¹Southwest Fisheries Science Center, NOAA

²UCSC Institute of Marine Sciences | Fisheries Collaborative Program | Cooperative Institute for Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Systems

³Miami TSPi

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What We’ll Cover

• Why Access Control Matters in ERDDAP

• The CoastWatch slide archive problem

• Using ERDDAP for secure dataset workflows

• Automating login and data access with Selenium WebDriver

• From query to PowerPoint: the end-to-end workflow

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Access Control in ERDDAP Workflows

Typical ERDDAP Usage

• Publicly distributed datasets
• Environmental and oceanographic data
• Designed for open discovery and reuse
• Anonymous access (no login required)

When Access Must Be Restricted

• Some datasets contain:
• Personally identifiable information (PII)
• Proprietary data
• These datasets require login via web interface

Manual login works for interactive use, but presents a problem for automated workflows.

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What We Showcase in This Project

1. Integrating Authentication into an Automated Workflow
1. Incorporate ERDDAP login into an automated workflow
2. Authentication handled once, securely with Selenium WebDriver

2. A Non-Traditional Use of ERDDAP:

• As a searchable database
• As an image server

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CoastWatch Satellite Training Course Overview

• CoastWatch offers satellite data training workshops each year
• Participants submit a project summary slide
• Slides capture satellite use and participant/project metadata
• Slides contain PII → access is restricted
• Goal: Allow authorized users to generate presentations from an automated workflow

​

Example Participant Project Slide

Over 250 slides have been collected since 2013 (and growing!)

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The Participant & Slide Archive: Then vs. Now

Then

• Slides scattered across folders and drives
• Inconsistently named folders and files
• Manual slide discovery (and what does Cara remember?) 

�Now

• All slides and metadata hosted in ERDDAP
• Fully searchable by affiliation, product, topics, etc.
• Information on participants found instantly

​

Before

After

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Server-Side Configuration of Datasets for Secure Access

ERDDAP is configured to use Google-based authentication for user logins.

Inside setup.xml:

<authentication>google</authentication>

<googleClientID>

{token}.apps.googleusercontent.com

</googleClientID>

​

Results:

• ERDDAP adds a “Log in” link to its web interface
• Users authenticate using NOAA-authorized Google accounts

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Who Can Access the Datasets?

Once authenticated, users are granted access to datasets based on assigned roles.

Results:

• Only users with this role can query metadata
• Only authorized users can retrieve slide images

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Where the ERDDAP Data Comes From

Participant metadata (CSV)

• Table with satellite course participants’ information such as:
• Course, Year, Affiliation, Products, SlideID, etc.

Participant Slide PNGs

• Over 250 individual slide PNGs, each given an ID:
• [Year][Course][Number].png

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How the ERDDAP Dataset XMLs Were Set Up

Participant Metadata Dataset

Searchable table of participant metadata

• ID: satellite_course_slides_metadata
• Built with: EDDTableFromAsciiFiles
• Source: Local CSV file
• Columns: Name, Affiliation, Course ID, Products, Year, SlideID, etc.
• Access: Limited to coastSlideUser

Slide Image Dataset

Linked archive of slide images

• ID: course_slide_deck
• Built with: EDDTableFromFileNames
• Source: Folder of PNG slides
• Auto-indexed fields: file name, URL, size, type, and modified date
• Access: Limited to coastSlideUser

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Secure Automated ERDDAP Workflow

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Example: NMFS Participants who used JPSS Data

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Accessing Password Protected Datasets

• Script initiates workflow
• Establishes an authenticated ERDDAP session via Selenium login
• Constructs an ERDDAP tabledap query URL
• Applies user-defined search criteria
• Ex: ID, Year, Affiliation, etc.

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Selenium WebDriver: Automating Access to ERDDAP

• Selenium WebDriver is an open-source software tool that automates browser actions

• In the tutorials, it’s used to log into ERDDAP using your NOAA Google account and retrieve cookies for secure access to the password protected datasets

​

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Double Login

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Retrieving Participant Metadata

• ERDDAP returns:
• Returns a CSV with metadata that matches user-defined criteria
• Slide IDs used in the next step of the workflow
• Acts as the index for which slides to download

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Query Participant Slide PNGs

• Uses Slide IDs returned from the metadata query
• Constructs ERDDAP file URLs for each matching slide

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Download Participant Slide PNGs

• Accesses slide PNGs through the authenticated ERDDAP session
• Downloads the PNGs to be included in PowerPoint

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Generate Custom PowerPoint

• Uses the downloaded slide PNGs and associated metadata
• Automatically creates PowerPoint slides
• Populates slide titles and annotations using metadata fields

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End Product: From Query to Presentation

Each slide combines metadata and participant images into a ready-to-use presentation.

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Strengths and Limitations of This ERDDAP Approach

Strengths

• Leverages existing ERDDAP infrastructure
• Secure: uses Selenium + NOAA Google login, no stored passwords
• Demonstrates ERDDAP’s versatility

Limitations

• Requires browser-based authentication with Selenium WebDriver due to PII-protected data
• Login step still requires user interaction
• Sensitive to ERDDAP structure changes or dataset renaming

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Why This Matters

Improve Access and Efficiency

• Replaces manual slide hunting with a fast, repeatable, secure workflow

Enhance Course Impact

• Living archive of participant work
• Real-world satellite applications over time

Promotes Secure Reproducible Practices

• Uses external identity-based authentication (e.g., Google, ORCID), no credentials in code
• Reusable pattern for other ERDDAP workflows

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Acknowledgements

West Coast Node

& PolarWatch

• Dale Robinson
• Cara Wilson
• Sunny Hospital

All instructors, participants, and hosts of the satellite course trainings!

CW Central

• Veronica Lance
• Michael Soracco

JPSS PGRR Program

Thank you for funding the slide collection project!

SWFSC

• Roy Mendelssohn

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Questions?

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