nerc-ceh/npms-app

📱NPMS mobile application

NPMS App

The National Plant Monitoring Scheme (NPMS) is a new habitat-based plant monitoring scheme designed by BSBI, CEH, Plantlife and JNCC. The aim is to collect data to provide an annual indication of changes in plant abundance and diversity.

Questions

If you have any questions, please feel free to ask on the NPMS forum.

Authors

Flumens

Copyright and license

Code copyright 2021 Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. Code released under the GNU GPL v3 license.

npms-app's Issues

Delete specied

perhaps I am looking at an old version, but it is not clear to me how to delete species (e.g. if one has made a mistake)

Date options

From Claire Halpin:

On the Date page, what is the function of the up and down arrows to the left of the Clear and Done buttons?
What is the point of the Clear button too, as date is surely mandatory? If you do use the Clear button, then go back to the main Survey page, the date hasn't been cleared, but is set to whatever value it had previously.

sample:entered_sref error on submission

Users could use existing plots in a square without being approved (through app)

Hi,

Yes actually you would be right that indeed it wouldn't be urgent given that. I didn't think about not being able to create the plot in the app

It wouldn't be the case that there would "no way", but it would probably require a more complex scenario than what you suggested The most obvious one I can think of is if someone allocates themselves a square that has already been in use and was de-allocated from a previous user so already has plots.
In that case I believe they would be immediately able to use the plots made by the other person even when the square hadn't been approve yet.

To be honest I think it would be mind bending for us to go through all the scenarios, I already did that designing the report.
Obviously at the time of testing those scenarios the app didn't exist

I think for now perhaps it would be simply sufficient to note the limitation probably exists but might require more complex scenarios to trigger it.
(Noting also that my theory hasn't actually been tested)

Andy

Support text

on [(http://192.171.199.230/mobile/npms/#info/help)]
change text "For more help please visit the NPMS forum."
To "For more help, please email the NPMS coordinator at [email protected]"

Occasional species selection bug

From Claire Halpin:

Enter one species then repeatedly edit it by tapping on it & reselecting Cover. Occasionally when you tap on species name it will refresh the Species List page instead of opening the Cover page. Doesn't seem to be any pattern that I can find - just every few edits, say 5 or 6.

During registration on app I had to specify password twice

During registration on the App, I think it asked me for my password.
However once I got the registration email, the website also asked me to enter a password too during registration, so perhaps we don’t need password field during app registration.

Additional info values

From Claire Halpin:

Under Survey->Additional Information, some of the categories (Bare soil, rock, litter, mosses & lichens) need the ability to enter 0 i.e. none. This is required because if you mistakenly enter 5% bare soil when there is none, you need to be able to set it back to 0.

Terms and conditions link not working on registration screen

On the registration page, the Terms and Conditions link doesn't react.

Android 6.0

Management question missing "Other" free text

The app's management question "Other" option is missing the box for entering free text detail.

Change photopicker the text

No photo has been added to No plot photo has been added

Latin/common name and species selection

From Claire Halpin:

On the species database, there are 2 entries for 'Primrose' - one for 'Primula' and the other 'Primula vulgaris'. You have to select it and go back to Species List before you can see if it’s the right one or not. Similar for other species (eg Polypody – has 3 entries). Perhaps include the Latin name in the list of matching species?

Is it possible to only show Latin name when selecting species, even if common name is searched by user (I presume there is not space to include Latin name). Although no doubt many recorders will not be happy with a Latin name only display (even if they can search common name). Not sure what the solution is here, but I can see that the ambiguity of the common names in the list, as Claire describes above, would be irritating. In the longer term perhaps there could be a pop-up, or additional page, to confirm selection when the common is ambiguous?

Inherited plots not available to new owner through app

I have been made aware of a possible problem with the App today by a surveyor wishing to enter data. I’m not sure if it is only something he is experiencing, but I think it’s something that will likely affect others in the same bot.

Basically He has inherited plots within his 1km square. So even though you can see these plots on the website for him (albeit showing as “No” under “My plot” as they were created by his predecessor)… Within the app, he can only see the square name and it is showing locations as missing.
So it appears that as these locations are associated with the square but not his account per se, he cannot see these plots/locations and enter data for them in the App.

Upload button/process

From Claire Halpin:

Personally I don't like the sync/upload button being on the main survey page. It's too easy to tap it - maybe even by mistake - and then you've lost the ability to maintain this survey in the app. I would prefer a button against each survey on the Survey List page, but if this is too difficult perhaps a warning message after pressing the sync/upload button - 'Warning - once data is uploaded you will not be able to edit it within the app. Do you want to continue?'

Link update

On 'About' page, the link to the NPMS flow diagram should now be:
https://www.npms.org.uk/sites/default/files/PDF/NPMS_survey_flow_diagram_April2015_1.pdf

De-selecting additional info option

For the ‘additional info’ options that include a choice of cover, it does not seem to be possible to unselect an option (one can change the cover value, but not completely remove the selection, so that no value is recorded).

