BioCollect will accept data from any point in time. If you have a limited number of historical records then once you’ve set up your project you’ll be able to manually enter the data.
Currently users are only able to upload one record at a time- there is no facility for users to bulk upload their own data.
If you have a large number of records that would take too long to upload manually then we may be able to bulk upload the records to BioCollect for you. If you’d like to discuss this option with us, contact us at support@ala.org.au.
Guidance for providing datasets
Below are some guidelines for providing data to be uploaded. Following the guidelines will make it easier for us to upload your data, and will result in your data being uploaded more quickly.
Data format
You can provide data to us in a csv file or an Excel spreadsheet. Please contact support@ala.org.au for a template to provide your data in. It is much easier for us to upload the data if it matches the template.
Images
If your data has images, make sure there is an easy way to link the images to the records, for example by a unique id in the data and the name of the image.
Locations
If multiple records in your dataset are from the same location, for example monitoring of the same point over time, we will create a single location and use this for all the data points at the same location. It is helpful if you have a field in your data such as 'Location Name' to indicate where records are using the same location.
BioCollect only supports coordinates in decimal latitude and longitude format. If you have data in eastings/northings, please convert it to latitude and longitude.
If your data does not have any coordinate information, we will try to use other location information, for example by using the centroid coordinates of a suburb if you provide the suburb information.
Species
If your data contains a species field, we will try to match it to a species in the ALA during the upload process. To make sure we match it to the correct species, it is helpful if you upload a list of all species in your data to the lists tool.
Embedded tables
If your survey form in BioCollect contains a table, for example with multiple species records, every row in the table should be in a separate row in the data provided. You should make it clear how we can tell which rows belong together in the same table, and which rows belong in a separate activity. For example, it might be that if the date and location fields of a row match then we can assume they belong in the same table.
Multiple choice
You should try to be as consistent as possible with entries which map to a multiple choice field in your survey form. Typos and inconsistent field entries reduce the quality of your data and make it harder for us to upload the data.