The georeferences table stores the latitude and longitudes of all soil sample numbers, allowing multiple labs to know where soil samples came from. Simple map visualizations for these locations are also automatically created.

Spectroscopy readings collected from proprietary hardware are stored their original, raw binary formats in S3. We do this to preserve numerical precision and avoid transcription errors. Upon upload, input validation code is executed to check for possible misconfigurations of the spectroscopy hardware.

AfSIS DB supports multiple kinds of searches across data tables:

• SSN Search: Find all records corresponding to a particular SSN (sample serial number). The same SSN may be analyzed by multiple instruments at multiple labs.
• Circle Search and Bounding Box Search: Find all records in the database that lie within a particular geographic circle or bounding box.

New data entries can be uploaded in many different ways, including CSV imports, folder synchronization, and manual entry into fields.