CATE online recording

[admin]

CATE is now advancing with great speed and is approaching the first half million record threshold, having recently received endorsement from several of the most senior figures in UK field mycology.

I am very pleased to be able to announce that the CATE online recording development programme got underway yesterday with the IT team, on time and on budget, and should take about 1 month to complete. This is a really exciting development because for those who have Internet access (i.e. most recorders) the entire recording programme will now be accessible online.

What this will mean in practice is that you, the recorder, will log in and be greeted by the familiar Species Recorder panel with all its 'click-click' drop down lists. You will be able to enter your records just as you do now, but will Save to the CATE remote server (as well as offline to your own hard drive if you so wish). You will recover those records from the User database on the server with one click when you want to add more, and the upload process to the main CATE database will be even more streamlined than it is now.

Among the many advantages will be:
Heightened security
Quick updates of the species dictionary in real time
Quick updates of your bespoke data in real time
No more loading and reloading of Excel software versions
Quick saving of your data to an offline Excel, Access or .csv file at any time that you choose

As soon as the recording system is in place, all existing CATE recorders will be issued with log in details.

Meantime don't forget that you can now call up all your own records on CATE by filling in the new Search by Collector box.

CATE is going places and is now recognised by more and more authorities to be turning into the most authoritative and scientifically accurate UK fungus records database.

MJ

[JohnG]

A hearty cheer from me on behalf of Mac users. You didn't list platform independence among the advantages but, for some of us, it will be so much better to have the on-line data entry.
Thanks and keep up the good work!
John

[Leif Goodwin]

The magazine arrived today, and I was very impressed to read that CATE has recently received records from some very highly respected people including Roy Watling and Gordon Dickson. Quite an achievement I think! That reminds me, I have to register with CATE so that I can enter my modest records ...