Annotations not exporting

Bug Reports
1

Please fill out the following sections to the best of your ability, it will help us investigate bugs if we have this information at the outset. Screenshots are especially helpful, so please provide those if you can.

Platform , Website:

Description of problem (please provide a set of steps we can use to replicate the issue, and make as many as you need.):

Step 1: Search for obs

Step 2: create export

Step 3: check box “field-phenology”
Step 4: export

The title “field-phenology” exports, but no values export

2

What’s the URL of your export?

3

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/export?verifiable=true&page=1&spam=false&nelat=30.101&nelng=-95.406&swlat=30.097&swlng=-95.413&taxon=true&iconic_taxa[]=Plantae&place_id=any&user_id=&project_id=

4

I think the issue is that none of the obsevations have this observation field, eg https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/38479485

I added the Phenology field to one of them, then re-exported, and that value was included in the export.

I should also note that on iNat, “annotations” are different than observation fields, see more here: https://www.inaturalist.org/pages/annotations Annotations can’t currently be included in an export, but observation fields like the Phenology can.

5

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/export?flow_task_id=99177

Here are 3 obs.
1 fruiting, 1 flowering, and 1 with no phenology
The export does not show “fruiting” or “flowering” under phenology heading.

6

What are the URLs of the individual observations?

7

Id
44840950 https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/44840950
44841011 https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/44841011
45585373 https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/45585373

8

As I mentioned above, I think “annotations” and “observation fields” are being confused here. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/44840950 has an annotation of flowering:

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But annotations cannot be exported. Only observation fields can, and these observations don’t have any observation fields:

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image1156×258 9.32 KB

The field: phenology column you want to export is an observation field. Now, I’ve just added that to the observation:

image

If you make a new export, you should see a flowering value for that observation under field: phenology.

9

Forgive me, I am not as familiar with computers as the younger generation.
I may not have the terminology right.
If I understand correctly, If I want to download a group of observations, that shows whether they are flowering,fruiting, etc.then I have to go to each observation and add it under “observation fields”. even though the information is already there under “annotations”.

10

As things currently stand, a CSV export from iNat will never include the values from Annotations. This is mainly due to the exporter being quite old, and Annotations being relatively new.

One alternative is to use the Explore page to filter out only observations that have a certain annotation, and download that set. It’s not a great alternative, but it’s doable. You would have to edit the search’s URL, as shown here.

For example, here is a search for all Asteraceae in Alameda County (where I live), that have been annotated as flowering: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=845&subview=grid&taxon_id=47604&term_id=12&term_value_id=13

That last part, &term_id=12&term_value_id=13, determines which annotation and value(s) are included. Then I can export this set of observations, knowing they have all been marked as flowering.

1 Like
11

ok thanks I will try that.
How can I determine what follows the equal sign for fruiting, etc

12

That’s all laid out here: https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/how-to-use-inaturalists-search-urls-wiki/63#heading--annotations

1 Like
13

Thanks