Multistate & Integrated- How Do I Report Here??

As you keep working through this year's reporting, you may be wondering about these two lines on your My Reporting page in AIMS:

These two boxes are commonly overlooked when reporting on AIMS, but carry a lot of importance.

• Integrated time reflects work done that supports both Extension and Research work, such as assisting with research trials. Extension receives funding to carry out these integrated activities and must report back to NIFA at the end of the program year. 
• Multi-State time reflects work done that crosses statelines. One example would be the Four State Fair or National 4-H Congress. This time also must be reported back to NIFA at the year end. 

Things to remember when you have done any work that falls into these categories are:

• Report your Integrated or Multi-State time in BOTH the Program Planning & Delivery Time and the respective box (Integrated or Multi-State). For example, if you spent four hours in a committee meeting for a multistate program, report those four hours in Program Planning & Delivery box, as well as in the Multi-State Extension Activity box.
• Multi-State Activity time must also be tied to a named program (i.e. eXtension or Mid-South Entomologists), so please select the program from the pre-populated drop-down menu that will appear once you enter in your time. If your program is not listed, please select "Other" and name the program in the text box.
• If you forget to enter in your Integrated and/or Multi-state time, do not worry. You can add it in now to catch up. Just keep in mind, the Program Planning & Delivery Time must be GREATER or EQUAL TO the amount you place in Integrated and Multi-state. So if you are catching up and you forgot the enter two hours in Integrated, make sure you have two hours to report in that same objective area. Do not duplicate your hours you have already reported. 

If you have any questions about reporting to Integrated and Multi-State, feel free to contact Diane Mashburn by email (dmashburn@uaex.edu) or phone (501-671-2351).

Working Days in FY2015

Now that October is winding down, we should be putting FY2014 behind us and focusing more on the new year.
As you start reporting for the FY2015 year, keep in mind how many days you should report each month. The chart below should help you make sure you are reporting the correct number of days each month.

* Note- Actual reported numbers will vary due to annual leave, sick leave, or working nights/weekends, etc

Number of Total Workdays for FY15- 247Number of Total Hours for FY15- 1976

Month	Days	Hours
October	23	184
November**	18	144
December	17	136
January	19	152
February	20	160
March	22	176
April	22	176
May	20	160
June	22	176
July	22	176
August	21	168
September	21	168

**November reflects a traditional Govenor's Declaration of the Friday after Thanksgiving. If it is not declared, then November will have 19 days and 152 hours.

AIMS is Open for IPOW Development!

*Insert Trumpet Blasts*

The FY2015 Plan of Work is available for planning purposes at http://aims.uaex.edu!

We have created a "FY15 IPOW Guide" that includes basic instructions on creating your IPOW and submitting it for approval. We have also created a video to walk you through the process as well.  Both pieces are linked below. 

Agents need to plan for 113 days in their IPOW (those with SNAP plans will end up with more than 113 in their IPOWs). Others need to check with their supervisor for their IPOW deadline and planning day requirements. 

We have posted a few more resources as well here on the blog and will be adding more in the coming days. 

If you have questions about a specific goal or objective, contact the specialist listed.

If you have any problems or questions about creating your Plan of Work, feel free to contact me by email or phone.

Instructions on How to Create Your IPOW are here:
FY2015 IPOW Creation- PDF
FY2015 IPOW Creation- Video

Instructions on Approving an IPOW are here:
FY2015 IPOW Approval- PDF
FY2015 IPOW Approval- Video

"New" Planned Program Areas for FY2015

In an effort to streamline our Extension Plan of Work with our Division of Agriculture Strategic Plan and our federal plan of work, we have renamed the planned program areas in AIMS. The content of our programs has not changed, but where goals and objectives are located has. You will find the content of each planned program area below:

FY2015 Planned Program Area Contents

Access to Safe & Nutritious Foods

GOAL# 1- Foods & Nutrition

GOAL# 2- EFNEP

GOAL # 3- Food Safety & Food Preservation

Agricultural Production & Processing

GOAL#1- Animal & Animal Products

GOAL#2- Agricultural Economics & Agribusiness

GOAL#3- Plant & Plant Products

GOAL #4- Agricultural Awareness

Community & Economic Development

GOAL# 1- Business Development

GOAL# 2- Community, Regional & Leadership Development

GOAL #3- Public Policy

Environment, Climate & Energy

GOAL# 1- Natural Resources & Environment

Opportunities for Families & Youth

GOAL# 1- 4-H Youth Development

GOAL# 2- 4-H Volunteer Development

GOAL #3- EHC

GOAL #4- Health & Aging

GOAL #5- Family Life

GOAL #6- Family Economics

SNAP-Ed

GOAL# 1- SNAP-Ed

As you start working in AIMS, feel free to contact Diane Mashburn with any questions you may have. dmashburn@uaex.edu or 501-671-2351

Problems Uploading Impacts? Last minute tips

Ok guys, if you are trying to upload impacts today here are a few last minute tips:

-Make sure your impact's name has NO SPACES. AIMS doesn't like spaces.

