Sue's Clues for Annual Report FY2006

Susan M. Palmatier (Supervisor - Library Development Services, North Country Office, NHSL) has provided a few tips and tricks to help ease the pain of filling out the FY2006 NH Public Library Annual Report:

• If the Back, Next, and Update buttons are partially or completely out of sight at the bottom of your screen, hit the F11 key. This year those buttons tend to be hidden by the status bar, which is the one that tells you when a web site is ready to view -- at that point the bar says Done. Alternatively, to view the Back, Next, and Update buttons in full, click on View at the top of your IE screen, then on Status Bar; clicking on it should make it disappear until you click on it again and it reappears.
• When you try to submit your survey, you'll receive one or more edit checks, some of which will be eliminated from next year's version. One of these is for question 36d (Total Licensed Databases). Yes, the answer appears with two decimal places; ignore that. However, you will have to explain why this year's figure doesn't gibe with last year's. To do that, go to the right of the screen of edit checks and you'll see a very faint square; click on that square and a yellow, electronic "sticky note" will appear on the screen. Type in the following text: "Detailed breakdown was not requested in PY." (PY = Prior Year.) Then click OK on the yellow note. Also remember to click Update at the bottom of the screen.
• Another edit check you may see is one that doesn't like your answer to question 15b (Total Scheduled Public Service Hours Open per Year). Using the same yellow, electronic sticky note, just say that the figure is accurate, or a true count, for the CY. (CY = Current Year.) Then click OK and Update.
• Anytime you see an edit check you don't understand, or which seems to make no sense, please call or e-mail Sue at 1-800-462-1726, or spalmatier@library.state.nh.us. She'll walk you through it.
• When you're clearing up your edit checks before you submit your survey, always make sure you click Update either after you've written each explanation OR after you've finished writing them all. Be sure that all nasty red edit check messages have changed to a lovely, spring green before attempting to submit your survey.
• When all your edit check messages are green, click on Status and Printing at the top of the screen to get to the Submit Survey step. If your survey goes through successfully, you'll see a message saying, Congratulations!, and (if you have speakers), you'll hear a chime.
  

There may be more of Sue's Clues forthcoming. Watch this space.