FAQs for UKHab

Yes, you get 30 days to trial the app and Coreo.  Contact us to get set up.

Yes. We have a range of videos on our Coreo Documentation site that will help you to get started with the UKHab Survey – https://docs.coreo.io/coreo-videos/coreo-help-videos/

The app runs on the Coreo data collection platform. However, you won’t be able to download and run the UKHab Survey just by signing up to Coreo.  You need to speak with one of our team members first so that we can set the app up for you.  We also provide everyone with an onboarding session covering both the app and backend system to make sure that you and your team get off to a great start with the software.

Yes.  Coreo works fully offline.  If you have the Professional package then you also get the ability to download/capture basemaps for use offline.  See the Coreo pricing page for features and costs of the different tiers.

Yes, the app is updated by authors of the UKHab Classification and Directors of UKHab.org to keep it in step with emerging changes to the Biodiversity Metric.

The latest version of the app uses UKHab v2.0 and supports v4.0 or the Metric.

It will be updated to accommodate any future changes, as part of your subscription.

No. Coreo, the platform on which the UKHab Survey runs, has been designed specifically to accommodate people without extensive GIS training. The app itself has been built so that the workflow is both intuitive and supportive. There is strict logic built into the UKHab Survey, meaning you only ever see relevant questions based on the answers you provide. There are also resources built into the app to explain what each of the UKHab features and codes relate to.

Yes. The UKHab Survey App supports habitat condition assessment of polygon and line UKHab features, using the criteria published in the Biodiversity Metric v4.0.

The new UKHab Portal actually provides you with an export feature that automagically populates Natural England’s Biodiversity Metric 4.0 Calculation Tool – meaning no more time consuming data entry! You may need to update it with some additional data, such as the habitats included in local strategic plans as we don’t yet have any way to access this information universally.

Yes, you can invite other team members to join your Coreo Organisation and projects, allowing you to make sure everyone has trialed the system before you sign up.

This video shows you how to do this.

Yes. Anyone can join your “Organisation” and projects in Coreo. You need to have enough seats available to accommodate them and then it’s simple to invite them to join by email. This guide explains how to do this.

If you’re a commercial enterprise, the UKHab Survey is £100 per user, per year. 

Because the UKHab Survey is an add-on product to the Coreo platform you will also need to choose your preferred subscription tier for Coreo. Details of the different tiers and what’s included can be found here.

What is Coreo?

Coreo is a data collection platform, designed with ecologists in mind. With a Coreo subscription you can easily switch from paper-based surveys to having everything on your mobile device. Find out more about the benefits here.

The cost of a standard UKHab licence covers your use of the UKHab Survey App for one year and also provides you with a Coreo Fundamentals licence.  Coreo is the platform that the UKHab Survey App is built on.  The Fundamentals licence enables you to build an unlimited number of other surveys for your business. It also gives you access to a growing number of pre-built ecological templates, which are ready for you to download and use immediately.

Updates to the UKHab Survey App are also included in your subscription cost.

The standard licensing for the UKHab Survey app is per user/seat. Therefore, if you have 5 people in your organisation needing to do UKHab Surveys you will need 5 licences.

If you are a charity wishing to collect data using multiple volunteers, or an educational establishment interested in allowing students to use the app then we allow you to purchase a bulk licence (100 seats)

Currently the UKHab Survey App is only available with an annual subscription.

The UKHab Survey App should run on most contemporary devices.  However, please review our FAQ on general device specification for Coreo, which should answer most of your questions.

Yes, you can export boundary files from your current GIS and then import them for use in the UKHab Survey. You can import:

• Shapefiles (in either EPSG:4236 or EPSG:27700)
• GeoJSON (in EPSG:4236)

In the Records view of your UKHab project in Coreo, select the Import button from the toolbar, choose the appropriate form to import your data into (almost always the pre-survey form) and then work through the import process. This also allows you to map any existing attributes if you wish.

Yes, this is a key process in the UKHab Survey. One of the main workflows people use is uploading shapefiles as “pre-survey” data. This is largely to provide you with the habitat features pre-mapped for groundtruthing in the field.  The main UKHab survey then uses these features as a template for you to either accept as-is or edit to reflect what you find when you survey them in the field.

No.

Uploaded polygons will be imported as pre-survey data. When doing a survey using the app you base your full survey on a pre-survey habitat feature. When you do this you copy the pre-survey geometry, you don’t use it directly.  This allows you to e.g. adjust the feature’s extent if required. Your pre-survey data remains untouched and another record (your full UKHab survey record) is created.

This will entirely depend on a) the condition of the shapefiles you import or b) how many nodes you add when you digitise your polygons in Coreo.  Coreo doesn’t automatically create boundaries from mapping so it’s up to you how many nodes a polygon would contain when adding them.

It’s easy to get your survey results into your GIS. In Coreo, we have several output formats for you to use:

• The UKHab Survey Results presents your data in the UKHab data model and is ideal for exporting as a Shapefile. You can pull this straight into your GIS. If you have a template set up to create styled habitat maps using UKHab codes then everything should just work, straight off the bat.
• The UKHab Condition Assessment Results format provides you with an output file that neatly presents all the data you need to feed into NE’s Biodiversity Metric 3.1 Calculation Tool.

Yes. When you add polygons or lines Coreo calculates the area or length of the feature on submission.

The habitat outputs from the App use the UK Habitat Classification (“UKHab”). Correspondence tables exist to help with translation into UKHab of habitat data collected using NVC and Phase 1. These are provided free on the UKHab website https://ukhab.org/. However, it should be noted that translation between survey types is not recommended, since information will always be lost in the process.

No, thankfully not. The new UKHab Portal provides an export of all your survey’s images in one convenient download. Each record (habitat feature) will have its own folder named with the record’s ID in the download. That way you can easily access and link up all your images for report writing and importing into other systems.

The new UKHab Portal represents your UKHab data according to the standard symbology.

The records that you collect via the UKHab Survey App are colour coded according to the form they relate to in Coreo.  For example, pre-survey records are shown as pink in colour. We don’t currently attempt to utilise UKHab codes to colour code since Coreo is not intended to be a report production or data analysis tool – it is focused on data collection and data management. However, we are looking at whether we can incorporate the standard symbology into the app too.