Create your first project

This tutorial walks you end to end through your first working data set in Erde: you sign in, get your bearings in the main navigation, create a Site, add a Location under it, and create a Project. By the end you will have the two scoping anchors — one spatial, one work — that your field and laboratory data hangs off.

What you'll need

• A running Erde server that has completed first-run setup, reachable in your browser.
• An account in the Administrator or Data Manager role. Creating Sites and Projects is restricted to these roles (collectively the Data Steward policy); a Staff account cannot create them.
• About 10 minutes.

What you'll build

A Site is Erde's spatial anchor — the physical place under management — and a Project is the work anchor — an engagement that owns Samples, Lab Reports, and Chains of Custody. They are independent: one Project can span many Sites, and one Site can belong to many Projects. A Location is a point of interest inside a Site (a monitoring point, a sampling station) and belongs to exactly one Site.

Figure: The Site holds Locations; the Project links to the Site separately. You create all three in this tutorial.

Step 1 — Sign in

1. Open the Erde address in your browser. If you are not signed in, Erde shows the login page with the prompt Sign in to your account.
2. Enter your Email and Password, then select Sign in.

You should now see the Dashboard — Erde's landing page after sign-in. Following this walkthrough end to end requires a role that can create Sites and Projects (Administrator or Data Manager); if you sign in as a more limited role, ask your administrator for the access you need before continuing.

Step 2 — Get your bearings in the main navigation

The left navigation panel is your map to the product. Use the menu toggle in the header to expand or collapse it. The items you see depend on your role, but the first five are available to every signed-in user:

Item	What it's for
Dashboard	The signed-in landing page
Imports	Bulk-loading data through the Import pipeline
Data Analysis	Querying and screening your data
Data Management	Creating and editing Sites, Projects, and the records under them
Reference Data	The shared lookup lists (types, units, and similar)

Two more items appear for higher-privilege accounts: Activity Hub for internal users, and Admin for the Administrator role only. For this tutorial you work entirely under Data Management.

Select Data Management in the left navigation. The Data Management hub opens with four tiles: Sites, Projects, Directory, and Configuration.

Step 3 — Create a Site

1. From the Data Management hub, open the Sites tile. The Sites list opens (breadcrumb Data Management → Sites).
2. Select the grid's Add action. The Create Site dialog opens.
3. Fill in the fields:

Field	Required	Enter
Code	Yes	A short unique identifier, for example SITE-A
Name	Yes	A readable label, for example Site A
Site Type	Yes	Pick a value from Select site type (these come from reference data)
Status	Yes	Pick Active or Closed — choose Active for a new site
Description	No	Optional notes

4. Select Create.

Erde opens the new Site's detail page, titled with its Code. You have created your spatial anchor.

Step 4 — Add a Location to the Site

A Site on its own has no points of interest yet. Add one Location so you have somewhere to attach field and monitoring data later.

1. On the Site, open Locations in the left subnavigation (breadcrumb Data Management → Sites → {your Site} → Locations).
2. Select the grid's Add action. The Create Location dialog opens.
3. Fill in the fields:

Field	Required	Enter
Code	Yes	Unique within the Site, for example MW-01
Name	No	An optional readable label
Location Type	Yes	Pick a value from Select location type
Status	Yes	Pick a status — Active, Inactive, Proposed, or Decommissioned; choose Active for a point in service
Accessible	No	A checkbox; leave it checked for an accessible point
Description	No	Optional notes

4. Select Create.

Erde opens the new Location's detail page. The Location now belongs to your Site and is unique by its Code within that Site.

note

The Add action on the Locations list appears only when you have permission to add data to this Site, and it is disabled when the Site is locked. A Site you just created and own is editable; if Add is missing or disabled, check the Site's lock state and your access on it. See Administration for how access is managed.

Step 5 — Create a Project

The Project is created independently of the Site, from its own tile.

1. In the left navigation, select Data Management, then open the Projects tile (breadcrumb Data Management → Projects).
2. Select the grid's Add action. The Create Project dialog opens.
3. Fill in the fields:

Field	Required	Enter
Code	Yes	A short unique identifier, for example PROJ-001
Name	Yes	A readable label, for example Site A Monitoring
Client Project #	No	An optional client reference number
Project Type	Yes	Pick a value from Select project type
Status	Yes	Pick one of Planned, Active, On Hold, Completed, Cancelled, or Archived — choose Planned or Active for new work
Data Management Plan	No	Optionally pick a Data Management Plan
Description	No	Optional notes

4. Select Create.

Erde opens the new Project's detail page. You now have a Site, a Location, and a Project.

What you did

• Signed in and oriented yourself in the Data Management area of the main navigation.
• Created a Site — Erde's spatial scope — and added a Location under it, unique by its Code within the Site.
• Created a Project — Erde's work scope — separately from the Site, because the two are independent axes.

Next steps

• Sites and Projects — why Erde keeps the spatial scope and the work scope separate, and how you link them.
• Core Concepts — the full data model behind what you just created.
• Administration — managing users, roles, reference data, and system settings.