Plot label

When you create a plot on the NPMS website, you can give a plot name (we advise people to label them numerically, but it is a free-text field). It would be good if we could display this information, as on the NPMS website (e.g. Plot 1 at SU4212887299 (Linear plot)). I know that you were thinking about a symbol to indicate plot type (linear / square 10 m / square 5 m), but do you think we could also display the plot “name”? I realise that this might create space challenges (because it is a free text field, and people could have given them long descriptive names, but presumably we could truncate these to a defined length for display)?

Delete user data on logout

Oli's text changes etc

1. Management: some text lost by not showing multiple lines

2. Grazing: header says ‘ Which animals were grazing?’, but does not capture animal type, only intensity. Website captures both (animal type is free text).

3. Comment: Please add any extra info about this plot

4. Bare rock: On entry title changes to Gravel. Call both titles Bare rock etc. if Bare rock/gravel too long.

Other, main page:
5. Recorder Names: title changes to ‘Identifiers’ on opening. Stick with Recorder Names. Add the word ‘only’ to info text. i.e. ‘Please only add additional recorders here’

vegetation height error detection

From Claire Halpin:

Again on Vegetation heights, invalid entries are allowed with no error, but the app doesn't save them. So if you enter 11 instead of 1 by mistake, it's ignored. Is there no way of using drop down lists with values 0, 1, 2, 3 so that only valid values can be entered?

Location page grid

could the background of the rows for the squares be made a slightly darker shade, just so that the plot rows are better distinguished from the square rows

First registration button doesn't react

On the initial app screen, if I click on the add survey button then I am asked to sign in, or register. However the registration button doesn’t react in this scenario.
(Note that later on, when I used logout, I was taken to a screen that looked different and this registration link did work ok).

Android 6.0

Taxa search

Was not finding “dog-rose”

Plot issues

At the moment, when I log in to the NPMS Training website (http://192.171.199.230/npms_training/) with my account, I can only see one square with two plots, but the app finds 4 squares and 5 plots. Not sure what is happening there?

Vegetation height typo

Typo in vegetation height options (currently “<=11-30 cm”, should be “11-30 cm”). [Again, not critical, but potentially confusing].

Highlight genus level records at Inventory level as per website

See BiologicalRecordsCentre/NPMS#161

Photo upload

When attaching a photo to a plot, the app allowed me to take one specifically for upload but it could not upload a photo that was already in my photo gallery (at least, I’m not sure if it uploaded or not, but if I clicked on the thumbnail it said “The image could not be loaded” on a black screen. Once it showed this black screen it then caused the app to go into meltdown, showing just the top blue bar and continuing to show a black screen with “the image could not be loaded” whatever I did. Had to force close the app to get a response. When reopened, the app could then scroll through “the image could not be loaded screens” without crashing, but still no images loaded.

Change ‘Habitat’ to ‘Broad habitat’

Survey page and elsewhere

Species-cover page flow

From Claire Halpin:

When entering species, the normal flow is Add Species page, then Cover page, then Add Species and so on. However if I press < from the Cover page it returns me to the Species List page rather than Add Species. Now if I was using this app in the field, I would typically record all the species I can see, then go back and add Cover values - so this would be slightly annoying as I'd have to press the +Species button between each addition. Could the < button from Cover return to the Add Species page instead?

And related to this, if I have a few species with missing cover, select one to edit from the Species List, enter cover and it takes me to the Add Species page instead of back to the Species List page.

Upload terminology

From Claire Halpin:

The help text uses the term 'synchronise' which to me means a 2-way process, uploading changes to the main database and downloading changes made in the main database to the app. I think it would be clearer to use 'Upload'.

Recorder names error message

From Claire Halpin:

If I clear the Recorder names on the main Survey page, the error message I get says 'identifiers - missing' which is confusing. Should be 'Recorder names - missing'.

Cover value -- app flow

If the user enters a species, but exits without giving a cover value (as people might do, as they often prefer to build a list, and then add all the cover values all at once at the end), then when you go back in to add the cover value, once you select the cover value, the ‘species chooser’ window appears again. If you then choose the same species, it then asks you for the cover value again. It would be good to make it so that it exited back to the species list once the cover value was added. [Not critical, but potentially confusing].

Phone menu obscuring app menu

The purple menu bar accress the top of the screen is cutoff be mobile’s own black menu bar across the top of the screen. In the top right of the NPMS app I think it says “Survey” but this is heavily obscured.
Android 6.0 phone

Additional info text

• Additional Info (change to “Additional information”, and make this the title of the next page (listing all the extra info categories).

• Within additional information: change ‘How wooded’ to ‘Woody cover’

• Within additional information: change ‘Vegetation’ to ‘Vegetation height’

• Change last four to the following format: “Bare soil (plot cover)” “Bare rock (plot cover)” etc.

