ROSS for Finance - Tutorial & Guide

Presented By: Sarah J. Lee - September 2019 Update

Table of Contents 1. Obtaining and Ensuring Correct Access ............................................................................................................................. 2

1. Printing and Finding Specific Resource Orders ................................................................................................................. 3

2. Searching All Orders for an Incident ................................................................................................................................. 9

3. Importing ROSS to e-ISuite .............................................................................................................................................. 12

4. Looking Up and Searching for Resources ........................................................................................................................ 20

1. Obtaining and Ensuring Correct Access Ensure you have a NAP account (also required for e-ISuite Enterprise access): https://nap.nwcg.gov/NAP/#.

o If you already have a NAP account, you will log into NAP and choose “Manage Account” from the left side of the screen. Then in the pop-up screen, scroll down to the “Application Requests” section.

Request standard ROSS access through the NAP portal, choose: PROD (standard) for the “Instance”.

Once access is granted, contact your local your local dispatch center and request they add you to ROSS in the “Basic User” role, which is the most basic role for users with the least amount of access.

Install the current version of ROSS on your computer and ensure you bookmark the link to the ROSS Cognos Reports in your internet browser: https://rossreports.nwcg.gov/cognos/bi/.

1. Printing and Finding Specific Resource Orders

Open your internet browser and go to: https://rossreports.nwcg.gov/cognos/bi/.

Once there use your ROSS User ID and Password to log in.

This brings you to the ROSS Reporting page. This is where you can run and in some cases create numerous reports, but for this tutorial, we will just focus on resource orders.

o These ROSS reports aren’t as quick and easy as those that dispatchers with full incident access can run, but you can do this for *any* incident regardless of its location or your home unit.

o Until you have run one or more reports, there will be nothing in “Recent” area under the welcome banner.

Click on the Home button in the left upper corner, then ROSS Reports and Standard Reports (Historical).

Choose the “ROF-501 Resource Order Form (Historical).

The ROSS Reporting welcome screen will be replaced with a query selection screen, as seen below.

o Remember that in these reports, you must start at the top and work your way down.

o And in each section, once you make a selection you will need to click on the “Filter” button to the right before moving down to the next area.

Choose the calendar year of the incident. This is based on the start date, so if an incident started on December 31, 2018 and ended in February of 2019, you will still choose “2018” in the list.

o Note that anything with a red asterisk “*” is a required field.

Next you will need to choose the incident status (open or closed).

o You may not know for sure, but generally if the fire occurred in the same year or “fire season” it will be open.

o If you can’t find your fire when you search, changing the status from open to closed (or vice versa) could fix the issue.

Then either type the incident name (note that spaces, dashes, etc. are very important, so I always recommend typing part of the name followed by the wildcard character, an asterisk “*”) or the incident number (with the dashes and no spaces).

o Do not type both the name and number.

o You can also search by the incident host unit or dispatch, but I don’t use these often.

Once you see your incident name in the list, selected it and click on the “Filter” button to the left.

o Be sure to check the incident number to see if it is for the correct location. Incident names are not unique and you may find 100’s of “Pine” fires in numerous states.

o If you don’t see your incident in the list, try changing the status (open to closed), use less of the incident name followed by the asterisk “*”, or use the incident number (sometimes the name is different).

Next you will want to choose which catalog to search in.

o You cannot choose multiple catalogs. The catalog choices are Aircraft, Crew, Equipment, Overhead or Supply.

o ROSS is set up so that catalogs are stand-alone and not intermixed for resource orders. This is because each catalog’s information on the resource order is different (remember the old colored cardstock?).

Then select the “Filter” button to the left of that section. I do not recommend entering anything in the filter boxes, such as “Resource Name”, “Item Name”, etc. as it just muddies the search.

You should now see the listing of specific resource orders in the catalog you chose.

o At this point you have an option:

You can either choose the orders you would like to view/print (can choose multiple by holding down the “Crtl” key.

Or you can view/print them all and search in the pdf document (choose all by clicking on the first line, scroll to the bottom, hold down the “Shift” key and click on the last order).

Click on “View Report” at the bottom.

o Note: Where there is not resource assignment name after the order number, those are either unfilled or cancelled orders.

You will now see the traditional resource order you get from dispatch with all the documentation, etc. for the resources you selected.

o If you selected more than one resource, then you will see them all together with the documentation for each order at the end.

