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Alberta.ca Account
Part of Forestry legislation and guidelines

Spatial Data Directives Submission Portal

Disposition holders can submit regulatory datasets to the Forestry Division.

Overview

The Spatial Data Directives (SDD) Submission Portal enables Disposition Holders to submit these datasets to the Alberta government:

  • General Development Plan (GDP)
  • Annual Operating Plan (AOP)
  • Reforestation Program (RFR)
  • Final Harvest Areas (CCP)
  • Silvicultural Activities (SAP)
  • Other specified forestry datasets

Data submissions must follow the spatial digital data submission standards and other standards in Forestry directives and standard operating procedures.

Personal information

Your information is protected under the Protection of Privacy Act (POPA).

Accessing the SDD portal

A company representative must set up a portal account to submit SDD data. This account provides basic identifying information for the company submitting data submissions. There are 2 steps involved in setting up an account:

Sign up or log into the Alberta.ca Account for business use

The Alberta.ca Account for business use provides standard access and security functions for using a variety of Government of Alberta services, including the SDD Submission Portal.

Learn more about the Alberta.ca Account for business use.

Continue to Alberta.ca Account

Next request a SDD submission portal account

Once you have your valid Alberta.ca Account, you will be able to create an SDD Submission Portal account.

The SDD submission portal account tracks data submissions and submission validation status basic contact information is required to support the submission and tracking process. A SDD administrator will review your request and contact you to either approve or reject your request. 

Submit data

The process for submitting either Final Harvest Areas, Silvicultural Activities or Other submissions involves the following steps:

Step 1. Download data template

Use these templates to upload your SDD data and submit it for review. There is one template for each SDD data type, based on the 2 UTM zones covering the province.

Download the appropriate SDD template for your operating area:

  • UTM Zone 11
  • UTM Zone 12

The templates are provided as an Esri® File Geodatabase (FGDB) stored in a zip file. This FGDB contains the feature class that must be populated with the SDD data you are submitting.

Step 2. Load SDD Data

Using the downloaded SDD template, upload your data to the SDD feature class contained in the FGDB provided. The content and structure of your data must comply with the Spatial Data Directives specifications.

Once your data has been loaded into the FGDB, it must be compressed into a standard zip file to enable upload to the SDD Submission Portal as a data package. To be accepted to the portal, this zip file:

  • cannot be password enabled
  • must contain a valid SDD FGDB name according to SDD standards
  • must only contain one SDD FGDB
  • must be less than or equal to 10 megabytes in size

Step 3. Upload data package

If it meets the submission requirements, upload your zip file data package to the SDD portal for evaluation and acceptance. Log onto the SDD portal and navigate to the submission page. You will be asked to enter some submission information:

  1. ARIS Stakeholder Code: is your unique four-character code that has been assigned to your company through ARIS.
  2. User Reference: is a text field that allows you to identify the submission using your own terms of reference. For example, you may enter the name of the company’s Working Compartment that the data comes from.
  3. Select the SDD Submission Type. Your options are:
  • Final Harvest Areas (CCP)
  • Silvicultural Activities (SAP)
  • Other (OTH)
  1. Notes: is a text field that allows you to enter a brief comment regarding the submission for clarification.

Once you fill in this information and agree to the terms of use, select the upload button to navigate to your zip file and upload it to the portal. If it meets the basic zip file requirements as outlined in the previous section it will be uploaded to the portal.

After the data package is uploaded

The CCP or SAP data package is then filtered through a basic Quality Control process that will immediately evaluate the content and structure of your data. If your data passes this step it will be assigned to an auditor for further visual review and evaluation.

If the submission fails, an email will be sent to the data provider with a report detailing errors found. You will also be able to download a QC data package containing an FGDB with features classes and tables detailing spatial and attribute errors encountered. This will aid in locating and fixing errors.

How to track your submission

In addition to the initial content and structure validation, a spatial and business rule audit will be performed on your submission. These are basically visual reviews to ensure the data meets the requirements of the SDD specifications. You can track the progress of your submission through the portal as it moves through these stages.

Other Submissions (OTH)

No automated validations will be performed on these data submissions. Since these datasets are manually validated, the submissions will not appear in the tracking system.

When you select the ‘Upload Data Submission for Audit’ option on the Data Provider page, you will see a third choice – ‘Other Submissions – OTH’ – in addition to the 2 SDD Submission Types CCP and SAP.

This third option allows for securely uploading data submissions that were formerly uploaded to a GoA SFTP site (which has been decommissioned). This includes the datasets under ‘Spatial Data Directive No. 2 - General Development Plan/Annual Operating Plan/Reforestation Program’. In the future, more types of data submissions could be allowed.

When using ‘Other Submissions – OTH’, you will still need to fill in information such as your organization’s Stakeholder code. Make sure to affirm the ‘Terms of Use’ check box.

To submit data, navigate to the location on your network where your data submission zip file is located and select it. Once it’s selected, click on the ‘Submit Package for Audit’ button to complete the upload. If there are no errors with the zip file, you will receive a message indicating your submission has been uploaded.

Documents and templates

Contact

For questions about the Spatial Data Directives, data submissions or accounts:

Email: [email protected]