Frequently asked questions

Yes. Sentinel saves your data locally and syncs automatically when you're back online.

From 2 volunteers to 50 employees. The offering adapts to your needs.

Absolutely. Hosted in Canada, end-to-end encryption, and compliant with Canadian standards.

Yes, in PDF or Excel, with timestamped and geolocated photos.

Organizations that maintain trails: network managers, outdoor centers, bike centers, resorts, sport clubs and municipalities. Among them, Stowe Trails Partnership and Slate Valley Trails in Vermont, Copper Harbor Trails in Michigan, Sentiers du Moulin, Mont-Sainte-Anne and Contact Nature in Quebec, and Val d'Isère in France. The full list is on the customers page.

Trails are the core of the product, but the model — geolocated tasks, inspected structures, projects, checklists — applies to any outdoor territory that needs upkeep. Contact Nature, a conservation organization in Quebec, uses it for its hiking, snowshoeing and cross-country ski trails, but also for its ice fishing villages and the 92 fishing pools of a salmon river. Same tasks, same infrastructure inspections, same quality controls, on different objects.

Yes. Trail Sentinel is used in Canada, in the United States — including Vermont and Michigan — and in Europe, with Val d'Isère in France. The interface is available in English and French.

Yes. ATV (quad) and snowmobile are two of Trail Sentinel's twelve activities, alongside mountain bike, hiking and cross-country skiing. A motorized club tracks its ruts, culverts, drainage and signage the same way a bike club tracks its trails — on the same map, with the same field app that works without coverage. Off-highway vehicle (OHV) networks are managed the same way.

No, and that is the heart of the feature. The user opens the app, takes a photo and sends: no account, no email, no password. The form is exactly what stops people from reporting. You receive the geolocated report with its photo, and the user can follow its progress from their device.

Four safeguards. Photos can be mandatory, which removes most of the noise. A cap limits submissions: five per hour and twenty per day from the same device, plus a daily cap for your place. Your network's visibility has three steps: by QR invitation, on site only, or publicly listed. And above all, a report is not a task: nothing enters your planning until you have triaged it.

When you create the task, Sentinel shows you the reports received within 40 m over the last 72 hours and lets you check the ones describing the same problem. One task is created, and all three reporters each receive its progress. Nothing is pre-checked: two nearby reports can be two different problems, and you are the one who decides.

Partly. Recognizing your network from the code needs a connection. Once the network is recognized, the report is queued on the device with its photos and goes out on its own as soon as coverage returns. The user sees right away that it is saved.

Yes, and that is what makes them report a second time. They get a notice when you accept the report, when work starts and when it is fixed. If you refuse, you can share the reason. They have no access to your planning, assignments or discussions though: they only see where their own report stands.

Yes. Sentinel shows your whole network on one interactive map, with every task and structure geolocated. The map works on web, iOS and Android; in the field, trails, tasks and structures stay viewable offline, but the base map isn't downloaded in advance.

A map of the full network, geolocation of tasks and structures, an offline mode for the field, and exportable reports for partners and grants. Sentinel brings these together in a single web and mobile platform.

Nine types come installed with your place: fallen tree, erosion, water, mud, broken plank, drain, sign, other and segment. You add your own, with their name and icon. A task is a precise point, or a segment when the problem stretches over a distance.

A task is assigned to a person or to a group. Several people can then log their time on the same task, each at their own work role.

Five statuses: New, Ready, In Progress, On Hold and Done. You move it forward by dragging its card across the kanban columns, or with one click on Mark as Done in its sheet. Each task also carries a priority: Critical, High, Medium or Low.

It stays in the trail's history, viewable at any time. Useful for proving maintenance was done, or for detecting a recurring problem at the same spot.

Yes. You can create tasks, take photos and document without any cellular network. Everything syncs automatically as soon as signal returns.

Any fixed asset on your network that gets inspected at regular intervals. Four types come built in — bridge, drain, sign, jump — and you add your own: boardwalk, stairs, lookout, shelter. Each type has its name, its icon and the activities it shows up in.

Yes, one questionnaire per structure type. Each question is rated on four risk levels — Critical, Moderate, Low, None — or “not applicable”, with a comment, photos and a voice memo. You give each question a weight and mark the ones that bear on safety.

