Latest developments

As we continue to make improvements to SRMS Online we will keep this page updated with a rolling list of key improvements and bug fixes:

10th August 2022

Improvements to finding your way around SRMS Online

• The Home Page quick links and menus have been simplified to make it more straightforward for users to find their way around SRMS Online. The ‘Locations’ menu and ‘Location Management’ quick links have been replaced by menu and quick links to get users directly into ‘Map View’ or ‘List View’, depending on their preferred way of working. The ‘Visit Data’ menu has been removed completely (see Improvements to Visit Data entry) and ‘Nest Sites not Visited’ is now a sub-menu of ‘Effort Recording’. The ‘Add Visit/Explore Visit Data’ quick link has been re-named ‘Explore Visit Data’ to put more emphasis on searching data, though users can still choose to use this route to add visit data to any Visit Logs that users choose to retrieve via this route.

• List View now defaults to ‘View by Locations’ rather than ‘View by SRMS Home Ranges’. Previously the List View defaulted to ‘View by SRMS Home Ranges’ but swapping this around gives users more immediate access to locations listed by their user-defined location codes and names.

Improvements to Visit Data entry

• Visit Logs now get initiated automatically at the beginning of the year for all existing Home Ranges and as new locations are created. The ‘Start a new Visit Log’ and ‘Add a new Observation’ quick links (together with the associated sub-menu options previously accessible via the ‘Visit Data’ menu) have therefore been removed from the Home Page. Users previously had to ‘Start a New Visit Log’ for each Home Range that users monitored every breeding season. The fact that Visit Logs are now created automatically at the beginning of each breeding season, will save users a lot of data entry time, particularly if they monitor lots of Home Ranges. Since no individual will need to take responsibility for initiating Visit Logs, multiple Visit Logs should not accidently get initiated for the same Home Range where they are being monitored by multiple raptor workers in collaboration, thereby reducing the potential for duplication across the system.

• Adding visit data is now completely integrated with ‘Map View’ & ‘List View’. Users can click on a location in ‘Map View’ or ‘List View’ and click on an ‘Add data’ button in the ‘Display Tools’ panel to automatically take them to the Visit Log for the current breeding season. Previously, managing and interacting with locations was largely independent from visit data entry and users are likely to have found themselves doing quite a bit of to-ing and fro-ing between ‘Visit Data’ entry and ‘Location Management’ to ensure that they were linking their visit data to the correct location. Being able to efficiently access Visit Logs via their preferred way of working (‘Map View’ or ‘List View’) should save users lots of time.

• The outcome logic has been revised for SRMS Online, so the displayed outcome (Success, Failure, No breeding, Outcome Unknown) from the Home Range should be more correct. Up to now the outcome logic that the SRMS has been working with was that used for the BTO’s Nest Record Scheme, where a separate Visit Logs gets created for each breeding attempt at a nest in a given year. For SRMS Online our Visit Logs operate at the Home Range level where it is possible to have multiple alternative nest sites and multiple breeding attempts in a given year. The outcome logic now computes a logical outcome for a Home Range based on the monitoring at multiple Nest Sites and successive breeding attempts.

• Users are able to quickly see on ‘Map View’ where visit data have already been added to locations for the current breeding season. Nest Site and Observation Sites on the map show with a green fill where data from at least one visit have been added. This will be really helpful for users working in collaboration with other raptor workers across shared locations to see whether any visit data has already been added. For users overseeing an ‘operating group’ account with multiple data contributors across a large area, this functionality may help them with coordination of monitoring to ensure the known Home Ranges are getting monitored and reported on.

Access historic raptor monitoring data

• Users can now access historic data held on the SRMS Legacy Data Portal (the portal through which SRMS data are currently shared with SRMS partners) through a range of reports:
o Via the ‘Reports’ menu in their individual account users will be able to retrieve all their historic records held by the SRMS from the SRMS Legacy Data Portal, based on their name appearing in submissions received at the Scheme from 2003 onwards.
o If users are a SRSG branch chair or Species Coordinator they will be able to retrieve all the historic records held by the SRMS from the Legacy Data Portal for the SRMS sub-region(s) and species that users oversee via the ‘Reports’ menu when they are ‘operating as’ the relevant group account. These records are not limited to SRSG submissions and can ONLY be used by SRSG in line with the SRMS Data Sharing & Use Policy.

Improvements to Manage Permissions

• Permissions set at Nest Site level automatically propagate to Home Range. Previously sharing locations with other SRMS Online users has been an onerous task as users have had to share both Nest Sites/Observations Sites separately to the overarching SRMS Home Ranges. Now when users edit the sharing settings on either a Nest Site or Observation Site these will automatically propagate to the SRMS Home Range location type.

