Quick Start Guide

Install TurtleOps from the App Store (iOS) or Google Play (Android). Open the app and tap Sign Up.

• Enter your full name, email, and a password (6+ characters)
• You may need to confirm your email before signing in

After signing up, you'll choose one of two paths:

• Join an existing team: Enter the invite code from your coordinator (e.g., STCROIX2026). You'll be added to the team with the role your admin assigned.
• Start a new project: Enter your organization name and you'll become the admin. You can invite your team later.

If you created a new organization, the onboarding wizard walks you through the basics on first launch in six quick steps:

• Beach location: Beach name, GPS, and timezone — powers automatic weather, tide, and moon data
• Beach sectors: The parts of the beach your team surveys (e.g. North End, Center, South End)
• Species: Pick a primary species and any others you also track
• Naming convention: Decide whether your turtles get human-readable names or are identified purely by tag number
• Bob & Beach Chat (Pro): Toggle on the team bot and chat tab, set Bob’s tone (professional, casual, or playful), and add a region description for his replies
• Photo & measurement requirements: Choose which photos are required and whether to require CCL/CCW measurements

Every step is skippable, and you can revisit anything later from Settings > Project Setup — including options the wizard doesn’t cover (nesting season dates, survey mode, and team contact info).

On the Dashboard, tap the check-in button. This starts your survey session and records:

• Your GPS location
• Current weather, tide, wave, and moon conditions
• Session start time and elapsed timer

You must be checked in to create observations. When you're done for the night, tap Check Out.

Tap the New Observation tab. Here's the flow:

• Identify the turtle: Search or scan a tag — partial matches and hex/decimal PIT formats both work. If she’s already in the system, the slot you matched on auto-flips to Present. If not, a fresh record is created.
• Tags (three-state inspection): Each slot (LRF, RRF, RFF, LFF) is Not Checked, Present, or Missing. Mark only what you actually verified — skipping a slot leaves the turtle’s record untouched instead of silently re-affirming stale data. Scan a barcode-printed PIT to record an applied tag without typos.
• Behavior: What was the turtle doing? (nesting, crawling, in-water, etc.)
• Measurements: CCL and CCW if required by your project
• Nesting: Did she nest? Nest marked? Record the timeline.
• Photos: Capture datasheet, turtle, tag, and injury photos as needed
• Submit: Review and submit. Data syncs to the cloud automatically.

From the Settings tab, admins can generate invite codes for team members. Share the code and have them enter it during signup.

*Pro features (Bob the AI assistant, Beach Chat, daily morning digest, per-observation PDF email, web admin dashboard, observation map, AI name suggestions for unnamed turtles, turtle merge tool, fuzzy tag search) require a TurtleOps Pro subscription.

• Works offline: All data saves to your device first and syncs when you have a connection. No Wi-Fi on the beach? No problem.
• Dark theme: The red-on-black interface is designed to preserve your night vision during surveys.
• Relayed sightings: Admins can record observations reported by other surveyors without needing to check in themselves.
• Turtle alerts: Admins can create alerts for specific turtles (injured, research interest, do not disturb) that appear when any team member selects that turtle.
• Bob can act on your behalf (Pro): Ask Bob in chat to pin a message to a turtle, add a research note, or attach a recent photo — he’ll handle it. He’ll also be honest when something is outside his abilities and flag it for the admin.
• Backfill historical observations: Admins can add historical encounters one at a time from the web dashboard, useful for getting paper datasheets into the system.
• Data export: Admins can export observations and turtles as CSV from the web dashboard.

Contact us at hello@turtleops.org and we'll get you set up.