Project planning requirements will vary dramatically depending on many factors including: the type of object(s); state of preservation; species; size of samples; whether destructive sampling is allowed; financial resources. What and how to sample should be carefully considered following standard dendrochronological procedures (table 1) while making informed decisions about what metadata to collect.

Table 1: Examples of national guidelines for dendrochronological analyses.

Country	Author	Year	Title
NL	Jansma	2002	Veldhandleiding dendrochronologisch onderzoek
NL	Jansma	2006	Nederlandse onderzoeksagenda voor archeologie: Dendrochronologie
UK	Historic England	1998	Dendrochronology: Guidelines on producing and interpreting dendrochronological dates
IT	UNI	2004	Cultural heritage – Wooden artefacts – Wood dendrochronological dating guidelines

Metadata should follow the Tree Ring Data Standard (TRiDaS) data model which provides the ability to record a wealth of information. Not all TRiDaS fields will be applicable at any one time, but consider recording as much metadata as possible without adding an undue burden to the project. If you have very simple research goals you may need very little metadata to achieve your aims, but with the addition of just a few metadata fields, it is likely your dataset will be of much greater use to you and fellow researchers in the future.