The term ‘sampling’ comes from the use of the locations of species records to sample the values of any of the environmental and contextual layers available in the Spatial Portal. For example, if you have records of a species at various locations and want to find out what the annual rainfall and mean annual temperature associated with the sightings, then Sampling is how to do it. 

In this case, sampling will produce a spreadsheet file containing the two locations (=rows) and associated data such as the species names, data flags etc and two additional columns; one for the precipitation value and one for mean annual temperature. You can sample any or all environmental and contextual layers.

The records of species locations can come from mapping a species or uploading your own locations (which don’t have to be ‘species’ locations). 

Sampling can be done from Export | Point sample or from Tools | Area report.