Upgraded Account Management
FieldDoc System Update March 2022
Restoration work is often a team effort. Projects bring together engineers, community organizers, restoration professionals, and project managers to install best management practices across our landscapes. At FieldDoc, we know that being able to connect with all collaborators on your project team is critical to tracking project information with project funders. We all want to work toward celebrating the improvements on the landscape.
In the first quarter of 2022, the FieldDoc team worked on and released a suite of system updates that package together an account management upgrade for all users. These updates segment people’s data in FieldDoc to promote the privacy of information while simultaneously building easier channels for collaboration.
Let’s look at the system updates in detail.
User on-boarding updates
Any individual intending to create a project in FieldDoc needs to create a personal user account. Individuals who need a FieldDoc account and are not directly affiliated with a funding partner must meet a few basic requirements during the setup process. The three bullets below represent updated actions that better lead users through the established terms and conditions for successful use of the system:
- Register with your real name — Transparency is key in FieldDoc. Providing your real name helps your organization owners confirm your account and allows future project collaborators outside of your organization to find you.
- Use your work email address — After you register, FieldDoc will inspect your provided email address to check for an organization match. FieldDoc will suggest an organization to request to join based on your email address. If you belong to an organization not yet in FieldDoc, or you use a personal/generic email account, you will need to work with our support team to complete the setup process.
- Join only your organization — Every user in FieldDoc must be assigned to an organization. This helps staff share project ownership responsibilities and assists with project retention in the event of staff turnover. The system will suggest an organization or ask you to contact our team to add your organization to FieldDoc.
As part of the update, we did our best to verify the status of all existing accounts, including organization and project membership. However, we know that your circumstances may have changed since you originally set up your account. If you have trouble accessing your account or believe your information may have changed, please contact our support team to make sure your organization details are correct.
Organization membership approval
The update also includes organization account management upgrades. Organization owners now have the tools needed to manage members without relying on the FieldDoc support team (though we’re always here to help).
Organizations are a management unit in FieldDoc. FieldDoc organizations represent real-world entities whose employees and/or volunteers manage data using the platform and associated tools. All data and activity in FieldDoc flow through an organization.
Redistributing this responsibility will help organizations keep their membership lists current with their staffing rosters while also managing the onboarding approval process for new members. This will also ensure that only staff or volunteers within the organization are listed as members of the organization.
The FieldDoc support team will continue to lend a hand in organization management. We will create new organizations as needed and support organizations to help onboard new users when necessary. Please note that we can’t allow any users to join an organization without approval from an organization owner.
How do you set up a user account?
By now you’re probably asking, with all of these changes, what do I need to do to start creating projects in FieldDoc?
The system update did add steps to the onboarding process.
All new users will still need to start at the Create an Account page.
You will click the “sign up” button to register for a FieldDoc account and you will be brought to one of two pages to take action to join an organization. The system will either ask you to “request to join” a specific organization that it has identified for you based on your email address or the system will encourage you to contact support@fielddoc.org to finish your account setup process.
Page View One: Request to join
For users where the email domain matches the domain of an organization already in the FieldDoc system, a Request to Join prompt appears on a new page.
When you click this button, an existing organization owner will receive an email asking them to go into FieldDoc and approve your membership request. If you don’t receive a membership approval confirmation email within 24 hours, please contact us via support@fielddoc.org. We will work with you to contact the organization’s owner. We cannot approve users unless there is no organization owner assigned to the account.
Page View Two: Find an organization
If the system cannot determine your organization based on your email domain, you’ll need to contact the FieldDoc support team to complete the onboarding process. We’ll ask you some questions to verify your account and, if necessary, set up a new organization for you.
Get in touch with our team and we will either find your organization in the system or create one for you.
Once you have been accepted into an organization you will receive a confirmation email. At this point, you have full access to create projects and explore the projects in the organization’s portfolio.
Organization owner role
Who are these organization owners? In the system update, we assigned accounts with verified work email addresses and project activity to their respective organizations. This means that for many organizations, multiple users share the privileges afforded to organization owners. Most likely, if you created an account prior to March 2022 and you used your work email address, you have owner-level permissions in your account.
You can log into your account to see if you have an organization owner or member permission level role. Your role and access level will be displayed under the Organization Tab and the members heading.
When approving requests to join their organization, owners will notice two permission levels available to them now. You can approve new general users as organization owners, which gives them the same unrestricted access as you to the organization’s data and settings. This means they can view, create, modify, and delete projects and members. Members, by contrast, have most of the same permissions except that they cannot delete projects that they did not create.
Who can see projects?
Since the core of FieldDoc focuses on project tracking, it’s important to understand how project management and account management intersect after this system update. We differentiate between what members of an organization can see and what members of a project can see.
Within an organization, both members and owners will be able to access the entire portfolio of projects created by users tied to this organization. Keep this in mind when you are creating projects and when you sign in to your account. When on the projects summary page, you may see projects that someone else added to the organization. This is expected and a great way to share projects within your organization.
Within a single project, you can invite users to participate that are outside of your organization. These users are called project collaborators. They have full access to individual projects without being able to see additional information about the organizations of their project collaborators.
Organization Members
Everyone within an organization can see all of the projects created by staff within that organization.
Collaborators
If you have collaborators on a project, you can use the collaboration feature to give them a project ownership role. That means that people outside of your organization can be given full access to specific projects without needing to change their organizational affiliation. All users must have a FieldDoc account in order to gain project access.
Where to go for more information
To learn more about the account approval process, please reference our help guide article where you will find step-by-step guidance as well as a tutorial on how to create an account or approve a pending membership request. We are also happy to provide support to adjust any organization settings that you need, reach us at support@fielddoc.org.
We are really looking forward to seeing these account management upgrades elevate the privacy and protection of user data in FieldDoc and ensure that the system is being used to the best of its ability for all of its users.
