MDNR Chesapeake & Atlantic Coastal Bays Trust Fund

Maryland Department of Natural Resources

Get updates

All applicants are required to use FieldDoc to estimate nitrogen, phosphorus and sediment reductions. Any proposal that does not include calculations from FieldDoc will not be considered.

Program Contact

If you have programmatic or custom model questions, please reach out to Ari Engelberg: [e-mail]

Pact Code & RFP

Chesapeake & Atlantic Coastal Bays Trust Fund RFP

RFP Details

FieldDoc Pact Code

3WP9

FieldDoc training webinar Register Here

November 9, 2026

Important: Required for MDNR Grant Review

Failure to follow these requirements may delay or prevent MDNR review of your application.

1. You will be required to share a FieldDoc Pact as part of your Grants Gateway application. Program Managers can only view activity records that are correctly linked to this Pact and created in the correct workspace. Projects and activity records within a project are not visible to program managers.

2. For Technical Service Providers. Ensure that you are working within the lead applicant’s workspace. Records created in the wrong workspace cannot be linked between workspaces for review.

Learning Objectives

Please take advantage of this documentation as a first step when utilizing FieldDoc. The DNR and FieldDoc staff are available to answer your questions to support your application. After reviewing this guide, you’ll have the knowledge needed to:

• Build a Pact. Your pact must include a record for each implementation sites proposed in your grant application. These are activity records. Within each activity record you will delineate a footprint and run a model to estimate sediment and nutrient load reductions. That's it!

• Grab the shareable FieldDoc Pact URL. You will put this URL into your application in Grants Gateway. If you put in the wrong URL, the reviewers cannot access the FieldDoc portion of your application.

FieldDoc routinely releases system updates. Users must follow the instructions in this guide to make sure your application is received by the Chesapeake and Atlantic Coastal Bays Trust Fund Program Managers.

Important reminders before starting your application.

1. MDNR Trust Fund Reviewers can only see records within a submitted pact. Do not share Activity Record or Folder URLs.

2. The Pact will be "owned" by the organization of the workspace in which the pact was created. The Pact must be created within the official applicant's workspace. Before getting started, add your technical service providers and contractors to the main applicant's workspace. Once added, these users can create Pacts on the client's behalf.

3. Do not re-use old activity records that have already been created. Create new activity records for your FY28 application.

Getting Oriented

Your FieldDoc task is to build your pact and activity records to share with the the Trust Fund Review Team. The majority of your time in the system will be spent preparing your activity records.

Opening your workspace

• A Workspace is an organization’s working area in FieldDoc. It contains a distinct Portfolio of Activities, folders, Pacts, Metrics, and other records that users with access can create, organize, review, and update. Users may access a Workspace through their Organization or be added as a collaborator when they need to work with another organization’s records.

• Create the application's pact within the workspace of the official grant applicant. If this application is a collaboration, the lead applicant organization can invite other FieldDoc users to their workspace in order to properly create the Pact and associated record data.

What's a Pact?

• A Pact is the digital container for a single application. It shares access to the activity records and modeling outputs associated with one grant submission.

Each Grants Gateway application will have a single Pact. Do not create a separate Pact for every proposed implementation project within your application.

Data can be created directly within the Pact, or it can be linked from a workspace portfolio.

What's an Activity Record?

Activity records are the representation of one discrete restoration action (e.g., a riparian buffer, a stream restoration) with spatial location, type, and associated model outputs.

• Within each activity record you will input:

  • Activity Name - A unique name that references the proposed project activity

  • Activity Type - Chosen from a standard list, will ‘turn on’ access to any applicable models

  • Geometry - use a point, line, or polygon to indicate the implementation area. The geometry collects critical information for many models.

  • Model sediment and nutrient load reductions - input a unit and click run to generate sediment and nutrient load reductions with the model associated with the activity type that was selected.

The information inputted within each activity record will appear in summary on the Pact overview page and via the Pact Atlas.

All data will become visible to the Trust Fund Managers after the Pact is Submitted.

Step-by-Step Guide

Now that you've been familiarized with key FieldDoc terms, it's time to set up your FieldDoc pact. Follow along as we on-board a new user and their technical service provider so as they create their Trust Fund Application.

Calvert Conservation is a new group working to reduce runoff in Maryland by partnering with ag producers, nonprofits, and engineers. They’re applying to the Trust Fund to restore three streams and install riparian buffers at seven high-impact sites.

