Help

Signing in

An admin creates your account and gives you a temporary password. The first time you sign in you’ll be asked to choose your own.

• You stay signed in on a device for 30 days after you last used it, so you can work out of signal for weeks.
• Five wrong passwords lock the account for 15 minutes. If you’ve forgotten your password, ask an admin to reset it; that also unlocks the account.
• Change your password from your name at the top right, then Change password.
• On a shared device, Sign out when you’re done. Records you saved but haven’t sent stay on the device and send the next time you sign in there.

Working offline

Record planting, Follow-up and Nursery work without a connection, once you’ve opened them online on that device at least once (that downloads the station, site and species lists). Open the home page whenever you have signal to keep those lists up to date.

• When you save, the record is kept on the device first. The bar at the top of each form shows Online or Offline and how many records are waiting to send.
• Waiting records send by themselves when there’s a connection, and every minute after that. Tap Send now to try straight away.
• If you’ve been signed out, your records stay safe on the device. Sign in again and they’ll send.
• Don’t clear the browser’s site data or uninstall the app while records are waiting: that deletes them.

Recording a planting

Use Record planting for each planting event: one site, one day.

1. Who and where: choose the site. For a new site, give it a name and tap Use my current location while standing at it, or type the coordinates. The altitude fills in from GPS when the device reports it.
2. Date and seedling source: “KWS propagated” means seedlings from your station’s own nursery, and they come off its stock. For donated or purchased seedlings, say who from.
3. Species planted: add a row per species with how many seedlings.
4. Stakeholders, photos and notes are optional. Add each partner (county, school, donor, community) who took part.

You may see two warnings. Neither stops you saving:

• “More than the nursery should hold”: the planting uses more KWS-propagated seedlings than the last nursery count. Check the number, or do a fresh stock-take.
• “May not grow well here”: the site’s altitude or the station’s rainfall is outside the range that species is known to do well in.

Survival follow-ups

Use Follow-up when you revisit a site to check how a planting is doing.

• Choose the site and the planting you checked.
• Record survival either as Counted seedlings (how many you checked and how many are alive) or as an Estimated %. Counting is more accurate when you have time.
• Tick every cause of loss you saw, and add notes or photos.

Survival rates in Insights use each planting’s latest follow-up, so revisiting plantings that are 90 days or older makes the figures more complete.

Nursery stock-takes

Nursery shows your station’s nursery stock (HQ can see every station). Use Record a count there to record how many seedlings of each species are in the nursery on a day; the count form also works offline.

• For each species, count how many are ready to plant out now and how many are still growing. Leave both blank to keep its last count; enter 0 if it has run out.
• Use Log a batch when you sow seed, set cuttings, collect wildlings or receive seedlings, with when they should be ready. When a batch comes up, record how many germinated from the nursery page’s sowing log. Both work offline.
• Ready for the rains on the nursery page adds what’s ready now to batches due before the next season starts (1 March or 1 October).
• Count at the end of the day: plantings on the count date are treated as already gone from the nursery.
• Current stock is the last count less the KWS-propagated seedlings planted and seedlings given out since, plus any received from other stations. A new count resets it, which also takes care of losses in the beds.
• Saving twice for the same day replaces the earlier count.
• Count at least every 30 days; the nursery page and home page say when a count is due.
• Use Give out seedlings for seedlings given to a school, community group, county, organisation or another KWS station. They come off your stock; a transfer to another station is added to theirs. Schools and groups are saved as stakeholders.
• Changes the records don’t explain compares each count with the one before: stock should change only by what was planted out, given out or received. Fewer means seedlings died in the beds or went out without a record; more usually means new sowing.

Photos

• Plantings and follow-ups can each have up to 6 photos. They’re shrunk on the device so they upload quickly on a weak signal.
• The record sends first and its photos follow, so a slow upload never holds up your numbers.
• Tap + Add photos and take them at the site. Only photos taken in the last 5 minutes get your location; the site page flags photos taken far from the site’s pin.

“Not accepted” records

If the server refuses a record, it’s marked Not accepted on the form with the reason. Common reasons:

• The site belongs to another station. You can only record for your own station’s sites.
• Your account has no station yet, or the station or species has been retired. Ask an admin.

Once you’ve noted what you need, tap Discard and enter the record again with the right details.

Reports, insights and the map

• Reports: seedlings, plantings and sites for any period, nationally or by area or station, and stations that haven’t submitted recently. The address in the browser keeps your filters, so you can bookmark or share a view.
• Monthly letter: under Reports, choose a station and month to open the Tree Growing Data Sheet. Fill in REF NO. and the other blanks, then print. What you type there isn’t saved.
• Download data: at the bottom of Reports, download the plantings, follow-up visits or nursery counts behind the page as a spreadsheet (CSV) for the same area and dates. Station accounts get their own station’s records.
• Insights: progress against targets, survival, indigenous vs exotic, and stakeholder contributions.
• Map: every site from its GPS point. Tap a pin for the site’s full planting and follow-up history.
• Submissions: the latest plantings, follow-ups and stock-takes that reached the server.

Who can do what

Anyone without a station can view but not record. HQ staff who plant at headquarters are assigned the KWS Headquarters station.

For admins

Everything is under Admin in the header.

• Users: create accounts (each gets a temporary password), set roles and stations, reset passwords and deactivate people. Resetting or deactivating signs that person out everywhere.
• Stations and species with records can’t be deleted, only retired. Retired ones leave the forms but keep their history in reports. Species altitude and rainfall ranges drive the “may not grow well here” warning.
• Planting targets set what Insights measures progress against.
• View as (under your name) shows the app as an officer or HQ would see it, for demos. Records you make still count and are saved under your name.

Changes reach officers’ devices the next time they’re online.