Thanks for your post

Where appropriate, data from LSPECS or ESdat Web is visible in ESdat Desktop for users to interrogate, which is the case for Monitoring Rounds and Location Visits.

As you point out, there are some columns (ie Monitoring Rounds.Assigned_ToContactID) which are visible through ESdat Desktop, which are less appropriate (and may cause confusion).  We will hide those columns in ESdat Desktop in the next update, thankyou for bringing those to our attention.

The Location Visits & zRef_Contacts tables are useful for viewing LSPECS data in ESdat, but would also not be useful for inputting data if you are not using LSPECS or ESdat Web functions. Hence we will be removing the option to generate the associated Import Template for that Table in the next update to minimise potential confusion.

The best way to generate a Monitoring Round record is to either select "Create Missing Parent Records" when importing field chemistry, or inputting directly into that table (ignoring those cryptic fields you have identified).  This enforces consistency in re-use of specific Monitoring Rounds and enables the use of Drop-Downs (which wasn't previously available for Monitoring Round columns in version 4 of ESdat).

We agree - the best way to learn particular use cases for ESdat is in context. 

A series of Tutorials that do this for the main use cases are at http://www.ESdat.net/ESdathelp/tutorials.htm.

We're always keen to receive user suggestions regarding Tutorial content and this can be done through our LinkedIn page http://www.linkedin.com/grp/post/4122096-5981935406873063428 

Similarly, we are keen to identify where the User Manual needs to be improved, you can see it at http://www.ESdat.net/ESdathelp/.  It also has a search tool, at the top of the page, that can search across all of the Manual, the Tutorials, the Forum and Handy Hints.

Regards,

Tom