Updating of Project Information for the Water Resources Discipline Administrative Information System

In Reply Refer To: 
Mail Stop 447 
Sunset Date: December 2005 

                              December 15, 2000 

WATER RESOURCES DISCIPLINE POLICY MEMORANDUM NO. 2001.02 

Subject:  Updating of Project Information for the Water Resources 
Discipline Administrative Information System 

Project information should be updated in the Administrative Information 
System (AIS) and transferred to the appropriate regional office to ensure 
the information is current and accurate.  Review of this information is 
the responsibility of the district and approval is required by the 
District Chief (or their designee).  The information should be updated at 
least annually with more frequent updates if warranted because of 
substantive changes to the project.  It is the responsibility of the 
District Chief to ensure that all project information has been proofread, 
that it accurately describes the status of the project, and that the most 
current project information resides in AIS.  It is the responsibility of 
the Regional Program Officer to ensure that the districts are properly 
performing this function and that the project information is being 
transferred. AIS project information is uploaded by Headquarters to the 
World Wide Web on a monthly basis and is available: 

(1) internally to U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) users, and 
(2) to the general public. 

All new projects must contain a paragraph clearly labeled "Relevance and 
Benefits."  Please refer to WRD Policy Memorandum No. 2000.04 for 
additional information related to the contents of the "Relevance and 
Benefits" section.  This section must be included with each new proposal 
and inserted as free text after "Problem," "Objectives," and BEFORE 
"Approach" in the Proposal Summary text field in AIS.  This "Relevance and 
Benefits" section MUST also be added to any active project with funding in 
fiscal year (FY) 2001 and beyond.  This section should fully describe the 
ability of the project to meet at least one goal and preferably multiple 
goals among the eight outlined in WRD Memorandum No. 95.44.   

To track our progress under the WRD Strategic Directions Document, all new 
projects must be associated with one or more discipline qualifiers in 
AIS.  The Senior Staff has identified four technical discipline 
qualifiers:   

•         Surface Water Quality 
•         Surface Water Quantity 
•         Ground Water Quality   
•         Ground Water Quantity 

plus an additional qualifier for any project that can be identified as 
strictly administrative or in support of all disciplines, such as the 
National Water Information System project. 

•         Administration 

Since FY 2000, these five discipline codes are the ONLY codes to be used 
in AIS. All active projects with funding in FY 2000 and after must be 
retrofitted to point to at least one of these five disciplines. More than 
one discipline can be used with a single project, as long as the 
percentages for all disciplines add to 100 percent. 

3. Although geographic information is no longer required in AIS, it is 
good practice to continue associating Hydrologic Unit, State, and County 
with any new project/proposal.  Geographic information of this type in AIS 
automatically will be converted to GIS coverage when the AIS system is 
upgraded, thus saving time in the future. 

4. An interface was built from the current Report Tracking System (RTS) to 
AIS.  The RTS publications are loaded/uploaded monthly and are associated 
with corresponding projects.  Two AIS reports are available to see what 
publications have been loaded. 

Under Project Chief Profile 
        Project Monitoring-->Reports-->Publications 
1.        Publications 
2.        Bibliography 

Under the Cost center AO profile choose the Project Management functional 
area, then: 
        Project Monitoring-->Reports-->Publications--> 
1.        Publications 
2.        Bibliography 

5. The project information part of the AIS system has been streamlined whereby the ONLY 
elements required are: 

•         Project Code   
•         Short Title   
•         Long Title   
•         Status   
•         Principal Investigator (Project Chief). You can have more than one Principal 
Investigator 
•         Organization 
•         Begin Date 
•         End Date 
•         Actual End Date (on a Completed project) 
•         Discipline and Percentage   
•         Region 
•         Program Number 
•         Problem, Objectives, Relevance and Benefits, Approach (This is done in the 
Proposal 
Summary Text Field) 
•         Current Progress - You must first move the data from "Current" to "History" using 
the Process button in the lower right corner of the frame. Then you can enter or 
import the current status of the project. This includes the accomplishments of the past year and 
the plans for next year. 

All information on how to use the Maintain Project and Proposal frame are 
available on line under the Help On Frame Pull Down menu. 

Should you need assistance, please send electronic mail to ais_help. 


                        /signed/ 

                        Stephen F. Blanchard 
Acting Chief, Office of Information 



Distribution:        A, B, DC, AO 
Regional Program Officers 
Program Analysts 

This WRD memorandum supersedes the following WRD Memorandum Nos. 95.09, 96.09, 
97.11, 98.28, and 99.36. 


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Steve Blanchard                           National Center, MS409
Acting Chief, Office of Information     Reston, VA 20192
U.S. Geological Survey                  Phone: 703-648-5629
                                           Fax:     703-648-5002
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