No. An asset type can have no questionnaire: the report then comes down to a comment, photos, and a risk level picked by hand. The questionnaire helps when it's useful; the simple report is enough for an asset that doesn't warrant a grid.

Yes. Your place's logo appears at the top of the PDF, with the structure, its score, the color-coded answers and the photos. It's ready to use for your partners, insurers, grant applications — no rework in Word needed.

The Community and Pro plans. The Field and Standard plans don't include them.

No limit. You can have one project per worksite, one per season, one per grant — all at the same time.

No. Each task belongs to one project at a time, to keep progress clear. You can move it from one project to another if needed.

For now, Sentinel focuses on progress (tasks done versus total tasks) and time invested. Dollar-based budget tracking is not yet integrated — we're working on the next version.

Yes, from the mobile app: the Edit project screen has a "Set this project on hold" switch. While it's on hold, the project's status stays put even if its tasks move forward. Lift the hold and the status is recalculated from the tasks right away.

No. The discussion stays attached to the task, even closed: open the task and the thread is there, photos included. Done tasks and projects only drop out of the Conversations list, to keep it readable. Perfect for audits or lessons learned.

Yes, if their role allows it. The Conversations right is granted as read (you read threads, without writing or reacting) or read and write. Note: there are no private conversations — anyone who can read conversations sees every thread in the place.

Because an external chat isn't tied to anything. Six months later, finding a specific message about a fallen tree takes an hour. In Sentinel, you open the task and the whole conversation is there, with photos and context.

People whose role can manage members. Labour cost only shows with the Amounts permission. Everyone can always read their own entries.

No. Sentinel has no approval workflow: closing replaces it. You check the period, you close it, and its entries stay put.

It stays in its period and is flagged: a banner, a pill on the row and an “Arrived after closing” filter. It isn't in the file already sent to payroll: carry it over to the next one.

Hours are logged on mobile, even without signal. The Timesheets section itself is on the web. On the phone, everyone finds their own time report in their settings.

The Community, Standard and Pro plans. The Field plan doesn't include them.

Yes, as many as you want, each tied to an activity — mountain biking, hiking, cross-country skiing, fatbike — and several per activity if needed. Within each board, you group your trails by type or level in folders (enduro, cross-country, flow, for example). A trail on two boards keeps the same condition on both.

Three access states: Open, Under construction and Closed. On top of that, if needed, the trail state — groomed, icy, muddy — which you customize with an icon, a colour and a name. A status also applies to a folder or the whole board in one move, handy at season start and end.

When a crew member sets a task to "In progress" on an open trail, the app offers to switch the trail to "Under construction". One tap, and your visitors see the update, with the trail's tasks on the widget's map. When the last in-progress task is done, the trail goes back to "Open" on its own. If a task stays in progress for a long time, a reminder keeps the trail from being left under construction by mistake.

You copy the code generated in the Publish tab and paste it on any page of your site — WordPress, Wix, Squarespace, custom code; the tab gives the steps for each platform. The widget shows up, updates automatically, and you can customize it: header colors, language (French or English), map display, shadows, rounded corners. No API to manage. And on platforms that block external scripts (SharePoint, strict-security intranets), an iframe version embeds with a single link.

To run the same series of checks across several trails at once: season opening, periodic inspection, brush clearing, grooming, closing. You write the list once, pick the trails, and each trail gets its row in the same checklist. You then follow the whole network's progress on a single screen, instead of a shared file nobody opens in the field.

No. A template is a convenience, not a requirement: it saves you retyping the same list every season. If you don't have one yet, you type the items straight into the creation panel. You can keep several named templates side by side — one per kind of operation.

Yes. You set a frequency — daily, weekly or monthly — and the next copy is created on the scheduled date, with the same items and the same trails. You decide when the repetition stops: never, on a date, or after a number of occurrences. It is built for recurring rounds: culvert checks, signage verification, weekly network sweeps.

Yes, and that is the normal setup. Each activity is a watertight partition: its trails, tasks, structures, types and condition board belong to it alone. A club that maintains bike trails in summer and snowmobile trails in winter switches on both activities and moves between them — the summer map never shows the winter routes, and the analytics never mix the two seasons.

