Hubs and Iconic Species

You will receive an email from SmartyGrants with a unique link to the Acquittal Report Template Form.

1. Log in to SmartyGrants via the link in your email.
2. Click on the Acquittal tab.
3. Click on 'My Submissions' and select your project number.
4. Click on the form labelled ‘BOA - Biodiversity Hubs Final Acquittal Report (2020)’ or ‘BOA - Iconic Species Final Acquittal Report (2020).

You may submit your report any time prior to the due date. You can save a draft copy of the report at any time in SmartyGrants, for later submission.

Please keep a copy of your project plan and funding agreement/MoU/SoE handy while filling out this form. We will cross reference your report against those documents to ensure all activities have been carried out.

Information provided may be used to contribute to a case study to demonstrate and highlight program achievements.

Note: Only one user can be registered with SmartyGrants per project, so the notification email will be sent to the SmartyGrants registered user which is often the person that submitted the original application form.

Troubleshooting

If you want to change the access of your form to another user, please email your project number, new contact person and new email address to enviro.grants@delwp.vic.gov.au. Both the previous and new user will be notified via SmartyGrants.

If you did not receive a link from SmartyGrants, you can log into SmartyGrants here.

If you have forgotten your password, click the option to reset password on the SmartyGrants login page.

When spatially recording and reporting your Biodiversity Hubs or Iconic Species activity data, please remember the following:

Project ID: Please enter 2017BOAHubs*** or BOA2017Icon*** (*** your unique application number).

Funding Source: Please select "BOA Regional biodiversity hubs" or " BOA Icon species " from the drop-down menu.

Indicate in SmartyGrants the method you are using to provide spatial data.

Options for submitting spatial data.

There are two options for submitting spatial data for Biodiversity Hubs or Iconic Species projects.

Option A - Organisations that DO NOT have existing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) capability

Option A. If you do not have existing spatial recording capability, ActivityKit will be the easiest tool for you to use.

A link to ActivityKit together with instructions and help guides for registration and using ActivityKit are available here.

It would be appreciated if those providing their activity data using ActivityKit to provide supplementary data in the ‘Supplementary data_ActivityKit_DELWP Standard Outputs’ Excel template provided.

Mapping in ActivityKit (PDF, 257.1 KB) - this shows how to accurately represent your projects and activities (if using ActivityKit).

ActivityKit fields and attributes guide (PDF, 232.0 KB) - this describes the data fields used in Activity Kit (which align to the DELWP Output Data Standards)

Tutorial videos - the best place to get an understanding of ActivityKit.

Visit the Activity Data webpage for the full suite of information and accessible versions of the above documents.

Option B - Organisations that have existing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) capability

Organisations that have existing Geographic Information Systems (GIS) capability can use their existing systems to record their activities.

Activity data can be supplied using the 'Biodiversity 2037 activity data requirements' shapefile templates provided on the Activity Data web page.  Valid values for these shapefiles are provided in the ‘Biodiversity 2037 Activity data requirements’ document. Please ensure these values are applied.

The completed shapefiles should be an attachment in your SmartyGrants report.

The DELWP output data standards file geodatabase template can be used ( DELWP Output Data Standards, Version 2); this is most suitable for CMAs. If providing data in this format it would be appreciated if supplementary data could be also provided using the ‘Supplementary data_ActivityKit_DELWP’ Excel template.

The completed geodatabase and Excel template should be attached in your SmartyGrants report.

Further information is available on the Activity Data web page, which aims to support a broad range of users. Visit the Activity Data web page for the full suite of information and accessible versions of the above documents.

This component is only required if your project included species data collection.

More information and guides on how to use the Victorian Biodiversity Atlas (VBA) can be accessed here.

Instructions for providing data to the VBA

Contribution of data to the VBA is open to all at https://vba.dse.vic.gov.au. 

First time users need to sign up as a contributor ('Sign Up' button) and complete the form. Registration approval may take a couple of days. Once approved you will be able to add records to the VBA.

Options for Submitting data to the VBA

Species observations can be recorded using VBA or VBA Go.

A collection of short help videos on how to register and contribute records to VBA and VBA Go are here: https://publish.viostream.com/play/c-nu95w3n

Specifically, and in order of importance, it is most valuable to record: 

• Threatened species (monitored or incidental)
• Incidental observations of other native species
• Controlled populations of feral animal species (particularly pigs, goats and deer)
• Controlled populations of invasive weed species

Instructions for using VBA

VBA is best for recording structured data, typically surveys with one or more sampling methods grouped together at a location on specified days.

Contribution of data to the VBA is open to all at https://vba.dse.vic.gov.au. 

First time users need to sign up as a contributor ('Sign Up' button) and complete the form. Registration approval may take a couple of days. Once approved you will be able to add records to the VBA.

Your VBA project must include 2017BOAHubs*** OR BOA2017Icon*** (*** your unique application number) in the VBA Project description field.

Information and guides on the data standard and how to use the VBA can be accessed here.

All species records collected under the Biodiversity Hubs or Iconic Species funding in VBA must be associated with a VBA Project. The instructions below provide detailed guidance to create a project and surveys in the VBA.

VBA Contribute - Create a project.pdf

VBA Contribute - Add a survey and species records to a project.pdf

If you have a large volume of records to submit, you can use the VBA batch upload function. This requires you to populate an excel template to upload data to the VBA. There are two videos that explain how to batch upload records in the VBA and how to prepare the batch upload template here. To request access to the VBA batch upload function and batch upload templates and instructions please email vba.help@delwp.vic.gov.au.

Instructions for using VBA Go

Even if you have not been specifically surveying for native species, any species occurrence records you have collected as part of your project are valuable to us (including invasive species). General observations can be recorded using VBA (as described in the instructions in the section above) or VBA Go.

VBA Go is a mobile tool that links directly to the Victorian Biodiversity Atlas, making it easier to share records of Victoria’s native species while out and about. VBA Go uses your existing VBA login detail and can be accessed here: https://www.environment.vic.gov.au/biodiversity/victorian-biodiversity-atlas/vba-go

Note: previous advice was to not use VBA Go, because the mobile version of the tool has limited functionality (e.g. observations made in VBA Go cannot be linked to a Project, rather they are classified as a “general observation”). However, we understand that the lack of a mobile tool may be a barrier to some projects recording species observations, and therefore now allow the use of VBA Go, provided that you attach your downloaded species list in your Biodiversity Hubs or Iconic Species Completion Report.

Whether using VBA or VBA Go, please ensure that at reporting time you download a species report from your VBA account and attach it to your Biodiversity Hubs or Iconic Species Completion Report in SmartyGrants.