit records in any group in which you have the data czar role. For this to work, you need to limit the results to those groups in which you have the data czar role.

3. If you have the project czar role in a group, you can edit records in any project to which you have been assigned. For this to work, you need to limit the results to those projects to which you have been assigned.

When the results of a search appear, check this box above the table of results:
EDIT

Click on a cell you want to change. If you click on a value in the Observer column, a text editor will appear, and you can change the text to anything. If you click a value in the Access column, a drop down will appear, and you can change the value to published, unpublished, or private.

The changes you make are not automatically saved to the database. Once you have changed one or more records, a blue box appears in the lower right of the screen:

showing how many records you have changed. Press SAVE to save all changes to the database.

Click on an editable cell to start the editor in that cell. When you are finished editing, press Escape. If you changed the value, the blue box will appear on the right.

The current cell is highlighted in pale yellow. Use the arrow keys to move from cell to cell. If the current cell is editable, press ENTER to start the editor.

Not all columns are editable. For instance, ID, Latitude and Longitude are not editable. To change the point location of a record, open Plant Observation Entry on the record.

If you are using a column set that corresponds to a form, then fields that are designated readonly on the form are not editable. This may apply to the hours and crew fields on your form.

There is a column set available called Stack View which begins with the columns ID and Root. When you choose this column set, you have the option of sorting the records in stack order, where all of the records that are part of a single history stack are grouped together in date order, oldest first.

stack order


When records are displayed in stack order, the ID of the root record is highlighted in orange. In the screen shot above, mg1651 is a singleton record which is not part of a stack. cbo2148 is the root record of a stack that contains three records. The root record is from 2010, and the most recent record (po377) is from 2014.

The Stack Editor can build history stacks from observation records based on proximity. To use the Stack Editor, choose the Stack View column set (or any column set which begins with ID and Root) and do a search. Then check stack order.

Then open TOOLS and press STACK EDITOR:




Enter the maximum number of meters and press FIND STACKS. Two observations are considered close enough to stack if either
1. The center points of the observations are within the maximum number of meters.
2. If the observations have polygons or lines, one vertex from the first observation is within the maximum number of meters to a vertex from the second observation.
The application reports how many stacks it found, and how many records would be changed. It also shows the new stacks in stack order. If the new stacks look good, press SAVE CHANGES.

You can also edit the records before saving the changes. To take an observation record out of a stack, make the Root column empty.

To try it again with a different maximum number of meters between points, change the meters value, press SEARCH, and press FIND STACKS again.

Press CLEAR EXISTING STACKS to remove all history stack connections between records in the result set.

This is an example showing how the maximum number of meters affects how many stacks will be made.

Here is a field of Cortaderia jubata observations not yet organized into stacks. represents a singleton (an observation that is not connected to any other observations in a stack):


With the maximum number of meters set to 50, the Stack Editor found two stacks with two or more records. In this view, utilizing the Stack Theme symbology, one stack is represented by and the other is represented by :


With the maximum number of meters set to 20, it found seven stacks, represented by and :


Here is that same view as a live link.

In general, the smaller the value of maximum number of meters, the more stacks the Stack Editor is likely to find.

The best value for a particular situation may depend in part on the size of the plant. For Cortaderia jubata observations collected at the density shown above, 15 or 20 meters is probably the best value.

When you select Stack View:
1. If History set to All records, you will see every record in each stack.

2. If History set to Only the most recent, you will see one record in each stack. If a record is part of a stack, the Root column will contain the number of the earliest record in that stack, but that root record will not be in the search results. This may be a convenient way to work if you do not want to see all records. If you use the Stack Editor to combine records into stacks, any existing root record values will be preserved.

• September, 2021: v. 1.34:
Introducing the Stack Theme symbology.

• January, 2021: v. 1.29:
An Hours field is available which shows the sum of all Work Session records associated with this observation.

• December, 2020: v. 1.28:
There is a new Stack View column set, and a new Stack Order method of sorting. Using the Stack Editor you can build history stacks from observation records based on proximity.

• September, 2020: v. 1.24:
You can save your own default custom column set.

• June, 2020:   v. 1.19:
In More Criteria, search for one or more Calflora record IDs. Also,optionally include surveys in the results.

• May, 2020:   v. 1.14:
Symbology has a new polygon display option: use reference polygon.

• May, 2020:   v. 1.09:
If the user is member of a regular group that is affiliated with a coordinating group (CG), they will be able to see and use resources (shapes, plant lists) owned by the CG.

Photos are now available! There is a new column set called Photo View that includes a photo.

• April, 2020:   v. 1.07:
If the user is member of a coordinating group (CG), the CG appears in Groups and Projects. The affiliate groups of the CG follow immediately, indented.

• April, 2020:   v. 1.04:
Some seldom used criteria, such as Region and Observer, have been placed into the More Criteria section, which now opens in line.

• April, 2020:   v. 1.03:
Group members with the project czar role are able to edit records using the spreadsheet interface.

• February, 2020:   v. 0.90:
The Independent group option has been replaced by All Published Records.