Setting up a Place and Project for first time, not working properly

General
1

Hi

Im a new poster as well as ambassador and setting up a place and collector project for the first time. I visited the Place yesterday and made observations, but the project is not "collecting my observations. I’ve re-looked at the project set up and can’t figure out what is going wrong. Can someone take a look at this project and help me out? Thanks, LB https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/chbtc-riverside-woods-test/edit

https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/chbtc-riverside-woods-test/edit

2

welcome to the forum

can you link to some of your observations which you think should be in the project, but which aren’t

3

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/382972893

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/382978370

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/382967486

4

I looked at the first observation - I think it is just outside the boundary of the place. Your place does catch some of your other obs: https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=236510&subview=map&user_id=lbissegger

5

Welcome to Forum!

When a collection project fails to pull in observations, it almost always comes down to a few specific synchronization settings. Here is how you might be able to go about fixing it, it might be helpful to visit the links I choose!

1. Check the Checkbox Requirements

Look at the Observation Requirements section in your project editor. If you checked boxes for specific requirements, your observations must match them perfectly: [1]

  • Quality Grade: Did you restrict it to “Research Grade”? New observations start as “Casual” or “Needs ID.” Set this to “Any” for now.
  • Media Type: If you checked “Must have photos,” ensure your test observations actually have images attached.
  • Establishment Means: Leave this blank. Checking “Native” or “Introduced” will exclude any observation where the community hasn’t explicitly voted on that status yet. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

2. Verify Your Custom Place Boundary

Since you are using a specific “Place,” the boundary map is usually the main culprit:

  • Check the Parent Place: When you created the custom place “CHBTC Riverside Woods,” did you associate it with a larger parent place (like a county or state)? If the parent place is missing, iNaturalist cannot index the coordinates.
  • Wait for the Indexing Delay: iNaturalist does not index custom places instantly. It can take anywhere from 1 to 24 hours for the system to process a new boundary polygon and start “collecting” observations inside it.
  • Inspect the Coordinates: Double-check your observation’s GPS pins. If even a small part of your observation’s accuracy circle sits outside your custom boundary line, the project will reject it. [1]

3. Clear the Taxa and User Filters

Ensure you haven’t accidentally restricted the project to a specific group or person:

  • Taxa: Leave the “Taxa” field completely blank if you want to collect all plants, animals, and fungi.
  • Users: Ensure you didn’t accidentally restrict the project to a specific user list that excludes your own account.

How I would Troubleshoot and Might Be Helpful Right Now

  1. Go to your draft project page and look at the URL.
  2. Open a separate tab and go to the main iNaturalist Search Page.
  3. Filter the main search by your username and use the “Place” filter to search for your custom place name.
  4. If your observations do not show up in that standard search, the issue is with your Custom Place definition, not the project itself.

To help narrow this down, could you tell me:

  • What Quality Grade (Casual, Needs ID, Research Grade) are your observations currently showing?
  • Did you create the custom place boundary yesterday, or has it been active for a while?

Looking at the specific observations you sent:

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/382972893

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/382978370

https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/382967486

I’m trying to understand exactly what’s going on and coming from a third person view of the project it is difficult for me to be able to completely help you. After reading the above section if you don’t have any ideas on what to do try these:

  • Your project says “must be observed in Riverside Woods-CHBTC, ON, CA” try and change your location to that exactly, I’m fairly sure your location is slightly off. This is a problem.

Ohhh wait as I’m looking at your project it says from “Jul 19, 2026, 5:59 PM” but your observation. July 19, 2026, at 11:22 AM EDT is your observation. Because 11:22 AM is several hours before your project’s start time, iNaturalist automatically leaves it out. This is a problem.

The Fix (hopefully)

To pull this Monarch (and your other morning observations) into the project:

  1. Go back to your project edit screen.
  2. Change the date requirement from Exact time to Exact day.
  3. Keep the date set to July 19, 2026.
  4. Save the changes.
6

yup. here’s of visualization of that, where the observation is represented in red, and the place as defined in the system is represented in orange:

image
image843×590 136 KB

this is true, too. i think the project setup treats times that you input as UTC. so you have to adjust accordingly to get in the right time zone.

7

this is not inside the area you defined, The yellow zone is your area, the orange pin is your record:

image
image1920×849 319 KB

The same thing applies to https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/382978370

for the third one, https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/382967486, the accuracy value associated with the coordinates is currently too large and exceeds your area boundaries by a fair margin (see https://help.inaturalist.org/en/support/solutions/articles/151000169942-why-is-my-observation-not-showing-up-in-a-place-or-collection-project-i-know-i-observed-it-there-)

8

Thank you - Im going through all the recommendations and I think its the way I set the place. I set up the place a few days ago, but i realize now that my boundaries and not correct for where I need them to be - so I will try to redraw the boundaries. I may just delete the place and start from scratch.

9

Since you are going to recreate the place, keep this in mind to ensure your project works perfectly on the next try:

  • Avoid Holes or Overlaps: If your trail property has separate sections or disconnected lots, it is usually better to draw one large boundary box that encompasses everything, rather than trying to map out tiny, separate islands.
  • Give Yourself a Buffer: Make the boundaries slightly larger than the actual property line. GPS pins on smartphones can easily be off by 10 to 30 meters, especially under heavy tree canopy. A small buffer ensures observations taken right on the edge don’t get locked out.
  • Set the Correct Parent Place: When creating the new place, make sure to search for and select the appropriate parent geography (like the county or province, e.g., “Ontario, CA”) in the settings. Without this, the system won’t know where on the globe to index your map.

FYI, when you save your new place and update your project to point to it, the project will likely still show 0 observations at first. Do not panic! The iNaturalist servers need time to run a database script that checks which coordinates fall inside your new boundary lines. This indexing cycle usually takes between 1 to 24 hours. (or so I’ve heard)

Take your time redrawing the map, and once it is saved, just let it sit overnight to sync up.

Also, as said in my last message the time was slightly messed up. Next time double check it to make sure!!

10

Thank you so very much. Working on my new coordinates now.

LB

11

Thank you all for your assistance. I think I have it fixed. Such a great community.

12

Awesome! Glad everything worked out.