Creating and Running a Subject Tracking Workflow

Results Dashboard
The Dashboard May Display (depending on configuration):
Configure New Workflow
Data Source
Workflow Details
Time Range
Subject Group
Group Data (Optional)
Advanced Configurations
Trajectory Segment Filter
Map Base Layers
Time Density Map
Run the Workflow
View the Dashboard

This guide walks you through how to create, configure, run, and visualize a Subject Tracking Workflow in Ecoscope. This workflow type is designed to analyze movement data from tracked subjects, such as wildlife or vehicles, using your connected data source.

Results Dashboard

When a Subject Tracking Workflow is successfully run, it produces a dashboard with multiple components tailored to the configuration choices you made. The dashboard helps you visualize and explore movement data across space and time. The dashboard is the full results page generated by your workflow. It’s made up of widgets that are individual panels such as maps, charts, or metrics and update based on the data you selected in your configuration.

The Dashboard May Display (depending on configuration):

Summary Metrics: Total time tracked, distance traveled, average and maximum speed, number of locations and night/day ratio. These provide a quick snapshot of subject movement metrics over the selected time range.

Map Panels:
- Trajectory Map – Shows subject movement paths classified according to the speed of movement (green=slow, red=fast)
- Home Range Map – Visualizes area of activity based on the time spent by the subject
  Night/Day Map – Shows the subject’s movements during nighttime and daytime, based on local sunrise and sunset times. This means in some regions or seasons (like Arctic winters), night may cover the entire da
Charts and Graphs:
- Net Squared Displacement (NSD) – Shows the square of the displacement from the first location to each subsequent location over time in the dataset, often used to analyze movement loops, range shifts, or migration behavior
Dashboard Features:
- Filter results based on grouping criteria you defined during configuration
- Rearrange dashboard widgets to suit your preferred layout
- Download individual widgets (maps & plots) as PNG images via the camera icon on each panel

Configure New Workflow

To create a new workflow, navigate to Workflow Templates from the top navigation bar and select Subject Tracking Workflow.

Data Source

Select a data source from the dropdown. If only one data source is configured, it will be selected automatically and you will be shown the Workflow Configuration page.
Note: You won’t be able to proceed unless at least one data source has been connected.

Workflow Details

This section allows you to name and describe your workflow so that it’s easy to find and identify your workflow. Especially if you’re managing multiple workflows across projects and data sources.

Workflow Name: This must be unique. If you try to submit a name that has already been used, you’ll receive a validation error.
Workflow Description: This is optional. The description will be displayed on the dashboard to help you or your team remember the configuration context or analytical purpose of the workflow.

Time Range

This section defines the time window of the data you want to analyze. The selected time range determines how much data will be pulled from your data source and directly impacts what’s displayed on your dashboard.
You will configure:

Since - Start date and time
Until - End date and time
Timezone - Required to provide fidelity over precise time selection

Subject Group

In this section you’ll choose a Subject Group from your connected EarthRanger site. Subject Groups are managed in EarthRanger and reflect how tracked subjects are grouped and displayed on EarthRanger.

Key details:

You must select one subject group per workflow
The selected group determines from which subjects the movement data will be pulled from
Subject group names are imported directly from your selected data source
If you don’t see your Subject Groups listed please refer to Common

Group Data (Optional)

The Group Data section allows you to break your workflow results into multiple views within a single dashboard.
When you switch between views, every data-driven widget (maps, charts, metrics) updates automatically to show the filtered data. If a widget were ever static (e.g., a logo or text box), it wouldn’t change — but all movement-based visualizations will.

You can group by:

Category: Subject Name, Subject Subtype, or Subject Sex
Time: Year, Month, Year and Month, Day of Year, Day of Month, Day of Week, Hour, or Date
You can only apply one kind of grouping in Ecoscope’s default workflows — either category-based or time-based, not both.

Each grouping option you select will generate a separate view. For example:

Grouping by Subject Name will create one view per individual subject.
Grouping by Month will generate a view for each month in the selected time range.

This feature is especially useful when comparing data across individuals or time intervals without needing to create multiple workflows.

Keep in mind: More groupings result in more views, which may increase the processing time for the workflow.

While it’s possible to add multiple groupings, keep in mind that each additional grouping increases the number of views and may increase processing time. Ecoscope currently does not limit the number of groupings, but we recommend using only those necessary to support your analysis.

Advanced Configurations

The sections that follow—Trajectory Segment Filter, Map Base Layers, and Time Density Map—are considered advanced configuration options. These settings are not required to run a workflow, and Ecoscope provides sensible defaults that work well for most use cases.
However, if you have specific analytical goals or need to fine-tune how your data is visualized and processed, these options allow you to:

Clean and filter noisy trajectory data
Customize the look and layering of your dashboard maps
Adjust how time-based patterns are rendered in heatmaps

Trajectory Segment Filter

Default values are pre-configured and suitable for most use cases.
This section allows you to filter movement segments based on duration, distance, and speed thresholds to reduce noise and focus on meaningful data.

Fields include:

Minimum and Maximum Segment Length
Minimum and Maximum Segment Duration
Minimum and Maximum Segment Speed

Map Base Layers

This section controls the visual layers used in the dashboard map views. Note that adding more than one map will result in the first basemap being drawn first, then the other basemaps layered on top with the last basemap being the topmost layer. Use the opacity to adjust how these interact.

The following basemaps are available from the dropdown.

OpenStreetMap
Roadmap
Satellite
Terrain
LandDx
USGS Hillshade
Custom Layer (Advanced)

For most basemaps, you will configure:

A Preset Layer URL - This is automatically filled in by the system
Layer Opacity setting (1 = fully visible, 0 = hidden)

Default Configuration: A Terrain map as the base layer, with a Satellite layer set to 50% opacity overlay.

Custom Layer (Advanced)
If you select Custom Layer, additional fields will appear to allow for full customization. These are intended for users who need to connect their own tile server or third-party map service.

Custom Layer fields include:

Custom URL – Enter the direct URL template to your tile server (e.g., https://your.tileserver.com/{z}/{x}/{y}.png)
Custom Layer Opacity – Adjust transparency as with other layers
Custom Layer Max Zoom – The highest zoom level at which the layer should display
Custom Layer Min Zoom – The lowest zoom level allowed for the layer

Time Density Map

This section configures a heatmap based on how much time Subjects spent in different areas.

You can choose one of two options:

Auto Scale (default) – Ecoscope automatically optimizes the grid resolution.
Customize – Set your own Grid Cell Size, Max Speed Factor, and Shape Buffer Expansion Factor.

The percentile levels show you the relative time spent across the landscape. I.e., the 50th percentile includes those grid cells that were most heavily used and that 50 percent of the time spent was within the 50th percentile. 60% of time spent was spent within the 60th percentile contour. And 99.999% of the time spent by the subject was within the 99.999% contour.