editing observations in Quick Capture

[BrendanOates]

This idea relates to the Aerial Survey App that ESRI developed for Nevada Dept of Wildlife a couple of years ago. Our agency, Washington Dept of Fish and Wildlife, is creating its own custom version of the app, mostly on the Quick Capture side of the app (App Studio). Currently, we have not found a way to reopen and edit (not redo) any observation in Quick Capture, and this feature is needed. It would be very helpful for data management and integrity if the user could reopen and edit previous observations. I’m envisioning a subsection on the stand-by home screen, where you can see a small table of observations (aka composition data: observation number, total number of individuals, sex and age class, date/time would be ideal) and select one of the observations to reopen and edit as needed. An alternative could be to have this feature in the map portion of the app, where you can see your flight path and the location of observations that have the total number of individuals—the added functionality would add a little more composition data to the waypoint, and you’d be able to reopen the observation in the map by tapping on the waypoint, which would bring you to the data collection screen where you can edit values.    

During one of our mountain goat surveys in 2022 while testing a beta version (WDFW modification) of the app, there was a perfect example of why this feature is needed. It happens more often than we’d like, it happens across species (elk, mule deer), and sometimes we need to verify that we’ve counted a specific group by referencing the composition data of a previous observation and observing our flight path. In the mountain goat example, we were flying a particular subunit (survey unit) at a specific location, we had counted a group of 20 goats, some of whom were partially visible—we knew we missed some but couldn’t get a great count. We recorded the data and moved on, recording data on another subsequent group, but 10 min later as we were surveying the rest of the unit, we spotted the same group of animals making their way across an open ridge, so we decided to get a better count. The count increased to 24 goats, and I needed to edit the observation, but could not do it because I had already recorded another observation since the large group (could not hit ‘redo last observation’ button)—I had to write it down on paper. I know that the audio recording feature per observation is a way to edit observations on the back end, once you’re back in the office, but this is sufficient for the situation for 2 reasons: 1) I didn’t have a good way of identifying the observation that needed to be edited—this is why a small table in the home screen or more composition info (numbers, age, sex) in the map feature would be very helpful, and 2) you can’t always hear everything clearly in those recordings—I prefer to use those recordings as back-up to what was recorded on the device, so we’re not solely relying on them for data integrity.