1 Regional Conference - 2009 VMIS – to make life easy Introduction to VMIS Tax-Aide’s Volunteer...

1Regional Conference - 2009

VMIS – to make life easy

Introduction to VMISTax-Aide’s

Volunteer (& Site Data) Management Information System

Stan Marshall, Jr.Administration Specialist

Maine

State Coordinator Presentation

2Regional Conference - 2009

VMIS – Getting Started

AARP ITS Help Desk1-888-925-2002

[email protected] of Operation

Monday–Saturday8:00 AM to 11:00 PM, EST

3 Regional Conference - 2009

Signing on to VMIS

www.access.aarp.org (set up a hotlink)

1st User Name/Password gets you through the AARP firewall

2nd User Name/Password gets you into VMIS

To start both passwords will be identical

Before being assigned a password there is a brief orientation to the nature of VMIS and confidentiality.




Sign on to get through AARP

firewall


If you are impatient …



Select to enter VMIS system


VMIS logon

User Name & Password


When your password doesn’t “take” …

Reenter the password – it

will be ok. If you care about the time zone –

better change it! Otherwise report times will show as

unusual hours.


VMIS Home Screen

Site Locator – Same as Sites - ViewThis IS home

My Report Docs provides data output as PDF or Excel

Log off

VMIS

Log off AARP

For National Staff Use ONLY

Statement of Policy

Changepassword

* * *

* - non-functional

VMIS Reference Manual 2006 – in small bites

Activity ReportingUTS Upload


VMIS – That’s the BIG picture

Viewing Data Volunteers

Sites

Creating ReportsCreating Reports

ADS’s can also enter and edit data.ADS’s can also enter and edit data.


VMIS – View Volunteer InformationEnter a:

Volunteer ID

Or

First & Last Name & State

Or

Supervisor name

Beware – Entering only State brings up

people with no active Tax-Aide assignment.

Complete request with SUBMIT.

For some states - Enter first letter of state and

then arrow keys. Then Tab to a blank field and Enter.


VMIS – View Volunteer Information

Searching for Stan. He is a Maine

Counselor



Where’s Stan?

11 pages in.

Entering a last name and state will likely produce a manageable list.



To leave a record - use the browser back button, or place cursor over a menu choice


VMIS – View Site Information

The approach to viewing Site Information is the same as for Volunteer information

Place the cursor over Sites/View and left click.



Entering a DC or LC Volunteer ID brings up all corresponding sites.

Entering a City and State brings up all

corresponding sites.



This is the same information

provided in a Site Dump

report.


VMIS – Creating Reports

There are three types of reports:

Volunteer lists

Site lists

Site Activity Reports

These both have the same selection criteria screen. The only difference is the report title.

Volunteer Reports include:Leadership Roster (Also on side bar under Help)All Volunteer Roster (Also on side bar under Help)Inactive VolunteersVolunteer Ad hoc ReportStart Year Validation Report



ME1

Leadership roster can be for a specified supervisor or for a specified split state.

Versions can be saved for repetitive requests for reports.

The option to Overwrite Existing Version only applies to the PDF Version.

Generally the Volunteer or Tax Aide Information choices will be sufficient

When executed the report will appear in the My Report Docs section with an Email to announce its arrival. Don’t open the email. Go directly to My Report Docs. Reports are in PDF and/or Excel formats.

Show Advanced Page allows control of data retention.



When a report request has been received VMIS will issue the message shown above. Reports are ordinarily available within 5 minutes of making a request, and prior to receiving a confirming Email.

Do not select the web link shown in the Email. It is only for AARP employees.

REMEMBER – The report will be available in My Report Docs section at the top of the Home screen.



The My Report Docs menu has been changed to provide several optional views. Filters allow restricting which reports are displayed.

View options default is - Categories

Other Views:

Details

Icons

List



View option Details is the most compact display.

When holding the mouse over the report icon (on the left) three choices become available: View doc, Delete, Details. In the Categories view double clicking the report title will open the report.

In this example Filter is set On. Latest Version Only can save space. The other choices do not provide any useful function.

Use Apply to change filter conditions.


VMIS – Creating Reports - PDF and Excel Outputs

PDF version is comparable to the paper records available prior to VMIS being available on the web. It is easy to read.

The Excel version is susceptible to editing using Excel commands including:

Freeze Panes, Filter, Sort, Hide Rows and Hide Columns along with others to generate

a compact, useful report.

Notice that Site Activity & Volunteer reports are initially generated in both PDF and Excel.

