Your first sign-in: linking your account to a trail site
What Sentinel shows when a brand-new account has no site yet, and the two ways to get one: create your own from a computer, or get invited.
You've just installed Sentinel, you sign in, and the app tells you one last step is missing. That's normal: an account and a trail site are two different things, and you have the first without having the second yet.
This page explains what happens at that moment, and the two ways out of it.
Where: the first screen of the mobile app after signing in, and the home page of the web app as long as no site is linked to your account.
Signing in, without a password
Sentinel has no password. You enter your email, you tap Continue, and a verification code is emailed to you. You type it in, you tap Validate, and you're in.
If the code doesn't arrive, Resend code generates a new one — and it's worth checking the junk folder, by far the most common cause.
The same email covers signing in and signing up: there aren't two forms to choose between.
If the page opens in the wrong language, the FR / EN selector sits in the top-right corner of every screen of this flow, on the web app. You don't need to be signed in to use it, and the choice sticks on that browser.
An account is not a trail site
This is the only concept you need for what follows.
Your account is you. Your email, your name, your preferences, your notifications. It follows you from one site to another.
A trail site is the organization. Its trails, its tasks, its structures, its members, its roles, its subscription. Every bit of content in Sentinel belongs to a site — which is why an account without one has nothing to show.
You can belong to several sites: a bike club and a municipality, for instance. You switch between them without signing out.
The "One last step" screen
On mobile, an account with no site opens straight to this screen. There's no map behind it, and that's deliberate: nothing loads and nothing tracks your position as long as there is no data to show.
The screen an account sees before it has a site.
- 1Create my site opens the setup wizard in your browser.
- 2Get me invited shares your account address — the one shown right below it.
- 3I am done, check again re-reads your account without restarting the app.
At the bottom, two quiet links stay available: Settings, for your profile and notifications, and Log out, in case you used the wrong email.
The same screen, in the web app
If you sign in from a computer, you don't land on the dashboard but on Welcome to Sentinel, which lays out the same two paths one under the other.
The home page of an account that doesn't have a workspace yet, in the web app.
- 1Create my workspace is the highlighted one: it's the usual path on a computer.
- 2Join an existing account isn't a button — it's a reminder of what has to happen.
- 3The address the invitation has to be sent to, so no one gets it wrong.
The second block isn't clickable, and that's fine. Joining an organization isn't up to you: the block simply reminds you that an administrator has to invite you, and that the invitation will show up here on its own.
When an invitation is waiting, the page changes entirely. It shows the logo and the name of the organization inviting you, who sent the invitation, the activities practised there, and the role you were given — so you know what you are stepping into before you accept. Two actions are left, Accept and Decline; creating a workspace of your own becomes a plain link at the bottom.
If two organizations invite you at the same time, the page lists them one under the other, each with its logo, who is inviting and the role planned for you. Sentinel doesn't choose for you.
Nothing to refresh. As long as you stay on this page, it listens: if you just asked an administrator for your invitation, it shows up on its own the moment they send it. That applies to this page only — nothing shifts under your hands while you are going through the workspace setup.
Creating your site from a computer
This is the path for whoever is setting Sentinel up for their organization. Do it on a computer, not on the phone: it involves dropping track files, which is far more comfortable with a keyboard.
Open app.trail-sentinel.com/onboarding. You'll be asked to sign in if you haven't already, then the wizard walks you through five steps.
About you. Three quick questions: the kind of organization you run, your role, and how you heard about Sentinel.
Your network. The activities practised where you are — mountain biking, hiking, cross-country skiing, snowmobiling… — which one opens by default, and roughly how big the network is. You can add more later, as covered on the activities page.
Your workspace. The organization's name, its logo if you have one handy, and the address. The address field suggests matches as soon as you type, and the address has to be picked from the list — with the mouse or the arrow keys; city, province, country and postal code then fill themselves in. The address is what centres your map on your territory, and that's why it goes through the list: it has to be an address that really exists. If yours doesn't come up — common for a forest road or a rural address — pick the closest existing one; you can always change it later. This is the step that creates the site — and you are its administrator.
Your plan. The first 30 days give access to everything, free and with no credit card. You choose afterwards. If you're a non-profit or a volunteer club, a banner offers the Community plan: full access, free, on request.
Your trails. Drop your track files — .gpx, .kml, .kmz, or a Shapefile .zip. Sentinel creates one trail per track found in the main activity, showing them on a map as they come in. This step can be skipped: nothing stops you from importing later from trails.
At the end, the wizard announces that your workspace is ready, counts the trails imported, and opens your dashboard.
Getting invited
This is the path for whoever is joining an organization that's already set up. You can't add yourself: an administrator has to invite you, and they do it from members.
Only one thing matters: the address. The invitation goes to one specific email, and it's only recognized by the account carrying that exact email. That's what the Get me invited button is for: it opens your phone's share sheet with a ready-made message containing your address, to send by text or email to whoever manages access.
You have nothing to accept. When an invitation arrives and you have no site yet, it applies itself: Sentinel accepts it and opens the site. You don't even need to be in the app at the right moment.
Unless there are several. Two organizations inviting you at once? Sentinel won't choose for you: a Pending invitation card appears, with the name of the person inviting and the name of the site, and you Accept or Decline.
What you see next depends on the role you were given — see roles. Two people on the same site don't necessarily get the same sections.
Checking without restarting the app
The screen listens continuously: the moment the invitation goes out, it should switch on its own. But when you've just hung up with the person who invited you, waiting isn't satisfying.
I am done, check again re-reads your account on demand. If there's still nothing, the screen says so — "Still nothing on that side." — instead of leaving a spinner running with no answer. It isn't an error: the invitation simply hasn't been sent yet, or it went to a different address.
Permissions, on the first launch
Once your site is attached, the mobile app doesn't open on the map yet. It shows Welcome to Sentinel first, then walks you through a few screens that explain, one by one, what it needs from your phone.
There are four steps, and each says what the permission is for before asking for it:
| Step | What you lose without it |
|---|---|
| Location | Seeing yourself on the map, creating a task at your position, scanning what's around you |
| Camera | Photographing a problem on site — you can still attach a photo you already took |
| Microphone | Voice memos and dictation — typing still works |
| Notifications | Alerts for assigned tasks, messages, and pending synchronization |
Nothing is mandatory, but location changes everything. Without it you can read and edit; you lose everything that depends on your position. The detail is in the geolocation settings.
A step you've already settled doesn't come back. Sentinel only explains the permissions still missing. And as long as one is missing that your phone will still answer for, the screen returns on the next launch — deliberately: a team that discovers three months later that its GPS was never allowed has lost three months of positions.
After a refusal, the screen stops coming back. Your phone won't let the question be asked again; it has to go through its settings. Sentinel points you there instead of nagging you for nothing.
Three things worth knowing
Whoever creates the site is its administrator. They're the one who invites everyone else and manages the subscription. So create the site with the account of the person who will actually look after it, not with a throwaway address.
Nothing is lost if you take the wrong path. An account created "for nothing" bothers no one: it waits for an invitation. There's no phantom site to delete as long as you haven't finished the wizard.
The mobile app doesn't need reinstalling. Once the site is linked, the map opens and the data comes down to the phone on its own — the subject of the page on working offline.