To support their FieldDoc application, Margaret—the Director of Conservation—creates a new user account and sets up the Calvert Conservation workspace. They plan to bring in staff from Eco-Saber, their technical service provider, who helped plan the projects and has shapefiles ready. Margaret invites Alex from Eco-Saber to the Calvert Conservation workspace so that Alex can create the FieldDoc portion of the application on the behalf of Calvert Conservation.

Step 1: Create your FieldDoc account

Take the following steps:

1. Open fielddoc.com/register

2. Create an account by entering in your real First Name, Last Name, work email, and password.

3. Open the email with the verification code. You have 10 minutes to enter this code into FieldDoc.

4. Once confirmed, based on your email domain, FieldDoc will either invite you to create a new organization or join an existing one.

5. Once your account is linked to an organization, you can start using the system.

Common Troubleshooting Solutions

If you have issues creating an account, check with your IT department or Network manager to make sure that FieldDoc is listed on the "safe list" of websites.

If you cannot create or join an organization based on your registered email domain, reach out to [e-mail] and our team can complete the configuration for you.

Step 2: Invite collaborators to your workspace

Margaret is going to invite her technical service provider, Alex, to the workspace. Once Alex has access, they will be completing the proposal on behalf of the Calvert Conservation organization.

1. Log in to your account. Open up your settings panel in the left hand corner.

2. Open the workspace settings.

3. Within the Members tab, enter the email address of the individual that you would like to invite.

4. Set their permission level to "read only" or "admin". If the user will be creating, editing, or deleting data they must have admin access.

5. Click invite. If you want to remove access or re-send the invite, you can do that at any time.

6. The invited collaborator will receive an email from [e-mail] with a button asking them to accept the invitation.

7. Upon acceptance, the user will be prompted to complete setting up their user account if they do not already have a FieldDoc account.

8. Once logged in, the collaborator will need to switch workspaces in the upper left hand corner in order to create records within their collaborator's account.

Step 3: Create the pact using the provided pact code

From within the Calvert Conservation workspace, create a pact in the open funding opportunity.

1. On the Home Page, choose

2. Create a Pact. Type or paste a 4-character opportunity code (required for pact setup). Enter enter in the unique pact code for this funding opportunity: 3WP9.

3. Add a Name. Match it to the Application Title you are using in Grants Gateway. You have the option of adding a Description as well.

4. Click to generate the pact.

5. Now you have a pact shell within which you can add activity records.

Step 4. Add Activity Records.

There are multiple ways to add activity records to your pact. This section provides three basic options for creating activity records and making them visible within the pact.

We are sharing the basic ways to create activity records and add the required attribute data. Some applicants may want to create a more tailored FieldDoc experience with more data management support. For example, you may want to use the workspace's portfolio folder structure to set up a project folder with sub-folder sections to segment and organize your activity records before sharing them to your Pact. That level of detail is not included in this guide.

Option 1. Create activity records in FieldDoc

1. From the Activity tab in your pact, click the button.

2. Give your activity a unique activity name.

3. Click save.

4. Open the activity overview icon on the tile. Now you can configure your record.

   1. Activity type. Open the universal list of activity types and associate one with this record. Make sure to choose the activity type that has an available Adapted Chesapeake Model.

   2. Geometry. You can import a single file or use the draw tools (point, line, or polygon) to indicate the location and extent of the installation location. Tip: If you do not yet have a confirmed location, use a demonstration location rather than drawing a massive polygon, which could interrupt model accuracy.

   3. Model. Follow the prompts on the model page to enter in the required fields and run the model.

5. Have more activity records? Repeat this process!

Option 2. Create activity records via import

You can import a single geometry file within the activity record. Use file import if you have a file that will create multiple records.

1. From the Activity tab in your pact, click the "file import" button.

   1. Import your file.

   2. Use the mapping tool to map your source field names to the FieldDoc schema.

   3. Click save.

   4. A record will be created for each row in your file.

2. Add activity type. Open the record or toggle to the table view to add the activity type to each record.

3. Activate the model. Open the Edit Activity modal. Navigate to the model tab, enter in the required fields to run the model.

Option 3. Link existing activity records

Already have existing activities in your workspace portfolio that you want to make a part of this application? You can use the 'Link activity' button to connect existing activities to this new pact.

Don’t re-use outdated activity records. FieldDoc regularly updates its models and platform tools. If your activity records were created before November 2024, they may contain outdated calculations or incomplete data fields. We strongly recommend that you create a new activity record from scratch rather than linking an old one to a new Pact. You can look in the bottom left hand corner of the model table to see the "last run date".