You can print this report or go back to modify your request to create a new report. To print choose the “Run As” button at the top of your screen and choose “Run PDF”. To modify your report, choose “Reset prompts and run”.

2. Searching All Orders for an Incident

If you are looking to search all orders for an incident before printing your chosen specific resource orders, then you can run a different report that will import nearly all of the data for all five catalogues into an excel spreadsheet for easy filtering and searching.

Open your browser and log into the ROSS Reporting page (just like the first steps of the last section of this guide).

Click on the “User Community” option (under the Home Button on the right side of the screen), click on “UC – Incidents”, click on “UC – Incident Financial Support”, and choose the “Requests by Incident Number, Catalog and Year” report.

o Note: If you can’t read the full name of a report, use your mouse to drag the window further open by

clicking and holding the two lines on the edge of the drop-down menu’s right edge.

The next screen that appears will ask you to fill out prompts to select the incident, year and catalogs.

o You will need to know the full incident number (format “XX-XXX-000000” using the dashes, but with

no spaces even though the screen says to use them).

Enter the incident number and click on the “Search” button. If it is a valid incident number, it should appear in the

results box below.

Click on the incident number in the box (so that it is highlighted) and click on the “Insert” button to the right of it.

The incident number should then appear in the choice box to the right. Then scroll down the page.

o If you wanted to run multiple incident numbers you could continue searching for another incident and

adding it to the choice box on the left.

Skip the “Inc Calendar Year” section, as you will leave this as the defaulted selection (from the lowest value to the

highest value incident calendar year) to capture all orders.

The last prompt box is to choose the Parent Request Catalogs. You will click on the small, blue “Select All” link just

above the “Next Button”. This will chose and highlight all five catalogs. Click on Finish to run the report.

This will run a report that will show up as browser window that is not very user friendly. To convert it to an excel

spreadsheet (my preference), click on the HTML document drop down arrow in the upper right corner and select

“View in Excel Options” and choose “View in Excel 2007 Format”.

This will open a new browser window as it runs, and you will see your report in the lower left corner when it is

complete. Once open you can use all the normal excel tools to filter and sort to your heart’s content!

3. Importing ROSS to e-ISuite

Important Note: You will need to ensure you have the Data Admin role in e-ISuite to be able to import ROSS data. The example shown below is using the Enterprise version of e-ISuite, but the Site version is very similar.

Open your internet browser and go to: https://rossreports.nwcg.gov/cognos/bi/. (Just like in sections #2 and #3 of this guide.)

Once there use your ROSS User ID and Password to log in.

o Click on the Home Button if you were working in other areas of ROSS Reporting.

Click on the Team Content option (under the Home Button on the right side of the screen), click on ROSS System Extracts, and choose either EISUITE Import File (based on which browser you are using for E-ISuite).

o They work exactly the same, but the browser settings won’t allow ROSS to have one extract report.

Select your fire just as you would to run resource order reports (see the section #2 of this guide). o The example below shows the numerous ways I could find the Harris fire, but only use one method:

incident name, number, host or dispatch.

Once you find your incident, highlight it and click on the “Download File”.

Choose “Save As” to save the file to the computer (such as your desktop or documents files). I usually rename the file with the ‘incident number_name_date time’ (date and time of pulling the report). The date/time is important because you may need to import from ROSS multiple times a day, depending on the incident, and while you could overwrite each file I prefer to keep them separate as a backup.

o It is important to never change the file extension (type of file) of the report when renaming it. Make sure

it stays an “.html” file.

At this point you can also refer to the e-ISuite user guide, training manual or quick reference cards.

Now you will want to log into e-ISuite (again, you must have data steward permissions to import ROSS data to the incident). If you have a privileged (i.e. ad.sbear) account, log in with your regular/normal e-ISuite user name.

o After you have done the initial set-up of your incident, choose the incident in the list (ensure it is highlighted before continuing).

Then on the right hand side of that same screen, click on the “ROSS Import” button.

On the next screen, also in the upper right hand side, select the “Upload File” button to bring the report you extracted from ROSS into the e-ISuite program. (Don’t worry if you see other fire’s files in the grid below.)

Then navigate to the location you saved your report. *Important: If you don’t see your report listed, make sure you tell your window to show you all files. It will default to look for “XML Documents”.*

o Notice how the file doesn’t show up in the screen shot below? Once I click on the drop down of the document type (on the bottom, to the right of the file name) and choose “All Documents” it will appear (see next screenshot).

