What are Integrations?

Integrations in FieldDoc refer to the ways the platform can connect and work with external systems, tools, or data sources to enhance functionality and data management for environmental restoration and monitoring projects. These integrations allow users to:

1. Pull in Data: FieldDoc can integrate with existing data systems to streamline the import of real-time data into the platform from ArcGIS Online or Airtable.

2. Export Data: Users can export FieldDoc data for further analysis or reporting in other software, like GIS tools (e.g., ArcGIS) or spreadsheet software (e.g., Airtable), for deeper insights or visualization.

3. API Connections: FieldDoc can be connected to APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) of other systems, allowing for automatic data exchange between platforms, which can improve efficiency and reduce manual entry.

4. Mapping Tools: It integrates with ArcGIS Online to create and maintain the integrity of a Feature Service that can be used to provide visual representations of restoration activities and their impacts on the environment. Users can overlay additional data sources, such as satellite imagery, land use maps, or prioritization tools to provide context.

5. Project Management: FieldDoc integrates with the project management tool, Airtable, to track project timelines, budgets, and deliverables in conjunction with environmental data collection.

These integrations enhance FieldDoc's ability to manage, visualize, and analyze environmental project data, making it a more powerful tool for users working on restoration, conservation, and climate resilience efforts.

Key Benefits of Integrations in FieldDoc

Integrating FieldDoc with other systems and tools offers several key benefits that enhance the platform’s overall functionality and usability, particularly for environmental organizations engaged in restoration, monitoring, and reporting efforts. Here are some of the main advantages:

1. Improved Data Management and Accuracy
   Seamless Data Import and Export: Integrations with ArcGIS Online and Airtable allow FieldDoc to pull data from external systems, reducing manual data entry errors and ensuring up-to-date information is always available.
   Centralized Data Storage: Users can consolidate multiple data sources into one platform, making it easier to manage, track, and analyze all project-related data from a single dashboard.
2. Enhanced Analysis and Reporting
   Automated Data Sync: Integrations and triggers ensure that data flows between systems without requiring manual intervention. This allows for real-time analysis, which is crucial for monitoring the impacts of environmental interventions.
   Comprehensive Reporting: Users can create detailed reports by combining data from various tools, ensuring a more holistic understanding of project outcomes and environmental impacts.
3. Greater Efficiency and Time Savings
   Reduced Manual Work: Automation of data collection, syncing, and reporting minimizes the need for manual data entry, freeing up staff time to focus on higher-value activities like analysis, strategy, and decision-making.
   Streamlined Workflow: Integrations with project management tools can improve workflow by aligning tasks, timelines, and outcomes with environmental data collection and impact tracking.
4. Better Decision-Making
   Real-Time Insights: Integrations with real-time monitoring tools or sensors (e.g., IoT devices measuring water quality) provide instant feedback on environmental conditions, allowing project managers to make timely adjustments to restoration activities.
   Comprehensive Visualizations: GIS integrations offer sophisticated mapping capabilities, enabling users to visualize the spatial impact of their restoration efforts, track changes over time, and communicate these visually to stakeholders.
5. Enhanced Collaboration and Transparency
   Data Sharing: With integrations, FieldDoc can easily share information with other platforms or organizations. This is particularly useful in multi-stakeholder initiatives, where transparency and collaborative data sharing are key to success.
   Consistency Across Tools: Integrations ensure that data is consistent across different tools used by various teams, helping maintain a unified approach to data analysis and project reporting.
6. Scalability
   Adaptable for Larger Projects: As project complexity grows, integrations allow FieldDoc to scale alongside the increasing data and reporting needs. For instance, integrating with more advanced data analytics or machine learning platforms can provide deeper insights into environmental trends.
   Multi-Site Management: When managing multiple restoration sites, integrations help keep all data synchronized across locations, ensuring accurate cross-project comparisons and summaries.
7. Increased Impact Measurement
   Tracking Long-Term Outcomes: FieldDoc integrations help organizations track not just immediate outputs but long-term environmental and ecological impacts, providing richer datasets to analyze the effectiveness of interventions over time.
   Aligning with Goals: Integrating FieldDoc with larger regional or national datasets can help users align their projects with broader conservation or climate resilience goals, making it easier to measure and communicate impact to funders and stakeholders.

Overall, the key benefits of integrating FieldDoc are increased efficiency, improved data accuracy, enhanced decision-making, and the ability to scale projects and impact measurement. These benefits collectively lead to more effective environmental restoration and conservation efforts.

How to create an Integration

Head over to the Integrations page.

To start, connect your FieldDoc Account to the Third-Party System. Once you have connected the systems, head to Workflows [Beta] to specify the workflow that you want to occur between the two systems.

Airtable

Once connected, you can use the available templates or build your workflow.

ArcGIS Online

Once connected, you can use the available templates or build your workflow.

Components of an Integration

An integration typically consists of several key components that work together to enable data flow, functionality, and communication between different platforms or systems. When integrating a platform like FieldDoc with external tools, the following components are crucial:

1. API (Application Programming Interface)
   APIs facilitate data exchange between FieldDoc and other platforms, allowing for real-time data transfer, pulling data from external systems, or sending FieldDoc data to other applications.
2. Authentication and Authorization
   These mechanisms ensure that only authorized users and systems can access the data and functions within FieldDoc.
3. Data Mapping and Transformation
   This involves translating data fields from one system’s format to another, ensuring consistency across different platforms. The ETL (Extract, Transform, and Load) process extracts data from one source, transforms it into a format compatible with the destination system, and loads it into the appropriate location.
4. Webhooks
   Webhooks are automated messages sent from one system to another when a specific event occurs, providing real-time data updates. For example, if a new project is created in FieldDoc, a webhook could automatically send that information to a project management tool, triggering updates or workflows in real-time.
5. Middleware
   Middleware is software that sits between two systems to facilitate communication and data exchange.
   Middleware is used to act as a bridge between FieldDoc and another system when direct integration is not feasible. It can handle tasks like data translation, aggregation, and routing.
6. User Interface (UI) Components
   These are the parts of the application that users interact with. When integrating FieldDoc with external tools, the UI may include buttons, dashboards, or other elements that allow users to connect systems, initiate data transfers, or view external data sources within FieldDoc’s interface.
7. Data Syncing and Scheduling
   This refers to the process and timing of data transfer between systems. These are set up always at the beginning of the workflow Use FieldDoc Triggers to sync or schedule data updates (e.g., hourly, daily). This ensures that FieldDoc and the external system remain up to date without manual intervention.
8. Error Handling and Logging
   This involves identifying, reporting, and resolving issues that may occur during data exchange between systems.
   Error handling ensures that any issues during data transfer (e.g., failed API calls, data mismatches) are captured and logged for troubleshooting. Logs provide a detailed record of the integration's operations and any errors encountered.

Tips and Tricks

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ArcGIS Online Account Connection

• You can only connect one FieldDoc account to one ArcGIS online account and vice versa. If you are attempting to send data from multiple FieldDoc organizations or accounts to ArcGIS Online, you will need a separate ArcGIS Online account to host each organization's feature service. This may happen if a standard or basic user has added a collaborator who will be managing a FieldDoc Project and AGOL Feature Service with the FieldDoc data.
• The connection expires on a bi-weekly basis. You will receive an email notifying you that the integration need to be reconnected.

Accounts have a unique suite of integrations and workflow based on what the user has created. Integrations and workflows are not shared across accounts within an organization.

Filtering The base integrations will move an entire workspace's portfolio, with the assumption that filters and analysis will be performed on the dataset in the destination software.