If you choose to reuse a record, you must at minimum:

• Open the record

• Refresh the model using the "Refresh" button.

• Re-run the model outputs.

This ensures that the data you're submitting reflects the most current standards and avoids errors in your application.

Important note on models

The Trust Fund Managers place an emphasis on using the FieldDoc system to estimate sediment and nutrient reductions for your proposed work.

FieldDoc has configured the following models for your use.

➕ Adapted Chesapeake Nutrient and Sediment Load Reduction Model

➕ In-stream load reduction estimates

➕ Shoreline restoration load reduction estimates

➕ Stormwater performance standard - treatment depths other than one-inch

➕ Stream restoration load reduction estimates (Protocols 1 - 5)

To support use of these models and supplement external training opportunities to understand how the models function, we recommend checking out the Model Documentation provided in the documentation section. Here, you will find provide links to expert panel documentation and math that supports these models.

Step 5. Submit your pact to your Grants Gateway application

The pact must be submitted in FieldDoc and shared to the Grants Gateway in order for the full application to be considered complete.

1. On the pact overview page, click the Submit button.

2. Take the URL from the top of your Pacts overview page and copy it using your keyboard shortcuts (for example, CONTROL+C).

   1. Open your Grants Gateway application. In the common application, navigate to the field that asks for the FieldDoc URL. Paste in the url from your FieldDoc pact.

   2. ✅ https://app.fielddoc.com/pacts/b44c80cf-6ee5-4e31-b632-9ede5a47ce05

   3. ❌ https://app.fielddoc.com/projects/fb41615f-778f-400f-866a-7c61cb6e8c25

FAQs - Creating an proposal

How do I associate my activities to the Pact?

The system has expanded options for organizing and sharing activity records. This has resulted in multiple pathways through which you can create activity records and share them as part of funding applications.

If you didn't create the activities within the Pact, use the Link Activities button to add activities from your portfolio to your application.

Why aren't my Activities appearing in my Pact?

This is a loaded question and there is no single answer. However, keep in mind the following truths to help troubleshoot:

1. All Activities must be linked to a Pact. If you create an Activity through a Pact, the Activity will appear and automatically be a part of that Pact. So, if you create an Activity through your workspace's Portfolio page or within a Project, you need to take the additional step of manually linking the Activity to a Pact.

2. Pacts are workspace-specific. Did the activities get created in the correct workspace? If you are a collaborator and you're not seeing the activities in the Link Activities list, there is a good chance you accidentally created it in the wrong workspace.

Why can't my funder see my application?

1. Did you Create a Pact and assign the related Activity(ies) to the Pact?

2. Did you click "Submit to Funder"?

The Trust Fund Program managers can only see activity records that are included in a Pact created through their Pact Opportunity. Please reach out to [e-mail] to get a code to create your Pact. Once Activity records are created or added to the Pact, you must click "submit to funder" for the records to be shared with Trust Fund program managers.

• Do not try to share a Project. You will know you are sharing a project if the URL says Project in it.

• Do not try to share a pact that you created for a different funder. The Trust Fund staff cannot see that pact.

Where did Sites go?

Sites have been re-named with a more generalized organizational folder called Sections. If you typically create multiple sites within your application, you can assign sections to them instead. The recommended workflow if you want to use this sub-folder is:

1. Create a Project folder in your portfolio.

2. Within the Project, create your sections.

3. Add activity records within the sections following the common guidance and workflow.

4. Create or open your Pact. Navigate to the Activities tab.

5. Click the "Link Activities" button. Select the activities that you created to link them to your pact.

With this workflow, the sections will remain intact within your workspace's portfolio and the funding program managers will be able to view all of the records from within the Pact.

Remember that naming conventions are important! Do your future self and colleagues a favor and do not give two activity records the same name, even if they are in different folders in your portfolio.

What URL do I share in my Trust Fund application?

Please share the Pact URL as part of your Trust Fund application.

How do I turn on the Sediment & Nutrient Load Reduction Models?

In FieldDoc 2.0, models are not automatically generated. Users must complete the data input as a final step and ask the system to generate the outputs.

🌱 Learn more: Model outputs

Should I add a pact for every project site?

No. If you are submitting a single application to the Trust Fund, you should submit a single pact. All implementation locations should be included in the application as activity records.