Site Reports (except Site Dump) are initially generated only in PDF and must be converted to Excel format using Search. Site Dump defaults to Excel.

To return to the Home Page select VMIS HOME at the

top right.


VMIS – Create Reports - Activity Reports

VMIS has been developed in stages by multiple IT staff with numerous “improvements” being added over several years.

The result is “clunkiness” – uneven approaches to producing results.

Volunteers PDF Excel Preliminary Result

Leadership Roster YES YES <CTRL>

All Volunteer Roster YES YES <CTRL>

Volunteer Ad Hoc NO YES

Sites

Sites with Coordinators YES NO YES

Sites w/o Coordinators YES NO YES

Site Dump NO YES YES

Non-Approval YES YES <CTRL>



VMIS has been developed in stages by multiple IT staff with numerous “improvements” being added over several years.

The result is “clunkiness” – uneven approaches to producing results.

Volunteers PDF Excel Preliminary Result

Leadership Roster YES YES <CTRL>

All Volunteer Roster YES YES <CTRL>

Inactive Volunteers YES NO YES

Volunteer Ad Hoc NO YES

Start Year Validation YES YES

Sites

Sites with Coordinators YES NO YES

Sites w/o Coordinators YES NO YES

Site Dump NO YES YES

Non-Approval YES YES <CTRL>



Site Activity Reports PDF Excel

National Flash Report YES NO

State/District/Local Flash YES NO

Site Activity National Report YES YES

Site Activity Dump Report YES OPTION

DC Non-Approval Report YES YES


VMIS – Creating Reports PDF File Output – Leadership Roster Example

To move from page to page use

First

Prev.

Next

Last

Or enter a page number.

The on-screen page size can be adjusted as required using the 100% window.

The report can be prepared for printing using the Download option.

Not functional

Not functional – need to Download and then print

This feature allows producing reports with only selected fields saved in Excel.

To leave the report menu click “x.”

This offers help with Crystal Reports – Hope you do not need it!

Download can be used to View or Save a report in PDF format.


VMIS – Creating Reports – PDF Output by selecting Download

To get a conventional report in PDF format select the PDF option

BUT – be sure to select the All radio button rather than the default Current Page.

The other formats offered provide substantially the same result as the PDF output.

Then print from View Report for immediate output or Save Report and print later using the saved file.

An Excel file, produced at the same time as the PDF file, is immediately available in My Report Docs without the necessity of using this option to provide usable data.

Using the View Report option will provide a printable report from the screen.

After saving to a disk or thumb drive, print the report.


VMIS – Creating Reports – PDF Direct to Excel

Selecting the Excel Data Display output from the Download option, and then saving to a file, provides an editable report ordered by default by SC and then DC.

Page breaks in the PDF format are lost.

Generally this is a less useful output format than using Search to convert to Excel and modifying the page column layout gaining increased information on a page.


VMIS – Creating Reports – Excel Output

This is the RAW form of the Leadership Roster in Excel as provided in My Report Docs.

Although data may look forbidding, it is extremely useful as the data can be manipulated using basic Excel commands.

This is the form of the report I find to be most useful as I can hide columns, to display only what is needed, sort by DC or another field, and filter to create specialized reports containing only some of the data such as one DC, or only DC’s.

The key to its value is in becoming familiar with several Excel commands.


VMIS – Creating Reports – Excel Output

Here is a list of DC’s with volunteer ID, mailing address, phone number, and Email address.

My Email list came from copying this list to my Email address book. My DC’s Volunteer ID # report came from reorganizing this file.

There will be more information about using Excel formatting commands, for those who are interested, in the evening tutorial session.

This is the same as the previous slide after editing for readability.



Note – The PDF file is saved in the Tax Aide directory with the name -

080624 Leadership Roster

A note about windows directories –

My preference is to segregate all Tax Aide activity on my computer – I use a few subdirectories within the Tax Aide

directory.

C:\Tax Aide

Files are named in a way to make searching easy. YYMMDD ranks files with similar names in order using either date or alphabetical sorts.

To have a copy on your hard drive Save a Copy.

By default reports are saved only for 90 days in VMIS! Better to save on report creation


VMIS – Creating Reports – Inactive volunteers

You have the basics with respect to generating reports.

1. Select a report from the menus.

2. Go to My Report Docs to retrieve the report

3. Produce the report in PDF or Excel to extract required data.


VMIS – Creating Reports – Inactive Volunteers

Confession time!