As many as you want. There's no limit on the number of members in Sentinel — invite your entire team, your volunteers, your partners and your contractors with no extra per-user fees.

Yes. A technician can work for two different clubs with the same Sentinel account. They switch between networks directly from the app, without having to log in again.

Invite them with a limited role for the season, restricted to certain activities if needed. At the end, you remove them from their page ("Remove member"): they lose access, but what they did stays — tasks, photos, history.

Give them the Viewer role, and restrict their profile to the activities that concern them. They see what they need to see, without being able to change anything.

Yes. The "Checklists" role has four levels: no access, view, view with the right to tick, and full management. A seasonal volunteer can tick their round without being able to create, duplicate or delete a checklist. Managing templates is a separate permission, kept for administrators.

Yes, and it is a common setup. Roles and permissions decide what each person sees and can change: a seasonal volunteer can view and complete their tasks without reaching network administration. Stowe Trails Partnership, in Vermont, uses it for exactly that — easing communication between volunteers and staff around trail projects. Contact Nature goes one step further and shares access with certain active users who work directly alongside its teams in the field, on top of its employees and volunteers.

That of the phone's GPS: a few metres in the open, more under dense forest cover. When you create a task, you see the position on the map and can move the marker before saving, then the task attaches to the nearest trail.

Your position is followed while the app is open on screen, to place you on the map and attach your tasks to the right trail. It stops as soon as the app goes to the background: Sentinel never tracks your position when you're not using it.

Yes. GPS works without cell service: you create geolocated tasks anywhere, and they sync to your team when the signal returns. Install the network's data before heading out — trails, structures, types — so it's already on the phone. The base map itself isn't downloaded in advance.

Yes. Sentinel imports your tracks as GPX, KML, KMZ or shapefile (ZIP). The other way round, the Excel task export gives their coordinates, ready for a GIS or a report.

Days, even weeks. As long as you don't reinstall the app, the data stays on your phone and syncs on the next connection.

GPS only runs while the app is open on screen, never in the background. With the screen off or the app closed, it uses nothing to locate you.

Yes, both. Same features, same performance. Download from the App Store and the Google Play Store.

Yes. The mobile app keeps checklists, their trails and their items readable offline. A tick made without coverage shows up immediately and goes into the sync queue; it is replayed as soon as the connection is back. Nobody has to jot anything on paper to re-enter it later.

The corridor is wider, damage shows up as ruts and surface erosion rather than exposed roots, and built works — culverts, bridges, gates, regulatory signage — take a bigger share of the budget. In Trail Sentinel that means segment tasks rather than point markers for drainage and grading, a structure inventory with its inspection history, and exportable reports for landowners and grant applications.

Excel for the data: tasks (with their time entries), structures, timesheets and checklists. PDF for structure inspection reports, one at a time or in bulk, with your logo, the score and the photos.

Yes, through the filter. A task export follows the filter you've set — period, trails, task types, status, assignees — and a timesheet export follows the chosen period and grouping. You get exactly what you want to demonstrate.

As long as your account is active, everything is kept. If you cancel, we keep your data for 90 days to allow a reactivation or a complete export.

By giving every participant in the entry a work role. A day of excavator work is logged as a single entry: the operator at their rate, the labourers at theirs, each with their own duration. The task comes out with its total hours, but also with its cost split by role. It is the same entry as before, with one more column.

They are logged by their role rather than by their name: you add "Labourer" as a "Without an account" participant, with its duration, and the role's rate applies. On the web, add one line per person; on the phone, a given role is added once per entry. The hours and the cost are counted like a member's, without creating an account for someone who will never open the app.

Nothing retroactive. A time entry's cost is computed the moment it is recorded, then kept as is: a raise in July does not rewrite what May's work cost. A member who changes role is priced at the new rate from their next entry onward. That is what keeps last year's totals still true next year.

No. The right to see amounts is granted separately from the right to log time. A field crew can record its hours without ever seeing an hourly rate or a cost, while management sees both. The roles themselves stay visible to everyone — it is their price that does not.

In the Community, Standard and Pro plans, along with time tracking. The Field plan covers tasks and the mobile app, without time tracking.