Observing Tool

The ALMA Observing Tool (OT) is a web-based application consisting of a set of user interfaces that are needed to prepare and submit an ALMA observing proposal. The current Cycle 13 release of the OT is configured for the present capabilities of ALMA as described in the Proposer's Guide. Note that in order to submit proposals you will have to register with the ALMA Science Portal beforehand.

DDT proposals for Cycle 12 must still be submitted with the Java desktop-based application: for more details, see this link.

The OT is supported on the latest versions of the web-browsers Chrome, Firefox and Safari. To access the OT just click on the logo:

Documentation

Extensive documentation is available to help you work with the OT and optimally prepare your proposal.

• We recommend our novice and advanced users to start with the OT video tutorials which give audio-visual illustrations of different aspects of the web-based OT.
• More in-depth information on the OT can be found in the User Manual, while concise explanations of all fields and menu items in the OT are given in the Reference Manual. 

Troubleshooting

If you have questions about the web-based OT, please visit our 'FAQ and Known Issues' page first. The page also contains a list of currently known bugs and possible workarounds. A further source of information is the OT section of the ALMA Helpdesk Knowledgebase - this contains a number of articles that also deals with frequently-asked questions. After exploring these resources, if confusion over some aspect of the OT remains, or if a previously unidentified bug has been uncovered, please file a Helpdesk ticket.