1. Project Board Training Training recording: https://bit.ly/2QZuwd3
September 26, 2018 from 9aM-11AM
Kit Alviz and Chris Hanson, Program Planning and Evaluation
Welcome by Wendy Powers and Campus Leadership (Rob AtWill, Dave Campbell, Steve Lindow, and Tim Paine)
Poll- college/school

2. How ANR Uses Project Board Information
UC ANR's federal plan and report of work (almost $8.5 million)
UC ANR's contributions to the UC annual accountability report, sustainability report, Office of the President budget reports, ad hoc requests
Program planning & resource allocation (e.g., academic programmatic footprint report for Call for Positions)
Legislative/External/Internal Requests
Compliance with federal requirements to maintain funding levels  (multi-state!)
Wendy’s slide
Legislative/external/internal requests: (often in partnership with Strategic Communications)
Compliance with federal requirements: (e.g., meeting 25% targets of multistate and integrated work)

3. Desired Outcomes Participants will have:
Understanding of Project Board’s purpose and how the information entered is used by ANR and can be used for campus efforts
Understanding of CE/AES split appointment reporting strategies and importance of multi-state FTE reporting
Understanding of the structure of Project Board
Experience with key elements in Project Board
Understanding of who to contact for technical assistance

4. Agenda Welcome, overview, purpose (25 minutes)
Project Board definitions, structure, and CE/AES split appointment strategies (10 min)
Hands-on activities (50 min)
Q&A (30 min)
Wrap up (5 min)

5. UC Davis VetMed – Rob Atwill
Current efforts to differentiate CE Specialists on campus and change merit/promotion process so that Extension efforts are taken under more consideration.
Opportunity for efficiency in sharing Cooperative Extension impact stories. Use the same material for:
Annual ANR reporting in Project Board.
Candidate statements in merit/promotion process.
VetMed Extension newsletter, which is then utilized in other campus newsletters.
5 page candidate statement. Current efforts to differentiate CE Specialists on campus and change merit/promotion process: New federation peer group.

6. UC Berkeley CNR – Steve Lindow
CE Specialists’ impact stories in Project Board can be used to:
Support college leadership and CE Specialists to increase visibility of CE Specialists’ outreach work (example: UCB transition to the “big 5” goals).
Demonstrate CE efforts in merit/promotion package as supplemental document
5+ page candidate statement.

7. UC Riverside CNAS – Tim Paine
Impact stories can be used to highlight activities in the college that emphasize public value and the effect on quality of people’s lives.
Project Board impact stories can be included as supplemental uploads in the E-File system for merit/promotion processes.
Project Board is a tool to communicate with CE Advisors and the rest of the ANR network (Explore feature).
2 page candidate statement. Project Board impact story export would have to be a supplemental upload in E-File.

8. UC Davis CA&ES – Dave Campbell
Accountability reporting: responsibility/necessity/challenges.
Learning/remembering to capture impact stories in a file that can be used to provide content for Project Board and in merit/promotion.
To the extent the college an use Project Board to catalogue Specialist impact stories, we can better advocate for what Specialists are doing (particularly work at the county level or on particular issues).
Firsthand experience with using Project Board.
5 page candidate statement.
Can form a special peer review or utilize college existing procedure.
AES: What is happening with funding and highlighting applied research that addresses priority issues. New website. Would be great to replicate for CE.

9. Project Board Purpose
New system that aims to reduce duplicative data entry efforts and make data accessible for multiple purposes. Designed to manage information for the following purposes:
Academic Merit and Promotion: Leverage efforts between ANR reporting and campus merit/promotion systems
Accountability
Advocacy Efforts
Kit slides from here on out.
-Academic Merit and Promotion:
CE Specialists with campus merit/promotion already have to do intensive data entry for their packages, so they will have a simpler user experience; we’ve tried to reduced duplicative data entry where possible. Identified ways to leverage efforts where possible; leaders mentioned in previous slides.
-Accountability: includes federal reporting, UC accountability & budget reports, county reports to Board of Supervisors, ad hoc reports such as audit materials, etc.
-Advocacy Efforts: Information is used for talking points and marketing materials for ANR leaders when talking to
legislators, partners, and others. Creating a “What’s Happening in Cooperative Extension” reporting tool that will allow all users to search and find projects and people.

10. Timeline July 31, 2018: Project Board opened (ANR Portal)
October 3, 2018: Due date for condition change FTE for SFY (July 1, 2017-June 30, 2018)
March 1, 2019: Due date for entering information for FFY (October 1, 2017-September 30, )

11. Addressing Concerns
1. Privacy 2. Better than DANRIS-X? 3. This change will take time! How can we help with the transition?
Kit
1. Privacy: Don’t want private personnel or intellectual property to be available to anyone  Worked with academics to determine what is sensitive (narratives, outcomes, decisions) and what is less sensitive (activity and project tables), and designed system around it. For example, merit/promotion decisions will remain confidential!
2. Will it be as laborious as DANRIS-X?  Engaged contractors to ensure a modern and intuitive user experience. Several issues with DANRIS-X have been addressed, including copy/paste features, submit and save buttons, ability to delete, accessible with keyboard, etc. We also integrated data entry rather than multiple systems/modules. There will be no open and close of systems and no separate annual report/plan modules and related issues. The new system will better reflects the complex nature of responsibilities, such as dynamic tagging to counties for clientele groups; but will still be able to transfer clientele groups between retired and newer advisors.
3. Lots of changes  We recognize there are a lot of changes happening in ANR, such as the new condition changes, website redesign, new leadership positions and members, etc. We’re doing our best to make this a collaborative effort and welcome ideas on how we can help with the transition to Project Board.

