Create "Remind Me" notification to assist in checking observations at a later date

A bit of a clumsy title, but the idea is that sometimes an observation needs more detail before it can be properly identified to species and these may only be present at certain times of year (eg, seed capsules, flowers, mating plumage, etc).

It might be nice to have an option to set an automated reminder to revisit an observation site when the time of year is appropriate.

For example, I have an observation of a Dayflower (Commelina sp.), but it looks like I need to get some images of fruiting bodies or more detail of the flowers for a proper species level identification. The observation was January 12th, so it’s a long way off and I’m likely to forget to check this particular species by that time. If I could set a notification for a specific date to remind me to check said observation it would be really helpful. Similarly, someone may see a dormant plant and want a reminder to check that site again in the spring.

What do others think of this?

EDIT: this may also be useful for people interested in keeping track of phenology, especially as we experience greater and greater climate changes.

Nice idea!

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Sounds good. If this was implemented I’d like the ability to remind myself about other people’s observations too. For if I’m identifying and see something which I think I can identify if I get out book but don’t have time or don’t have the book with me I could flag it to come back to later. I’ve occasionally used star for this.

I could use an another reminder app like https://www.rememberthemilk.com/ (other apps area available) but something built in would be easier and make it easier to remember to add the reminder.

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That’s a really good feature request. I usually just fave the observation and come back to it later.

This has some quite viable applications in iNat and I hope it is considered by devs :slightly_smiling_face:

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I concur. This could be a nice useful feature. For exact same reasons, there were discussions in the Indian iNat group if this was possible. Currently, ‘fav’ an observation is used. I frequently wanted it when I wanted to follow the ID provided on an observation/species I was unfamiliar with and wanted to follow discussions on species ID.

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To do this click the Follow button and select “This observation”:

image

There is an open feature request to extend this to the apps:
https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/follow-unfollow-observations-from-the-app/7016

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Ah, thank you! I thought it allows one to follow the person. Wasn’t aware it allows one to follow the observation

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After discussion, this is not functionality we’ll be adding to iNat, so I’m going to close this request. As noted above, there are reminder apps, websites, and browser extensions that can serve this purpose.

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