Service Pack 15 (SP15) Overview 

Usability Changes 

The goal of FEMA’s usability initiative is to provide a more consistent and intuitive user 
experience that will help remove impediments to MIP use. FEMA, MIP team developers and 
usability experts teamed with the MIP Champions and Black Belts to identify areas for 
improvement throughout the MIP. Usability enhancements that impact studies workflow users 
include: 

Consolidated Landing Page 

- This is an added page after clicking the Workbench tab, but before entering the 
Work Items list that provides links to and descriptions of the tabs on the 
Workbench. 

- The landing page includes an alert area to display system status notifications and 
updates. 


Work Item List Redesign 

- Date Posted is now displayed and continues to be the default sort on the Work Items list. 
 
- The capability to filter for each displayed column is provided. 

- The Options and Refresh links are repositioned and include help text to explain the functionality of each. 

- A link to the Activity Reference Guide, which provides an overview of the information needed to complete an activity, is added. 


Additional Guidance Text Throughout the MIP Workflow 
 
- Additional text is added throughout many workflow screens to provide directions and assist users in completing certain tasks or activities. 


Expandable/Collapsible Twisty Behavior 

- As users move between screens within an activity, the system will remember the 
position of the twisties to prevent users from having to re-expand or re-collapse 
the sections. 


Improve Flow of Selected Screens 

- The order of fields and buttons on selected screens is changed to be in more logical and consistent order. 

 
Display Task Information in Table View 
 
- When adding multiple data items in a task, they now display in a table view, versus the current sequential list. 

 
Consolidate Review and Complete Steps 
 
- Currently there are separate steps to review and complete a task. These two steps are consolidated into one screen allowing the user to review the information and complete the task within the same screen. 

 
Transfer Study Tasks Between Users Within the Same Organization (for selected users only) 

- Manager-level users, assigned the Study Organization Manager role, have the ability to reassign tasks between users within the same organization. 

- Mapping partners no longer have to rely on the RMC to transfer tasks. Non-Usability Changes 


Non-Usability Changes

The major non-usability enhancements in SP15 include: 
 
The eLOMA tool will be enhanced to improve the onscreen help text and links to additional resources, to reduce the number of eLOMAs that are selected to be audited, and to increase the size of certain data entry fields to allow space for more data. 

All MIP Reports that display information about eLOMA projects will now include the Project Identifier (ID) information for all eLOMAs. 

A Document Control Group (DCG) role was added to provide the document control group, who handle the distribution and publishing of all materials past Distribute Determination workflow step, the ability to update this information within the MIP Revisions Workflow.