12. How NIFA Uses Reporting Data
Annual budget requests and Office of Management & Budget inquiries
NIFA budget explanatory notes/USDA Annual Performance Report
Congressional inquiries
Secretary’s travel and speaking engagements
Audits and oversight inquiries
Other USDA departmental inquiries
Scientific emphasis area evaluations
Kit
NIFA recently provided this information at a national extension administrator’s conference. I can’t speak to the specifics but in general, NIFA uses the information ANR provides them for demonstrating accountability, securing funding, generating public support, and advocating with congress.

13. CE/AES Split Appointments
Agriculture Experiment Station (AES) academics are required to report into REEport (typically one project) – Hatch $
CE Specialists are required to report into Project Board – Smith Lever and State $
Reporting should reflect FTE split (example: 40% AES, 60% CE) only 40% of effort/activities/outcomes would be reported in REEport
Project names can be the same. However, do NOT double report:
Outcomes/impacts, publications, and activities
FTE can be carefully assigned in both places.
Think about which part of you is the PI. Is it your AES person or the CE person.
Contact us for consultation

14. Project Name & Description Reporting System FTE
Scientific activities/ outputs
Extension activities/ outputs
Outcomes
Integrated Pest Management
REEport = AES (Hatch $)
0.35
REEport
Depends - do not duplicate
Project Board = CE (Smith-Lever and State $)
0.1
Project Board
Asian Citrus Psyllid/ Huanglongbing
0.45
 Project Board
*W892 Pest Management (multi-state)
0.05
Total FTE (40/60 AES/CE split) 1
Fixed this slide post-training. Multi-state projects in NIMSS automatically generate a project in REEport. Replaced WERA (incorrect) with a more accurate fictitious project name/number. WERA activities are not loaded into individual’s REEport.

15. Structure Theme Activity Activity Activity Activity Activity Activity
Project
Activity
Activity
Activity
Activity
Activity
Activity
Theme – Create 1-3 themes that organize CE work into broad content areas that include both extending knowledge and information and research and creativity. Summarize the background, clientele, goals, inputs, outputs or methods, outcomes, and impacts.
Project – Consider lumping multiple grants or small projects into one larger project. Provide a description. These will be searchable by others in ANR.
Activity – CE Specialists with campus M+P provide detailed activity information in their campus M+P systems, thus, will not have to enter detailed activities into Project Board. We ask for counts instead!
Only tagging condition change to theme and FTE.
Activity
Activity
Activity
Activity
Activity

16. Ground Rules Stay on topic/scenarios.
Respect different learning styles/speeds.
Be aware of “resistance to change” attitudes and make suggestions on what will be helpful as this transition is made.
Building on a lot of agreements and inputs from the last 2 years. Some input we can take into consideration for immediate fixes (like UX, help text), some will have to be added to the wishlist backlog, some will conflict with previous agreements and I’ll try my best to communicate those.

17. Logging on
Widget on ANR Portal ( – top right side
Support Browsers:
Chrome, Firefox, Safari
Internet Explorer is EXCLUDED

18. Hands On! One action at a time, move as a group! 1. Create a theme
3 minutes on your own; 12 minutes for technical assistance/discussion
2. Create a project
3 minutes on your own; 7 minutes for technical assistance/discussion
User testing lesson learned is to have the group focus on one action at a time so that we can best assist you.

19. Help page: http://ucanr
Help page: Tip: On each screen, make sure you are reading the section for CE Specialists with campus merit + promotion

20. Multi-State Reminder
Short on targets! Please enter new multi-state efforts into Project Board at any time!
What qualifies:
Collaborations with CE and AES academics in other states
No conflicting cost-sharing or salary recharges
At least 5% estimated effort for the current or future fiscal year

21. Recap – System built for multiple purposes
Themes
Academics: Exports for use in merit/promotion and advocacy efforts
Administration: Accountability, advocacy
Projects
Academics: Exports for use in merit/promotion and advocacy efforts, collaboration
F.T.E.
ANR planning and reporting efforts, maintain funding levels (multi-state/integrated)
To recap, the system was built to serve several needs.

22. Project Board Next Steps
Publications will be added as ANR finalizes new categories.
Tooltips, help text, help webpage will be continuously improved
“Explore What’s Happening in Cooperative Extension” will continue to grow. Projects, publications, profile tags, etc.
Monitoring features will be added winter 2018.

23. Zoom Technical Assistance Drop-In Hour
Every 3rd Wednesday through February 2019 from 1-2PM
Zoom Meeting Link:
Join audio by computer or by phone: (meeting ID is )

24. Reflection
Use the chat box to share your thoughts on today’s hands-on training and the system in general.
What went well?
What was challenging/can be improved?
Other comments/questions?

25. Contact Information
Help site:
Kit Alviz
Chris Hanson