Wildnote Reviews

Pros

Building project-specific forms in it is pretty simple and efficient which has been a big plus. The web interface is also really useful for reviewing photos and checking QA/QC on completed forms. On top of that, their team responds quickly when issues come up or questions need answering and their customer service has been excellent. Setting up projects is fairly simple too although creating custom forms for each project can eventually leave you with a huge form library that becomes tough to manage.

Cons

There is definitely a learning curve for new users and the Help Center is starting to feel a little outdated. We ended up putting together our own internal manual to guide project managers through the setup process. Preloading location names is also somewhat frustrating and makes it harder to track what has actually been collected. Another issue is that software or device updates on iOS and Android seem to regularly introduce glitches or process changes. It would also help to have a settings option on more web screens like the projects home page or project data pages so users could customize which fields they want to see. Pricing can also get pretty high at the institutional level so some kind of package option would be appreciated. Lastly, the app and web platform use the terms "survey" and "form" interchangeably which is confusing, using just "form" would make things clearer.

Pros

Getting up to speed with this platform was very simple and it worked well for me on both mobile and desktop. The QA/QC tools, data management and export options could all be customized to fit what I needed. Since it's form-based, I really appreciated being able to either build a form from scratch or modify an existing template which made it much easier to guide surveyors toward collecting exactly the data I wanted through the question setup. The export functionality also saved me a lot of time during analysis because I didn't have to bring in a GIS team.

Cons

photo management side felt fairly limited so I still handled most of my photo naming and organization outside of the app.

Pros

It takes very little time to understand and the platform is incredibly user-friendly. It scales well whether the job is a large project or a small one-off, mainly because customizing reports is fast and flexible. The species lists, custom lists and how searchable those lists are are honestly the best I've come across in the industry.

Cons

The only gap I've really noticed is the lack of a way to create simple formulas inside a form that automatically calculate values based on collected field data. For example, it would be helpful to enter an area in hectares and have acres populate automatically or to record turbidity in NTUs and have it compare against TSS values while flagging compliance exceedances. That kind of functionality could be very useful and depending on the cost, it's something we may want to look into this winter.

Pros

This has been a really flexible tool for our team and we've been able to adapt it to match the specific needs of our projects. The recent updates have also made a noticeable difference, with the system feeling more user-friendly and the overall workflow much more organized.

Cons

The export format still has some room for improvement especially when it comes to customizing it for certain submittal requirements. A few of the forms can also be a bit buggy at times.

Pros

It has a lot of useful functionality and one of the best parts is how well it can adapt reports to fit almost any reporting situation.

Cons

Using it out in the field can be a bit challenging in more remote locations and having to sync it repeatedly can be frustrating at times especially when reception is weak.

Pros

This product has really improved how our firm handles field reports while we're onsite. Every photo gets saved directly in Wildnote which keeps everything organized in one place. The reports we export come out looking professional and they're also simple to customize to fit what we need.

Cons

Honestly, I don't have any complaints about it. On the rare occasions we've run into issues, the support team has been incredibly helpful in getting things resolved and sometimes they even make updates to the app based on that feedback.

Pros

it does a really nice job supporting monitoring and survey work, not only for wildlife but also for a range of other scientific factors tied to a project. It's flexible and customizable which makes it useful across different field needs.

Cons

The survey coding can feel complex and unreliable at times which can cause problems with saving data, getting the form outputs you want and other backend-related issues that end up needing to be reported. That said, their team responds quickly and is very easy to work with.

Pros

Being able to use the software from my phone and add pictures directly into the report form is really helpful.

Cons

Editing the survey forms can be frustrating and is harder than it should be.

Pros

Setup was fairly simple and it has been incredibly useful out in the field for wetland delineations especially for team members who are still new to wetland work. The complete plant name list is extremely valuable too. We save a huge amount of time when finalizing forms since most of the information is already filled in. It has also improved consistency across our staff because everyone is now completing the same form the same way.

Cons

We've run into a few issues with the plant lists not being completely accurate such as outdated taxonomy, incorrect regional wetland indicator statuses and some plants missing that we expected to find. That said, we've been able to request updates and Wildnote has been very responsive about making those changes. Another challenge is that finding and selecting Gley soil colors is still really difficult.

Pros

Setting up forms in it is simple and they can be fully customized to fit just about any project. I moved our Environmental and Cultural Resources paper recording forms into Wildnote which reduced our paper use and kept all project information stored together in one online place. The cloud-based data management has also been a big plus, along with support for different tablets and even smartphones. Because of that, the software and the data are both easy to access while traveling for field projects.

Cons

I'd really like to see broader compatibility and better synchronization with ArcCollector and other geospatial recording software.