What are sibling tasks?
Sibling tasks are fieldwork tasks of the same type at the same project and site. For example, if you have five Soil Classification (Ex-Situ) tasks at the same site running in parallel - perhaps one per field scientist sampling a different stockpile cluster - those five tasks are siblings.
EnviroAutomate detects siblings automatically. You do not need to flag tasks as related; the system uses Project + Site + Task Type to identify them.
Which task types can be combined?
Sibling combining is supported for:
Soil Classification In-Situ (NSW and VIC)
Soil Classification Ex-Situ (NSW and VIC)
Groundwater Monitoring Event (the current "All Methods" form)
Other task types do not combine, even if you have multiple of the same type at the same site.
For client reports, combining is supported for these report types:
Soil Classification (NSW), Soil Classification (VIC), Soil Classification (VIC) Resolve Huntsman
GME Factual Annual, GME Semi-Interpretive Annual, GME Appendices Only, GME Gauge Only
The bi-annual GME reports (GME Factual Bu-Annual, GME Semi-Interpretive Bi-Annual) are intentionally excluded: their two FTWs are two separate monitoring events, not siblings to merge.
Why combine them?
Sometimes a project produces a single laboratory work order across all the parallel tasks: one technician's work and another's are sampled together and submitted to the lab as one batch. When it comes time to write the report, you don't want one report per task; you want one combined report covering all the field data.
The sibling-aware Combined view, and the matching client report generator, does that combining for you.
What gets combined?
Only the per-task collections get merged - things like sampling rows, gauging rows, QC entries, and photo lists where each sibling contributes its own slice. Single-value sections that describe the site, the day, or the field equipment (Site Characteristics, Stockpile Specific Location, Field Submission Details, Device Information for soil classification; Overview / Weather / Device Information for GME) are taken from one task called the Primary Fields source.
The Primary task is chosen automatically:
The task with the earliest Completed Date wins.
Ties are broken by earliest Created date.
Tasks with no Completed Date come last.
Why? These single-value fields describe the site and the field equipment - they should be consistent across siblings, not duplicated. EnviroAutomate names the Primary task in three places so you always know where the Primary Fields are coming from:
The Client Report Create page when you select a task that has siblings.
The Draft Documents page of an in-flight combined report.
The Edit page of any task that participates in a combined report.
Combined view on the Field Data tab
When you open a task that has at least one sibling and is one of the supported task types, a View Combined Tasks button appears at the top of the field-data section. Clicking it switches the page into Combined mode and the URL gains ?combined=1:
Single-value cards (e.g., Site Characteristics, Stockpile Specific Location, Field Submission Details, Device Information) are hidden in Combined mode.
Per-task collections (e.g., Soil Domains, QC Register, Soil Sampling Details, Calibration Certificate Photos for soil classification; gauging and sampling rows for GME) show the merged contents from every sibling, with a Combined badge on each section header.
Each merged row carries an external-link icon next to the source task name. Click it to open that task's Field Data page in a new tab so you can correct the data at its source.
Inline editors (such as the Soil Classification Edit Field Data footer or GME edit-mode controls) are disabled in Combined mode. You cannot edit data from a merged view; edit at the source instead.
Export Sample Collection Data, when clicked from Combined mode, exports the combined dataset.
View Audit Log continues to show only the URL task's edit history.
To return to the single-task view, click View Single Task or remove ?combined=1 from the URL.
Conflicts that block report generation
A conflict is two siblings recording the same identifier where that identifier is meant to be unique. Conflicts are flagged in Combined view with a yellow warning border and an icon explaining which siblings collide. They also block the Generate button on the Draft Documents page until you resolve them.
Which identifiers count as conflicts depends on the task type:
Soil Classification In-Situ - only Sample ID. Two siblings classifying the same in-situ Domain Number is fine - the combiner unions their photos and sampling rows. Two siblings using the same Sample ID is a conflict.
Soil Classification Ex-Situ - only Sample ID. Two siblings classifying the same Stockpile Code is fine - the combiner dedupes those stockpiles and concatenates their nested samples, QA/QC details, and photos. Two siblings using the same Sample ID is a conflict.
Groundwater Monitoring Event - three identifiers: a gauging well code recorded against the same well in two siblings (Gauging Well Code), a sampling well code recorded against the same well in two siblings (Sampling Well Code), and Sample ID across QA/QC samples. A well that one sibling gauged and another sibling sampled is not a conflict - that is the normal split of work between field crew.
To resolve a conflict:
Open the offending sibling task at its source (use the link in the warning).
Correct the identifier.
Save.
Return to the Draft Documents page.
The Generate button becomes active once all conflicts are gone. Other field differences (for example, one sibling's Anthropogenic Material says "Brick fragments" and another's says "Concrete shards") are NOT conflicts - they are real data and remain visible in Combined view.
Apply lab files to siblings
When you save lab files on a task that has siblings, EnviroAutomate offers to apply the same files to siblings that don't have lab files of their own. Pick which siblings should receive the copy and click Apply to selected siblings. Each sibling gets its own row entries pointing at the same underlying file blobs.
Siblings that already have their own lab files appear in the modal with a disabled checkbox and an "Already has files" note - the system surfaces them so you can see that they were checked, but won't overwrite their files via this flow. To replace a sibling's files manually, open that sibling's Laboratory Data tab and use the standard upload workflow.
After the copy, each sibling's lab data processing remains independent. They can each add or remove their own file sets without affecting the others.
Has Siblings filter
The Fieldwork Tasks list page has a Has Siblings filter (Yes / No / Any). It only applies to task types that support sibling combining:
Yes - this task is a combinable task type AND it has another task of the same type at the same project and site AND it is linked to at least one combinable report type.
No - this task is a combinable task type, but it does not match all three of those conditions.
Tasks of non-combinable types are excluded from both "Yes" and "No" results. Use the filter to find multi-task sites quickly when you're planing a combined report.
What's not changed
Each individual task continues to work the same way for laboratory data processing.
Each task's audit log (View Edits) is per-task only - Combined view does not interleave audit logs.
Lab file copy is a one-time action. After the copy, the siblings' file sets diverge if you edit one of them.
Audit logs, draft documents, and review-and-approve flows for client reports remain per-report, not per-sibling.