Receiving data from Movebank

Prerequisites
Configuration Guide
Click to Expand
Note on Latency
Troubleshooting

Website: https://www.movebank.org/cms/movebank-main

This article explains how to integrate Movebank with EarthRanger. It guides Movebank users on sharing their data with EarthRanger, and shows EarthRanger users how to receive movement data from a Movebank study to automatically create Sources, Subjects, and observations in their site.

Prerequisites

Data Source (Movebank)

Movebank Study ID.
If the study is not public, the study must include the Movebank user EarthRanger_Integrations as a 'Collaborator'.

Data Delivery (EarthRanger)

To send event data to EarthRanger, you will need:

A special EarthRanger user (e.g., “Gundi Service Account”) for this integration. Please refer to EarthRanger's documentation or contact Support.
A long-lived token for authentication assigned to the user created in the previous step. Please refer to EarthRanger's documentation or contact Support.

Configuration Guide

Integration Requires Assistance

Self-Service integration not available yet. Requires assistance from Support.

This integration requires assistance from our support team for setup and configuration. Please contact our support team at support@earthranger.com and we’ll guide you through the process to ensure everything is set up correctly.

We are actively working to make this integration self-service in the future. Stay tuned for updates!

Click to Expand

Audience: Support Team

Important:

Create one inbound configuration per study ID.

Go to Gundi v1.

Go to the Inbound Integrations and select Add Integration.

Follow the steps below to configure the integration.

Name: Enter a suitable name (e.g., "Sitename - Movebank - StudyID")

Owner: Select the integration's owner

Type: Movebank

Provider Key: Leave empty. Gundi will automatically give it a name.

Default Device Group: Leave empty. Gundi will automatically create a default group.

Endpoint: https://www.movebank.org/movebank/service/direct-read

Token: Leave empty

Login/Password: EarthRanger_Integrations and its password. See 1Password.

State:

{
 "maximum_lookback_hours": 24,
 "studies": [
   {
     "id": "StudyID",
     "name": ""
   }
 ]
}

Example:

{
 "maximum_lookback_hours": 24,
 "studies": [
   {
     "id": "1345147839",
     "name": ""
   }
 ]
}

Click Save

Configure the Default Device Group to select the destination site.

Note on Latency

The time it takes for data to appear in your destination system depends on several factors, such as latency introduced by the source, network conditions, and intermediary systems. While these factors may vary, Gundi typically checks for available data at scheduled intervals (approximately every 10 minutes).

If data is not available in your system after this interval, please check the source of the data for its availability. If the issue persists, contact our Support team for assistance.

Troubleshooting

Can't see a tag in EarthRanger?

Confirm that the individual is available in the Movebank study.
Confirm that the study has been shared with EarthRanger (user EarthRanger_Integrations)
Confirm that the individual has data in Movebank.
Confirm that tag “Time of Last Location” in Movebank is within the time window defined in Gundi (maximum_lookback_hours).

Read more: Confluence (Audience: Support)

Tags: Animal Tracking, Movement Data, Gundi v1, Pull Integration, Data Provider
Last Update: September 12, 2025

Index