Issues/Questions from the MIP Studies Workflow Open Conference Call on Mar. 13, 2008 Issue/Question I entered an As of Date and Percent Complete at the end of the month, but then realized I wanted to use a different, earlier end date. I entered the earlier date, but the previous date displays on the screen. How can I correct this so the As of Date I really meant to enter displays on the screen? Answer To remove the incorrect As Of date that displays, contact MIP Help to remove the incorrect As Of date and Percent Complete. The correct information you entered has been saved and when MIP Help removes the incorrect information, the correct information will display correctly. Issue/Question I make changes to manage data development task for cost and schedule information, but they are not saving. Why is this? It keeps reverting back to very old dates with no cost and schedule info. Answer We will look into specific cases to identify causes. Please send all cases to Matthew.Nuss@mapmodteam.com – include what you are trying to set the date to. Issue/Question What do I do in the following situation…? I submit for QA on my contract date, but can’t complete the task (add Actual End Date) until I pass QA. But sometimes it takes weeks/months for the QA results. Then I have to contact MIP Help to change the Actual End Date back to the contract date. How can I avoid changing the date with MIP Help? What is the policy? Should my contract include additional time for QA activities so my contract date is later? Do I have to submit earlier to QA so I end on my contract date? Answer The Actual End Date for a task in the contract (or Mapping Activity Statement) should include time for Independent QA. A data development task is not be considered complete until it has a passing QA report and therefore the time for the review should be included for the overall due date for that task. You should not have MIP Help change the Actual End Date back to the contract date. Issue/Question It would be helpful to add leverage values to the Manage Data Development Tasks as part of the data entry portion of the Data Management Task or Task Development instead of at the end. Answer Managers can update the leverage information for the Study project (on the “second” Manage Data Development screen) before all Data Development tasks are completed IF the following four fields have a value in them for all Data Development tasks (in the “first” Manage Data Development screen): 1. Actual Start Date 2. Actual Cost to Date 3. As Of Date 4. Percent Complete FEMA and the MIP team are currently looking into ways to improve this process. Additional text will be added on the screen in SP15 to provide more guidance. Issue/Question On the Manage Data Development screen, what does “was leveraged included?” Answer This field asks the user whether leverage data was used in the task. If so, click the Yes radio button and click on the twisty to enter leverage information. Add in whether leverage data was included (prior materials). You can add either blue book units or dollars. Issue/Question How do I get new leverage sources added to the drop down list? Answer Contact MIP Help to add additional leverage sources to the drop down box. The design and logic is to send in MIP Help tickets so there are no duplications. Issue/Question For a particular county we are missing a CID for a community – where do I request a new CID? Answer To get a new community added, contact MIP Help to ask for a new community. Include the details of the community (including CID and community name) in the request. If the number is to be added in the DFIRM tools, also indicate that in the request. The MIP team will make a request to the CIS team to add it to the database and get the community added to the project. Issue/Question I have communities that provide road files for the basemap. How do I prorate the value of that? The options only include square miles or panels. Answer As a rule, FEMA prefers miles or panels over actual costs. The reason they prefer miles or panels is because applying a unit cost to these factors helps normalize the value across the nation. However, if it is not possible to apply miles or panels then actual cost will be accepted. If this is the case, an explanation of why miles/panels could not be provided should be written in the comments field. Because there can be many variables to the type of data that partners contribute, when the contribution does not match perfectly with the unit provided, you have to use your best engineering judgment to logically assign a value and then provide justification for that value. For instance, take the example provided. Base map data can consist of many layers of information. If the final base map will have four layers and the partner is contributing road files – essentially one layer of the base map. Then it would be appropriate to assign a value of 1/4th the unit cost provided for contributing the entire base map. If you are unsure how many miles or panels the contribution will cover, estimate. Then in the comments field of MIP provide your justification or basis for your value/estimate. Issue/Question I get a FIPS code error when I submit a county-wide DFIRM with additional communities. Is there a way to avoid this? Answer The reason for this error is because when a study is submitted as a County-Wide (CW) and has a small portion of an area mapped such as city, town or village it will have a different CO_FIPS. FAFS script is designed to only recognize one CO_FIPS when a CW submission is submitted. FAFS is working on creating a utility that will notify them when a study has a different or unrecognized CO_FIPS. This will prevent any lost or misplaced submissions. We have noticed a problem with Independent City of VA. This may occur with other Independent City. In the meantime please let NSP know when your region is submitting an Independent City study. NSP will still need to give a manual pass. Issue/Question I have been having problems with the MIP not starting Independent QA (IQA) tasks. Answer This issue has to do with projects that were created prior to SP14 that planned for IQA, but did not assigned a contractor at the time. A clean up effort was made to identify and assign QA organizations to those planned tasks. Additionally, a known bug in the Process Admin (PA) tool is preventing IQA tasks from appearing on the workbench if the task was obligated through PA. A DR was created to fix this bug and is under consideration for a future service pack. To assign an organization to a planned IQA task, contact MIP Help to add the organization. Issue/Question I have also had an issue with Validate Content tasks not starting. Answer The MIP team is not currently aware of the specifics of this issue. Please contact MIP Help to report the problem. The MIP team will investigate the individual issues to determine a potential solution. Issue/Question Will Flood Plain Boundary Standards (FBS) certification soon be included as a task on the workbench? If not, is there any guidance in doing this task? Answer The MIP team is currently developing guidance for this task and this document will be updated when that information is available. Issue/Question The order of the tasks is not in any logical order on manage data development screens. Can this be reordered to be chronological or by Mapping Activity Statement (MAS)? Answer The current logic is that tasks appear in the order they were obligated. If they were obligated in same order at same time, then they would remain in that order. But if new tasks are added, the most recent tasks appear on top. A CR was created to request that the MDD screens be reordered. This will be evaluated for inclusion in a future service pack. Issue/Question What is the status of the upgrade of DFIRM tools to 9.2? Answer The majority of the tools are developed, but there are a few bugs in the ESRI software for which we are waiting for a patch. Once these issues are resolved, we will move towards deployment. There is no definite timeline at this point, but we are making progress. Issue/Question Can you give significant notice when upgrade will happen? Answer The team plans to conduct at least one call to review the Tools upgrade and answer any questions. Those with open parent jobs will be notified prior to the upgrade that we will be transferring your jobs to the new environment. The timeline and invite list for the JTX migration call has yet to be determined, but you will be notified well in advance when we have decided on a date. Issue/Question I’m trying to get data out of MNUSS and having password issues. Answer Contact MIP Help for data queries and password help. Issue/Question I had concerns because my issue wasn’t addressed by MIP Help very quickly. Answer Please use the MIP Help Escalation Plan (posted on MIP User Care > Guides and Documentation) if you do not receive an adequate response from MIP Help.