-If it just sits there and doesn't seem to be loading, first make sure you clicked on the "upload/replace" link after you have selected your file and then if you did that, you may have to compress your pictures because the file is likely too large. Instructions for that is here:  http://aimshelp.blogspot.com/2014/09/problems-with-your-impact-not-loading.html

-Also, if you have more than one impact in a single program area (i.e. 2 SNAP or Ag impacts), you will either need someone else in the county to upload the 2nd one for you or email the 2nd one to aimshelp@uaex.edu so we can get it in there. AIMS only wants one impact per person per program area.

Need more help? I'm here until AIMS closes at 4:30 pm, so email me at dmashburn@uaex.edu or call at 501-671-2351 (leave a message if I don't pick up because I may be on the other line).

Problems with Your Impact Not Loading?

Is your Program Impact not wanting to load? It may be one of two problems:


First, is it a naming issue?
If the system is giving you a message about only wanting letters, numbers, or underscores, double check that there are no spaces in your file's name.
So if you named your impact FY2014 ANR Arkansas.pdf the system will not take it, so go ahead and either take out the spaces and make it FY2014ANRArkansas.pdf or change the spaces into underscores to make it FY2014_ANR_Arkansas.pdf. Either one of these versions will be accepted into AIMS.


Second, is the system either taking forever uploading or even giving you messages that it's timing out, the connection was reset, or you cannot view this page?
This may mean your file is large, which can be fixed by condensing your picture.
This is very simple to do:
-Locate the picture file you will be using in your template.
-Right click on the file, go down to "Open With...." and select "Microsoft Office 2010" or "Microsoft Picture Manager."
-Once in the program, click on "Edit Pictures" and a menu will come up on the right side of the screen.
-Click on "Compress Pictures" and then select compress for "documents."
-Click "Apply" and then use "Save As..." to rename your picture (this keeps you from losing your original picture file".
-Once you are finished, when you close the program, it will as if you would like to save changes, click "don't save" so you do not lose your original file.
-Go back into your impact template and insert the new compressed picture(s).
-Save the edited impact.
-Upload the finished impact into AIMS.



If neither of these tips help and you still need assistance with the impact templates, contact Diane Mashburn at 501-671-2351 or at dmashburn@uaex.edu.

UPDATED: How Much is a Volunteer's Time Worth?

I am hearing that many of you are working on your impact reports and starting to take a look at your year as a whole. One great indicator is the amount of volunteer time has been contributed to your programs and how much that time is worth.

This year, the amount an hour of volunteer's time is worth has been adjusted. So please use this figure in all your reports and impacts that you create.

For FY2014, one hour of volunteer time in the state of Arkansas is worth $22.55. 

The value of a volunteer's time is calculated by Independent Sector, which is a Washington, D.C. think tank who establishes a dollar value of a volunteer's time and the Arkansas Division of Community Service and Nonprofit Support (a division of DHS) utilizes this figure.

So please use this figure in all your reports and impacts that you create. If you have any questions about the current figure, feel free to contact Program and Staff Development at 501-671-2086.

Can't Get Your Report to Show Up? Try These Tips!

Trying to pull your AIMS reports to see what exactly you've done during the last 12 months, but AIMS isn't working? 9 times out of 10, it's your browser's pop-up blocker. Here are a few images to outline how to turn off your pop-up blocker depending on what internet browser you are using:
Google Chrome:

Mozilla Firefox:

Internet Explorer:

Note: Internet Explorer has been having problems with AIMS, so if turning off the pop-up blocker on IE does not work, please try using Chrome or Firefox. 

If you still have problems with your reports, please call Diane Mashburn at 501-671-2351 or email her at dmashburn@uaex.edu. 

FY2014 Impact Templates Uploaded and Ready to Use!

It's time to put your program impacts on display with our updated FY2014 Impact Report Templates! 