In-app registration -- data access policy issues

From @andrewvanbreda as a marker for future work

The thing we would need to be careful of on the app is that we restrict usage unless the user has agreed to the data access policy. So there could still be a registration process.
I don't think this would be too much of a problem for new users as I think one of the things we will do is make setting the data agreement checkbox mandatory.....I assume that would be easy on the app.
However older users who haven't agreed would need to be restricted. In theory we just check the value of the data agreement and restrict usage.....in practice there are a few things to consider (e.g. the information saying the user has checked the data access policy doesn't go immediately into the Indicia database....there is a delay until it is synced) Anyway, I don't think we need to worry about that too much right now, as David has said we aren't developing this further for now, perhaps this email will just be a note of things to consider in future.

Fix photo picker

Add->delete->add doesn't work

Allow updating species

External links back page

External links don't always return back to same app page.

Comment aesthetics

From Claire Halpin:

When you select Comment, the Comment page is displayed with the input field at the top rather than showing the heading and Info text at the top of the page. It's not wrong, as such - just inconsistent with other page displays and looks a bit untidy.

Survey page: Can we change “Identifiers” to “Name(s)”

as we discussed, it would be great if this could auto-fill the person’s name from their account, but then also allow the entry of additional people.

Identifiers page

Change “If anyone helped with the identification please enter their name here.” to “Please add additional recorders here” [assuming that primary recorder name automatically appears]

Login page text

From Claire Halpin:

On the Login page, if you leave name or password blank, it displays an error 'can't be blank' in tiny letters under the name or password. It's not very user friendly - needs to be bigger or a separate message box. And the text is a bit unprofessional - the 'Required' message used for Location, Recorder names on the main page, although brief, looks better in my opinion.

Photo uploads again

Photo picker still appears to be broken on my phone. Cannot add photo directly from camera, but had to go via image gallery.

Android 8.1.0
Current version (build number): OPP28.85-19-4-2
Phone: Moto G5

Vegetation text typo

From Claire Halpin:

On the Vegetation heights page, the help text gives an example of 'up to 1/3rd is 30-100cm' - should say 31-100cm (sorry, that's very picky).

This is also wrong on the website, so will ask Andy to change also.

Species cover value error

From Claire Halpin:

When you add or edit species cover, there is often a grey bar highlighting one of the cover values. It's not always present, but when it is, it doesn't show the previously entered cover value for the species as I would expect. If using a highlight bar like this I think it should show the previously entered value (when editing) and should not be visible (when adding a new species).

App questions order doesn't match website.

Halfway though adding a Wildflower survey it warned me I didn’t have any plots. Ordering of questions is different to live site, location first on live.

Probably applies to other survey types too.

Fine habitat auto selection

Where there is a broad habitat with only one nested fine-scale habitat (e.g. arable, native pinewood), can the fine-scale habitat be automatically selected? (This is what happens on the website).

Add DAERA logo to splash screen

@sacrevert has a copy of this

Niki's text changes

1. Might be worth adding in a sentence to “searching for species tab” just saying something like “searches can also be made using common plant names” so users don’t think they have to search solely for scientific names.

Yes, please add “searches can also be made using common names” below the example scientific name abbreviations.

2. As I mentioned before, would be good to link to the full NPMS data access policy from the privacy page. On privacy page “This allows you to log in and see your records and those submitted by other people for all species”. Oli- this isn’t currently true yet, is it? As the reporting function for all species is not currently public? ... [truncated]

Edits for Privacy Information:
i) Under ‘Who will have access to my personal data’, please add the word ‘these’ to ‘Unless required by law, these data will not be made available to any third parties… etc.” just to avoid ambiguity.
ii) Under ‘Use of your name’, delete “and those submitted by other people for all species” from that sentence.
iii) Under ‘Other information collected by the application’, just say Records will be made accessible to anyone on request.
iv) Above ‘use of your name’ add a new section entitled ‘NPMS data access policy’, with the following text: “Please see the website for our full data access policy” [using the following link: http://www.npms.org.uk/content/data-access-policy-public ]. A following sentence should say “Surveyors should have read and accepted the NPMS data access policy on registering for the scheme”.

3. “How to make a new record” still TODO. Well spotted. I will update the text with Oli’s suggestions.

This section has been deleted now, no?

4. I see in the privacy section that there is a bit about photo licensing. Technically, according to the MoA, any photos should be licensed under OGL, therefore reproducible by anyone (with attribution), not just by partners/scheme. I will leave this to Oli to review.

Please delete all of the current text in this section, and just state that “By submitting a photo with this app you agree to your photos being licensed under an Open Government Licence with attribution.” The OGL text can link out to the OGL licence. http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/

Syncing plots

There is an additional complication here, because, in a small number of cases, there are plots within a squares not owned by the surveyor (this is because early on a small number of squares were assigned to more than one person). On the website we provide some help with this by showing whether a plot belongs to that user or not (the ‘My plot’ column on this page http://www.npms.org.uk/my-squares-and-plots ). Either we could duplicate this in the app, or find some way of only syncing those plots belonging to that user.