Bug fixes

• Fixed a bug in ‘Explore Visit Data’ that was preventing multiple locations being searched on simultaneously. Previously, where multiple locations were being searched on simultaneously no results were being returned.

13th July 2022

  • Loading of sites on Map View has significantly sped up. Users with access to lots of locations are likely to have experienced a significant delay while waiting for locations to load on their map. Locations should now appear almost instantaneously.

Improvements to data entry in the Visit Logs

  • Fixed a bug that was preventing users saving visits with ‘+’ values in the ‘Fledged’ field – The consequence of this bug was that users were not being able to have the number of young fledged exceeding the numbers of young recorded on earlier visits. Users can now successfully save values with ‘+’ in the ‘Fledged’ field without saving being prevented.
  • Fixed a bug that was preventing users successfully saving edits to data in visit rows where no specific Visit Location (Nest Site or Observations Site) had been selected – In scenarios where no Visit Location had been selected in the ‘Visit Location’ field on a visit row (e.g. perhaps where activity within the Home Range had not yet been pinned down to a particular Nest Site) the Visit Location was being automatically populated with ‘unremembered location’. Users should find that the Visit Location is now displaying as an empty field and that they can successfully save and edit Visit Data in these rows.

Improvements to Location Management

  • Selecting a Species upon site creation has been made mandatory – On some occasions it was apparent that users were neglecting to select a species as they were creating locations (Nest Sites & Observations Sites) in either Map View or List View and as a consequence SRMS Home Range codes were not auto-generating successfully.
  • Added a Home Range field to the ‘View by locations’ List View – Many users have understandably struggled with reconciling their own user-defined coding systems for locations with the SRMS Home Range coding system implemented by SRMS. To improve this, users can now see the SRMS Home Range code in a column alongside user codes in the ‘View by locations’ List View.
  • In addition to the user defined location code and name displayed when you click on a location in Map View, the SRMS Home Range code is now also displayed – In conjunction with the above improvement to List View this will help users more readily understand SRMS Home Range code assignment.
  • Nest Sites & Observation Sites displaying differently in Map View – This will allow users to more readily distinguish between these two different location types. Nest Sites continue to be shown in orange while Observation Sites are shown in blue.

15th March 2022

Ability to capture “Nest Sites not Visited”

Users are now able to easily let us know when they have not been able to check any Nest Sites that they would usually would monitor. In the ‘Visit Data’ menu there is a menu item called ‘Nest Sites Not Visited’. This brings up a list of all the Nest Site locations the user has access to and they are able to select from the drop-down menu in the “Visited/Not Visited” column to let us know when they have not visited a particular Nest Site. There is also a button to access this same area from within each Visit Log, so if there are some particular known Nest Sites within a Home Range that they have not managed to check in a given year then they can let us know.

9th March 2022

Improvement to Add Visit/Explore Visit Data

  • Users will now be able to see their own user location codes and names appearing in the “Add Visit/Explore Visit Data” area, which will make it significantly easier for them to retrieve started Visit Logs to add second and subsequent visits during the breeding season.
    Many users (particularly those monitoring many Home Ranges) were understandably frustrated by the fact that previously the only locational details listed were the SRMS Home Range Codes, rather than the user location names and codes familiar to them.

1st March 2022

Improvements to data entry in the Visit Logs

  • A new field called “Occupancy” – This allows users to capture the Occupancy status on each visit. The drop-down menu is the equivalent to what the SRMS spreadsheet has offered previously.
  • A new field called ‘Fledged’ – This allows users to easily capture the number of young known to have fledged.
    Up to now users have been encouraged to use a ‘Young near nest’ ‘NN’ status code instead.
  • A new status code called ‘Site unused – no birds present’ SZ – This code features in the ‘No Breeding’ section of the drop-down menu. This code can be used as a ‘finishing code’ on the last visit which should ensure the outcome of the breeding attempt is considered as ‘No breeding’.
    Up to now many records have been considered ‘unfinished’ by the system as the NS ‘No signs and no birds’ code alone, has not been enough to trigger a ‘No breeding’ outcome.
  • A new status code called ‘Birds on Territory’ BS – This code features in the Territory section of the drop-down menu. This code can be used to record birds seen at the Home Range level (which aren’t necessarily exhibiting any particular behaviours such as displaying), where a Nest Site may yet to be found.
    Several users identified scenarios where this new status code would be valuable.

