The Animal Tracker

The Animal Tracker app (available for Android, iPad and iPhone) allows the public to follow the movements of animals being tracked by GPS using live feeds in Movebank. Users can animate recent movements, view information about the research project and individual animals, and contribute photos and notes about the animals or their habitat that are sent to the data owner. The app can also be used to privately share non-public data, intended to help researchers in the field.

To participate in the Animal Tracker, first

Create a study on Movebank.
Start up a data feed to your deployed tags. For Argos PTTs without GPS, please contact us to have them included in the app.
Link your tag data to animals using deployments, and be sure to provide a taxon, including a genus and species name.

Once the study is prepared, the Study Type must be set to "Research". Next, set your permissions on Movebank and connect to the Animal Tracker as described below.

Set permissions in Movebank

To add your Movebank study to the Animal Tracker,

Go to Share > Permissions.

Image of the Studies page in Movebank with the Permissions option under the Share menu circled.

Check the box next to Allow access by Animal Tracker?

Then, if you want to allow the public to view your tracks and contribute observations,

Follow the instructions to Allow the public to view the study and download data.
Uncheck the box next to Prompt users to accept license terms.
Check the box next to Allow access of public data by Animal Tracker.
Select Save.

To make data visible only to your research team in the app,

Keep your permissions settings as they are.
Check the box next to Allow access of private data by Animal Tracker user.
Click Select to see a list of Data Managers for your study. Select one Data Manager to be the administrator for this study within the Animal Tracker app.

Image of the Permissions menu with the Animal Tracker App section at the bottom circled.

Select Save.

It may take up to a day before your data appear in the app.

Connect the Animal Tracker to your animals in Movebank

To display animals in the Animal Tracker App, connect it to your Movebank account by following these steps:

Go to https://animaltracker.app/sign_in, create an account if needed, and log in with your Animal Tracker username and password.

Image of the sign in screen of the Animal Tracker App.

Select Movebank verbinden to connect to Movebank.

Image of the landing screen that appears once a user has logged in.

Provide your Movebank credentials to connect your Animal Tracker account with your Movebank account.

Image of the screen that requests a user's Movebank credentials needed to connect an account to the app.

Invite other users in Animal Tracker to see the data

Once logged in at http://animaltracker.app, follow these steps to allow others to access private data in the Animal Tracker:

Choose the animals that you want to share privately.

Image of the Dashboard menu with an animal's ID circled.

Select user management.

Image of animal summary page with the User Management option at the bottom of the menu on the left circled.

Select invite user.

Image of the User Management menu with the INvite User option at the top right circled.

Enter the email address of the person you want to provide access to.

Image of the Invite User prompt screen, which has a field for the recipient's email and another for a message to be sent to them.

View the status of users you have shared with and pending invitations. From here you can also withdraw a user's access to animals by clicking delete next to the name.

Image of the User Management menu after a user has been invited and the invitation has been accepted.

Delete connection to Movebank

If you want to interrupt your connection between Movebank and the Animal Tracker, go to Movebank connection and click on delete Movebank connection. You can reestablish the connection at any time.

Image of a menu with the Movebank Connection option circled.

Image of the screen that the Movebank Connection option opens, showing the Delete Connection button.

Support

For questions about the app, contact animaltracker@ab.mpg.de.