I have never used this option because it has never been needed.

The determination of search criteria is complex and the results are awkward. The on-line training manual has details for those who are interested.

Click Help in the top blue bar of the VMIS screen to open the on-line training manual.


VMIS – Creating Reports – Volunteer Ad Hoc Report

This report offers flexibility in data selection and indexing.

It is available only in Excel which avoids having to convert a PDF file.


VMIS – Creating Reports – Ad Hoc Report

This report request form – with additional criteria on the following page – allows flexible data selection and sorting of the results.

Reports must be requested using the Submit option.

The output is only in Excel.


VMIS – Creating Reports – Ad Hoc Report

As usual, select the Submit button when criteria have been defined.

Here are sorting options


VMIS – Creating Reports – Sites With Coordinators

Site information reports can be prepared in three ways as listed.

Sites with Coordinators reports provide all recorded VMIS information.



This report provides several sort criteria which can be helpful in preparing reports ordered by DC, then city, or some other criteria.

Status - Select Active unless you want all categories.

Available index field criteria



This is the Sites with Coordinators report in PDF format – as was provided in printed form prior to ADS’s use of VMIS.

A report to be edited in Excel can be created by using the Download option in My Report Docs and saving the file.


VMIS – Creating Site Reports – in Excel

Fields that can be edited are identified by a shaded area (when selected with one left click) and added to the field list. They can be deleted by returning to the selected field and clicking again. The Excel report is in the order shown at the left.Select Search Now to generate the report.


VMIS – Creating Site Reports – in Excel

Select the MS Excel File option and then Go

When asked Save the file.

Using Search to convert from PDF may have value if only a few of the available fields are required for the desired report.



This is a Sites With Coordinators report in raw Excel format before being prepared for distribution.

After sorting by DC it will be a useful means of asking DC’s to update site information where they can make changes in bold or color and return the report for VMIS updating.

Fortunately LC’s & DC’s can now make changes to variable site data. Training your volunteers can save your ADS a lot of time and make information widely available quickly.


VMIS – Creating Reports – Sites Without Coordinators

This is the same report as the Sites With Coordinators report but NOT INCLUDING the names of the coordinators.



The selection criteria are the same as for Sites with Coordinators report.

Status - Select Active unless you want all categories.



Results preview screen.

Shows number of results

Shows number of printed pages

Continue executes PDF report generation

Use the browser back arrow to return to the prior screen and NOT execute the report.


VMIS – Creating Reports – Site Dump



Site Dump Report downloaded in PDF format.

You may not want to print a large file.

IMPORTANT:

To return to the menu use the Previous Page Icon at the top left of the screen. (not shown here)



Partial view of the Site Dump Report in Excel.

It includes 100% of the fields shown on the Site edit data screen.

Reformatting the data may make it more useful.

Using the Site Dump Report

saves having to convert from PDF


VMIS – Creating Reports – Site Activity

5 Site Activity Reports

National Flash Report

State/District/Local Flash Report

Site Activity National Report

Site Activity Dump Report

DC Non Approval Report


VMIS – Creating Reports – National Flash Report


VMIS – Creating Reports – Site Activity National Report

Excel Version

Also

available in a PDF

Version


VMIS - Creating Reports - State/District/Local Flash Report

Select District Coordinator

Select State

Select Year

Ordered by SIDN

PDF

Version


VMIS – Creating Reports – Site Activity National Report

PDF Version

Also

available in an Excel Version


VMIS – Creating Reports – Site Activity Dump Report


VMIS – Creating Reports – DC Non Approval Report


VMIS – Creating Reports – DC Non Approval Report

Excel Version of the DC Non Approval Report

ADS’s are able to follow monthly activity data entry and prod LC’s or DC’s who have not entered data timely.

ADS’s can also make corrections to erroneous reports.


VMIS – Deleting Reports

It is not necessary to delete old reports. They will be deleted automatically after 90 days. You must download and save to a thumb or hard drive those reports to be kept long-term.

If the list of reports in My Reports Doc becomes too large reports can be deleted from the list by selecting delete when the mouse is over the report icon.

1

2You confirm the file is to be deleted.

On selecting “Yes” the system shows the menu at left.

THEN you select VMIS Home and return to My Reports Doc.

3 - 4

If the Categories View is used use the magnifying glass at the right most column to delete.

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1 Regional Conference - 2009 VMIS – to make life easy Introduction to VMIS Tax-Aide’s Volunteer...

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