Improvements to Location Management

  • Extend editing ability on Locations to all users with access to those locations – For pre-loaded locations ONLY (i.e. any locations that the SRMS pre-loaded to SRMS Online on behalf of users as part of their initial account setup) we have extended the ability to edit locations to all users with access to that location.
  • Added a number of fields to the Location Management List View, when “viewing by locations” – We have added (1) Primary Habitat, (2) Secondary Habitat, (3) Nest Type, (4) Nest Site to this view. These were all bread-and-butter fields on the SRMS spreadsheet. When the SRMS undertook to pre-load locations for users in some cases the information was incomplete or there was conflicting information for these fields supplied across the years. By making these details visible in List View it should be easy for users to see this information at a glance without having to open each location separately to see what might need updating.
  • Added a ‘Visibility’ field to the Location Management List View – Allows users to see at a glance who else has access to the same locations and to allow account Deputies within ‘operating group’ accounts to manage location access more straightforwardly.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing 100m x 100m square Nest Sites to deform when dragged – Users can now more easily update the position of locations by dragging them on the map without fear of the square shape being lost.
  • Fixed a bug that was preventing the “Define by Nest Point” button appearing on pre-loaded 100m x 100m locations – Users wishing to do so can more easily update the resolution of 100m x 100m square locations to a point location should they wish to do so, with the benefit of background imagery.
  • Fixed a bug that was causing the 5th &10th digits in 10-figure grid references of locations created via List View to change upon saving.
  • Improved display of location labels in Map View – Labels on the map should now be easier for users to read. Text is larger and white text is buffered with black to ensure that they stand out irrespective of the background mapping or imagery layer.

Standard reports

  • We have made available the first such report. This is a report that converts SRMS Online data input into an annual summary compatible with the previous SRMS spreadsheet. As visit logs are updated on SRMS Online this report should refresh with the latest information.

28th April 2021

  • New Effort Recording area – users can now record their monitoring effort within their Study Area(s) or Raptor Patch(es) which will help the SRMS maximise the value of their data to produce trends in breeding numbers at local, regional and national scales. All SRMS Online users are required to complete an annual summary of their effort each breeding season for each Study Area/Raptor Patch that they monitor. Users can also choose to complete a daily summary of their effort following every visit, which provides the SRMS with more valuable detail on their effort.
  • New ‘Observation Site’ button – users can now add ‘Observation Site’ locations directly via Map View as could already be done for ‘Nest Site’ and ‘Study Area’ location types.
  • Handy ‘Find by Nest Site’ button when you are adding Nest Sites or Observation Sites via Map View or List View – users are now able to more easily add locations to an existing SRMS Home Range by using this button to search for the relevant SRMS Home Range Code, based on their own Nest Site location code and names.
  • Mouse curser coordinates displaying in Map View – as users move their curser around the map they will now see the mouse coordinates (i.e. grid ref and latitude/longitude) displaying in the bottom left-hand corner. They can choose to turn this off by unticking the ‘Mouse Coordinates’ box under ‘Display’ in the Location Tools panel to the left of the map.
  • Easier to handle casual records from yourself of others –  ‘casual’ is now listed as an Observation Type in the Visit Log. If users are just passing through their Study Area on a non-official monitoring visit or perhaps receive useful information from somebody else which adds to the picture of what is going on at a particular Home Range then they are likely to want to select ‘Casual’ from the Observation Type drop-down as they input data in the relevant visit row. If the data are from a third party (e.g. a member of the public or a landowner) then users are now able to capture ‘Third Party’ from the Initials drop-down. Users should content themselves that the third party concerned would be happy for their data to be passed onto the SRMS and used in line with our SRMS Data Sharing & Use Policy.
  • New Pair Details tab – if users are monitoring a pair of birds that are individually identifiable, they are able to use this new tab to capture their details.
  • Toggling map layers when creating locations ‘on the fly’ – previously users could only toggle between the different map layers (Bing Aerial Map, OpenStreetMap, Ordnance Survey Map) when in Map View. Users can now access all three layers as they create locations ‘on the fly’ while inputting data to a Visit Log.
  • ‘Location groups’ has been re-named ‘SRMS Home Ranges’ in List View – whereas before in List View users could view by ‘Locations’ or ‘Location Groups’ you can now view by ‘Locations’ or ‘SRMS Home Ranges’.
  • ‘Edit geometry’ button in Map View has been re-named ‘Edit positioning’ in Map View – whereas before in Map View users could ‘Edit geometry’ you can now ‘Edit positioning’, which is a more user-friendly term.
  • When creating a new Observation Site via List View users are now given the chance to link to existing SRMS Home Ranges – previously a bug meant that the system was creating a new SRMS Home Range every time a new Observation Site was created and users were not given the chance to link to an existing Home Range.