Frequently asked questions

Questions about using Orenna, interpreting results, and managing access. For step-by-step instructions, open Help in the app (sign-in required).

About Orenna and finding a site

  • Orenna helps restoration teams find candidate sites, assess conditions, compare outcomes and funding scenarios, and prepare deliverables. Evidence and decisions stay in one project record. How it works explains the workflow.

  • Restoration sponsors, land trusts, NGOs, tribes, public agencies, environmental and engineering firms, and their funders and reviewers.

  • Project-boundary analysis supports the contiguous United States. Data coverage varies by source, so check each run's coverage and missing-data notes. Discover supports selected programs in Florida and North Carolina.

  • Florida Water Quality Enhancement Area screening uses Basin Management Action Plan areas. North Carolina nutrient-offset screening uses supported service areas. Each shows its criteria and source coverage.

  • No. Running a sweep uses no project capacity. Promoting a candidate creates a project and counts toward your plan's limit.

  • A shortlist identifies sites to investigate. Confirm site conditions, ownership, engineering feasibility, markets, and agency requirements before relying on a funding or credit estimate.

Site data and evidence

  • The Area of Interest (AOI) is the mapped project boundary used for analysis. Upload it as GeoJSON, KML/KMZ, or a zipped shapefile.

  • Available public data on terrain, soils, water, habitats, infrastructure, land use, and other site conditions. Findings identify constraints and possible interventions. Each run shows sources and coverage limits.

  • Usually no. Orenna attempts to delineate it automatically. If the boundary is unavailable or unsuitable, use a reviewed polygon when the watershed upload control is available.

  • Completed runs offer reports, maps, geospatial files, rasters, watershed boundaries, and permitted source snapshots. The run's download controls show what is available.

  • The Data Room holds one project's documents, photos, source snapshots, and generated files. Assets holds reusable organization material, such as qualifications, past projects, templates, and logos.

  • It adds synced observations to the Data Room and map as field-collected evidence. Review them before approving; approval does not independently verify their accuracy.

  • Find Credits on the Map can identify matching bank service areas. Confirm resource type, available credits, price, and agency acceptance with the bank sponsor and relevant agency.

Understanding estimates

  • Outcome quantities, attainment assumptions, program rates, and stacking rules determine modeled funding cashflows. Scenarios apply costs, timing, and discounting to estimate net present value (NPV). These are planning estimates, not confirmed payments or credits.

  • NPV expresses modeled funding receipts minus project costs in today's dollars. Total Economic Value (TEV) shows literature-based public benefits by valuation method. TEV is not added to funding NPV, and overlapping valuation methods are not summed.

  • It explores how uncertainty in your modeled inputs affects results. The probabilities depend on your assumptions and do not guarantee returns.

  • The available data or eligibility rule cannot support a definitive result. Review the rule, add missing information, or explain an override. An override records your judgment; it is not agency approval.

  • Internal rate of return (IRR) may be unavailable when the cashflows do not yield a supported solution. “Not reached” means cumulative cashflow has not recovered costs within the modeled period.

Chat, decisions, and reports

  • Ask Chat to explain evidence, compare scenarios, identify gaps, inspect pursuits and fees, create reports, or generate exports. Actions depend on your role and enabled tools.

  • Open its citations and compare the answer with the source. Chat retrieves project evidence and relevant Assets, but citations and review flags do not guarantee that every statement is correct.

  • Yes. It can create records and start tasks through its tools. Report finalization requires an explicit request; proposed memories require confirmation, and design proposals have confirmation controls. Actions follow your access permissions and are recorded.

  • Confirmed project memory gives Chat reusable facts, preferences, and assumptions. Proposed memories need a citation and your confirmation. Decisions records formal choices, reasoning, alternatives considered, and supporting evidence.

  • A requirement that is not yet satisfied in the project record. Open the row to see what evidence, input, or follow-up is needed.

  • Some sections use structured project data; others use AI with retrieved evidence. Review citations, gaps, and flagged sections before finalizing or sharing.

  • It locks the report or checklist state and creates a signed manifest. Finalized material remains exportable. For later changes, create a new report or use Regenerate for a checklist.

  • Yes. Upload an RFQ or RFP to start a Pursuit, check the extracted requirements, and draft qualifications or a proposal. Compliance matching identifies responses and gaps; fee estimates use your hours, rates, and cost assumptions. Check every claimed qualification and reference before submitting.

Design and technical review

  • Modeling, Design, and Visualization: organize HEC-RAS models, compare results, generate draft grading surfaces, and create renderings. Cloud model execution requires an enabled setup; contact support@orenna.io to check availability.

  • No. Orenna organizes HEC-RAS files, prepares supported draft runs, extracts results, and can execute runs when cloud processing is enabled. Engineers remain responsible for geometry, boundary conditions, stability, and sign-off.

  • No. They are preliminary surfaces for engineering evaluation. Review grading, drainage, quantities, exceptions, and constructability before using them in design work.

Plans, privacy, and sharing

  • Core plans differ in project capacity and included AI usage. Seats are unlimited. Design is a separate add-on. See Pricing in the app for limits and terms.

  • No. Every created project uses a lifetime slot, including archived, frozen, and deleted projects. Practice and Firm plans can add project packs.

  • The project becomes read-only and remains viewable and exportable. Upgrade to resume edits and new AI work. Trial expiry does not delete it.

  • Admins can add supported Anthropic or OpenAI keys in Settings → API keys. Requests using your key are billed by that provider and do not use Orenna AI credits. If fallback to Orenna's key is allowed, those requests use Orenna's AI budget and retention settings.

  • Add the reviewer as an organization viewer for read-only workspace access, or share exported reports and data files. A viewer seat grants workspace access, so use exports when you only want to share selected material.

  • Orenna does not use customer content to train foundation models. Provider processing follows the terms of the account serving the request, including any key you supply. AI call-log settings do not set a provider's training or retention policy. See the Privacy Policy in the app.

  • Admins can set AI call-log retention, hash-only logging, provider-key permissions, export, and erasure in Settings → Privacy. Hash-only logging omits prompt and response text from those logs; it does not remove saved chats, reports, or Data Room files, or change provider retention terms.

  • Open Activity for recorded project events and field changes. Check Usage for AI spending and budgets.

  • A record that identifies a file or finalized content and helps detect later changes. It supports checking what was issued, not validating its conclusions. See Integrity principles for how to review sources and results.

Need help? Email support@orenna.io. For plan, Enterprise, or Design add-on questions, email sales@orenna.io.