Now back in e-ISuite you should see your file in the grid listing. You will want to ensure the line of the report in the grid is highlighted, and select the “Start Import” button.

You will see a screen like the following and will need to work through the prompts. See the e-ISuite Quick Reference Card for more detailed information: http://famit.nwcg.gov/sites/default/files/eisuite_QRC_ROSS_Import.pdf

o A common misconception is that doing a ROSS import after you’ve started entering or changing things will overwrite your info. The quick reference card will detail how you can match up resources, or prevent them from importing if you don’t want them to.

If this is your first ROSS import for an incident, skip to the next step. If not, you will need to click through the prompt to review the import information to match and/or exclude resources. Work left to right for each header, moving left to right within them.

o So first you will move through the “Match Resources” screens, then the “Exclude Resources” screens, and then the “Review and Complete” screens.

Once you get to the “Review and Complete” screen (or if this is your first time importing you can skip to this step), click on the “Complete” button at the bottom.

o Other users will need to refresh their e-ISuite screens.

Note that if a resource has already been filled and released in ROSS prior to your import (a common example is Air Tankers) they will not import to e-ISuite. You will have to manually enter them.

4. Looking Up and Searching for Resources

This allows you to find resources, see their contact information, current visible qualifications, recent assignment history and status. Using this to become Sherlock Holmes has saved me numerous hours or days of “normal” research.

Log into the ROSS system on your computer. In the top tool bar, select “Resource” and “Search for Resources”.

Even though there are many filters available, you must enter a last name (or partial using a wildcard) for overhead.

o That same block changes to the “Resource Name” for the other catalogs and is also still a required field.

o Because the search functions are very literal to spacing, etc. use the asterisk “*” as a wildcard character.

o It is better to have a broader search than a narrower, because you can always adjust the search and limit it more.

Once you have entered your search criteria, click on the filter button.

o To clear the filters, click on the button that looks like a squeegee (below the filter button).

Here is an example for equipment:

Select the resource you are looking for by clicking on that line (it highlights it) and then choose “View” and “View Resources”.

Under the “Organizations” tab, you can then view whether or not they are regular government employees; their

home unit jetport; and the name, unit ID and phone number for their home unit and dispatch center.

Under the “Qualifications” tab, you can view the resource’s qualifications (note, they can hide or exclude

qualifications from view from IQCS). Whether or not they are qualified, trainees, unqualified (expired) and the

date of expiration.

The “Availability” tab may show dates of unavailability if the resource has entered it from the self-status portal. This is usually rare or outdated. The same is true of the “Special Conditions” and “Features” tabs.

The “Assignment History” tab can be invaluable. This will link directly to their resource orders for any incidents that have not been closed in ROSS. You can easily print a resource order, for a prior assignment as an example, for someone. Just choose the incident order (click on the line to highlight it) and choose “Print” and “Print Resource Order+”.

o Note that you still choose “Print” even if you just want to view and/or save the pdf document.

The other thing you can do in this screen is view the details of an order and the travel that dispatch enters into ROSS. You do this by highlighting the resource order and choosing “View” and “View Request”.

There are many tabs in a new screen that will pop up. If the resource is in travel status to or from an incident, one of the tabs will be “Travel Information”.

The “Contract Information” tab is only useful for contracted resources and shows information that may be useful when doing research when the contractor is not available to ask questions on the incident, i.e they are in spike camp, etc. This will show their contract number, beginning/end date, etc.

The “Roster” tab will show if a resource is listed on a current roster, i.e. an established IMT, type 1 hand crew, etc.

The other really important tab is “Contacts”. Depending on what information has been entered by their home unit dispatch, this can show their work email, home email, office phone, cell phone, home phones, etc.

The “Documentation” tab may be used by dispatch to make notes, etc. It really depends on whether or not a particular dispatcher uses it and the documentation noted. Examples could be regarding preference of contact method for assignments, if someone transfers dispatch centers, etc.

And the “Additional Attributes” is another tab that is only used for contracts. It can answer many questions that the IMT may have about a piece of equipment.

o Note: When you select tabs from the upper row, that row will automatically move to the lower row. This will cause confusion if you are stressed, hurried, tired (aka, on an incident).

Thank you for your time during this training. I hope this helps you to understand what information you can easily access in ROSS, and will help you in your incident

assignments and regular positions!

Questions?

Sarah J. Lee Montana/Dakotas BLM Fire Business Lead

sjlee@blm.gov