Create and manage a site

This guide walks you through creating a Site in Erde, dividing it into site areas, granting users and contacts access, and locking the Site to freeze its data. A Site is the spatial anchor for everything beneath it — locations, monitoring records, and field artifacts.

Before you start

• Role required: Administrator or Data Manager. Creating, locking, or unlocking a Site is a global management action; deleting one requires Administrator.
• Prerequisites: At least one Site Type must exist in reference data. To add site areas, you also need a Site Area Type.

Create a site

1. Go to Data Management → Sites.

2. Select Add. The Create Site dialog opens.

3. Enter the fields. Code, Name, Site Type, and Status are required:

   Field	What to enter
   Code	A unique identifier for the Site, for example SITE-A. Maximum 50 characters; must be unique across all sites. This is the Site's identity.
   Name	A descriptive label, for example Site A. Maximum 200 characters. Not required to be unique.
   Site Type	Select an active Site Type from reference data.
   Status	Active or Closed. Defaults to Active.
   Description	Optional notes, up to 2000 characters.

4. Select Create. Erde validates the Site and opens its detail page on the Overview tab.

Add the remaining details

The create dialog captures the Site's essentials. Land use, dates, address, coordinates, and area are edited afterward on the Site detail page's Overview tab.

1. On the Site detail page's Overview tab, select Edit.

2. Enter any of the optional fields:

   Field	What to enter
   Current Land Use	One of Residential, Commercial, Mixed Use, Industrial, Agricultural, Recreational.
   Intended Land Use	Same value set as Current Land Use; used for risk-based goals.
   Start Date / End Date	Operating dates. An end date can only be set when Status is Closed.
   Address Line 1 / Address Line 2	The Site's street address lines.
   City, County, State, Postal Code, Country	Location details.
   Latitude / Longitude	The Site point, entered as WGS84 (EPSG:4326) latitude and longitude. Latitude is constrained to ±90; longitude to ±180.
   Coordinate System	The working coordinate reference system for child geometry. This is separate from the WGS84 Site point above.
   Vertical Datum	The vertical reference for elevations.
   Area / Area Unit	Provide both together — Acres, Hectares, Square Meters, or Square Feet — or leave both blank.
   Time Zone	The Site's local time zone.

3. Select Save.

If you set Status to Closed without an end date, Erde saves the Site but shows a warning that no end date is recorded. The save still succeeds.

Add a site area

A site area is a sub-area of a Site — an operable unit that can carry its own status and color, independent of the parent Site. Locations are later assigned to one or more site areas.

1. Open the Site: go to Data Management → Sites and open Site A.

2. On the Site detail page, select the Site Areas tab.

3. Select Add Site Area and enter the fields:

   Field	What to enter
   Name	A label unique within the Site, for example Operable Unit 1. Maximum 100 characters.
   Type	Select an active Site Area Type from reference data.
   Status	Under Investigation (default), In Remediation, Monitoring, or Closed.
   Color	A map color for the area, for example Blue (default).
   Description	Optional notes, up to 1000 characters.

4. Select Add. The site area appears in the Site Areas tab and is available when you assign locations.

Regulatory program identifiers for the Site (such as a permit number) are entered on the Site detail page's Registrations tab.

Manage access and contacts

Access and contacts are managed from the Site's Access & Admin page, which has two tabs: Users and Contacts.

1. Open the Site, then select Access & Admin.

2. On the Users tab, select Add User to grant a user access. Choose the user and assign a Role:

   Role	Grants
   Viewer	Read-only access to the Site's data.
   Contributor	Add new records (and edit own recent additions within the grace window).
   Editor	Add and edit the Site's data.
   Site Manager	Full management of the Site's data.

   A user appears at most once per Site.

3. On the Contacts tab, select Add Contact to record a non-user contact (such as a landowner or access coordinator). Choose the contact and assign a Role: Operator, Access Coordinator, Safety Officer, Emergency Contact, Landowner, or Property Manager. Each contact-and-role pairing is unique per Site.

4. Select Add on either tab.

Site roles grant scoped access to this Site only. They are separate from the global roles (Administrator, Data Manager) that govern who can create or delete sites. See Permissions and scoping for how the two layers combine.

Lock or unlock a site

Locking a Site freezes its data: while the Site is locked, no one can add, edit, or delete records scoped to it. Locking is for protecting a finalized dataset — for example, after a reporting milestone.

warning

Locking a Site blocks all writes to its locations, monitoring records, and field artifacts until it is unlocked. Only an Administrator or Data Manager can lock or unlock. See Aggregates, locking, and auditing and Permissions and scoping.

1. Open the Site.
2. Use the Site's lock control to select Lock. Erde freezes the Site and records the change.
3. To resume editing, select Unlock.

The lock state is not part of the Site's editable fields — you can only change it through the dedicated Lock and Unlock actions.

Result

The Site exists under Data Management → Sites with its code, name, status, and any site areas you added. Granted users see the Site in their accessible list, and contacts appear on the Contacts tab. From the Site you can now add locations and field artifacts.

Troubleshooting

Symptom	Cause	Resolution
Save rejected — code already exists	Another Site already uses that Code.	Choose a different, unique Code.
Save rejected — site type is inactive	The selected Site Type is inactive in reference data.	Activate the type, or pick an active one. See Managing reference data.
End date rejected	An End date is set while Status is not Closed.	Clear the end date, or set Status to Closed.
Site area save rejected — name already exists	Another site area on this Site uses that Name.	Use a name unique within the Site.
Edits to the Site's data are blocked	The Site is locked.	An Administrator or Data Manager unlocks it via the Unlock action.
Add for a Site is unavailable	Your account lacks the Administrator or Data Manager role.	Ask an administrator to grant the role or create the Site.

Related

• Add locations and field artifacts
• Sites and projects
• Aggregates, locking, and auditing
• Permissions and scoping