Remember:
-Each county is required to have at least 1 impact report submitted for each program area.
-All impact reports must be uploaded into AIMS by 4:30 pm on October 5th.
-Counties do have the capability to upload more than 1 impact report within a single program area (i.e. for ANR, you can submit a hort impact as well as a livestock impact).

Impact Templates have been uploaded to the Extension MISC Templates Page and the Program & Staff Development Impact Page.

We have created two resources to assist you in working within the impact templates.
Using the FY14 Impact Template- video
Using the FY14 Impact Template- PDF

If you have questions about the impact template, contact us in the Program and Staff Development Office at 501-671-2086. If you have questions about content to put within the various sections of the impact template, please contact your program leader.

FY2013 POW Approval Process

From your AIMS home screen (you will not need to assume your employee's ID):

First go to myPlan-

Then go to "Preview IPOW Summary FY 2013", select FY 2013-

Impact Photos Not Printing?

"I inserted a few photos as per your instructions in the online video. When I print my statement, the pictures don't print, but everything else does. Any reason for this?"

 

When the print dialog box is open… make sure that "Documents and Markups" is selected under Comments & Forms.  If it is only Documents, the pictures won't print.  If it still gives you trouble, give me a call.

 

Case of Writer's Block?

So you have a case of writer's block and can't seem to figure how to write your impact report??? 

Writing Better Outcomes (NIFA)



This link contains some ideas on writing your Impact report.  This presentation was developed by our Federal stakeholder, NIFA (National Institute of Food and Agriculture).  While it is intended for the NIFA Plan of Work and Report of Accomplishments, it is also good to think about for your Impact Reports.

Impact PDF - How to Pull Reports from AIMS

Wondering how to pull those Impact PDFs back out of AIMS?  Check out this video:

This can be useful tool for comparing reports or getting ideas for content, style, etc.  It is also a good idea to pull for your county/unit so that you can see what someone else will see when they are looking.

So, What Is Baseline Data Report?

Baseline are the "what we did" (Outcomes are the "what happened as a result of what we did"). 

 

Often in AIMS since most outputs are captured in the myReporting- Contacts… Baseline ends up collecting non-duplicated numbers and activities. Grants, project enrollment and specific data regarding what was done that is not captured elsewhere. It could also collect data used to compare an external factor so that you could compare that across the time frame of the program.

 

So for instance:

AIMS Closes October 5th

AIMS will close on October 5th, 2012 at 4:30p.m. Central time.
Be sure to have your data entered before the system shuts down.
At that time, the following major categories of data should be in the system:

FY12 Impact Training Centra Recordings

Links to the the ANR or FCS Impact Report Writing workshops conducted by Dr. Rick Cartwright and Dr. Anne Sortor respectively:

ANR-
http://webconference.tamus.edu/SiteRoots/main/User/PlaybackOptions.jhtml?s_id=00000116b52c00000138a7290601966b&cdurl=null&r_id=000000a22671000001393706dad59310&sessionid=1347397631250130502

FCS-
http://webconference.tamus.edu/SiteRoots/main/User/PlaybackOptions.jhtml?s_id=000000b5ad680000013912daf15b84e8&cdurl=null&r_id=000000b5ad680000013912daf15b8619&sessionid=1347397631250130502

If you have any other questions or are in need of additional resources, please let me know!

Apology for Multiple Corrections

I apologize to each and everyone of you for sending out multiple versions of the templates.  While I recommend using MSWord to draft your impacts so that you can copy and paste... I still should have not been in such a hurry to get them out that I posted files with errors.

I hope you will accept my apology and know that I am doing what I can to get you the resources you need.

Thanks,

Nikki

Photos for Impact Templates- Part 1

For each of the Impact Report templates there are two places where you can copy and paste an image- top right and bottom left of page .  With the Reader-enabled PDF you are not able to insert an image directly from your photo files.  Stock photos are available, see link below.
 
The easiest way (we have found) to do this is:

• Select the picture (seems to work best out of MSWord or Powerpoint), copy it, and then paste it into the PDF document.

How to Download M.I.S.C.-097 Templates

Go to http://intranet.uaex.edu/policy/Templates/template_misc.asp and download each of the Program Area Impact Report templates.

a.       Click on the link for M.I.S.C. -097 -4-H to open up the PDF file

Has the Plan of Work always opened this early?

Many of you are asking, "Has the Plan of Work always opened this early?"  The answer is no.