Field Sessions & Mid-Transect Resume

Field sessions are individual work windows that a researcher opens on the mobile app when they begin working on a sampling unit — such as a transect, quadrat, or test pit. Each time a researcher starts, pauses, and resumes work on a unit, that is tracked as a separate session entry.

What is a field session?

A field session represents a single continuous period of work on one sampling unit. If a researcher begins walking Transect T-03 in the morning, stops for lunch, and resumes in the afternoon, that creates two sessions for the same unit. Sessions are lightweight records that capture:

• Who did the work (the logged-in field researcher)
• When work started and ended
• How long the session lasted
• Where work stopped, if paused mid-transect

How the pause and resume workflow operates

When a field researcher needs to stop work on a sampling unit before completing it, they can pause the session from the mobile app. Pausing does two things:

1. Stops the GPS tracking session and saves the current position as a resume point.
2. Records the exact location along the transect — including the waypoint index and distance covered — so the researcher can return to precisely the right spot.

When the researcher returns and opens the unit again on mobile, the app uses the saved resume point to position them at the correct location. They tap Resume to continue from where they left off.

• The unit status changes to Paused while the session is suspended.
• The unit returns to In Progress when the session is resumed.
• When the final session is completed, the unit moves to Complete.

GPS tracking during sessions

GPS track points are recorded continuously while a field session is active. Tracking automatically pauses when the session is paused and resumes when the researcher continues. This ensures the GPS track reflects only the time the researcher was actively working on the unit — not breaks or travel time between units.

Viewing sessions in the web portal

Field Sessions panel (Trip detail)

On the trip detail page, the Field Sessions panel lists all field sessions grouped by sampling unit code. For each session you can see:

• The session number (#1, #2, etc.)
• The field researcher's name
• The session start time
• The total duration (for completed sessions)
• The status: Active, Paused, or Completed

Paused sessions with a saved resume point display a Resume point saved indicator so you can quickly see which units a researcher can continue from a known position.

The panel refreshes automatically every 30 seconds while you have the page open, so you can monitor field progress in near-real time.

Session History (Sampling unit detail)

Within the Sampling Units section, click any unit to open its detail panel. The Session History timeline shows every field session for that unit in chronological order. This gives you a complete audit trail of who worked a unit, for how long, and whether any sessions were paused.

For paused sessions, the timeline shows the saved resume point, including which waypoint index the researcher stopped at along the transect.

What the "Paused" status means

A sampling unit in the Paused state has been started but not completed, and the field researcher has explicitly paused their session. The unit is not currently being worked.

A paused unit is different from an In Progress unit:

• In Progress means a session is currently active on the mobile device.
• Paused means the session has been suspended and can be resumed later.

Paused units are a normal part of multi-day or split-effort surveys. A researcher might complete the first half of a long transect one day and finish the second half the next morning, picking up from the saved resume point.

Resuming a paused session on mobile

To resume a paused field session:

1. Open the survey on the mobile app and navigate to the Sampling Units list.
2. Tap the paused unit — it will show a Paused indicator with a Resume button.
3. The app positions you at the saved resume point on the map.
4. Tap Resume to restart GPS tracking and continue recording observations.

The resumed session is recorded as a new session entry (e.g. Session #2), linked to the same sampling unit.