Water and Air Monitoring and Reporting

Online User Guide: Environmental Monitoring System Web Reporting (EMS WR)

1.1 About this Manual

1.1.1 Who should read this manual

This manual is a guide for anyone who uses EMS WR. The initial audience includes:

Ministry of Environment staff
health authority staff
water purveyors

It is expected that both expert and non-expert users will access EMS through EMS WR in the future. Therefore, this manual optimizes accessibility for non-expert users by using plain language. Future editions of the manual will be revised to accommodate further enhancements to the EMS WR application and business needs of various stakeholders.

1.1.2 How this manual is organized

This manual includes these main sections:

Getting Started — provides background information and basic information necessary for using EMS WR.
EMS WR Basics — provides new users with an understanding of EMS WR and discusses how to use the system effectively. Intermediate users who have not recently used EMS WR can reacquaint themselves with the system by scanning this section.
Finding Information — focuses on how to access the system to find information. For most users, this will be the most important part of the manual. Where possible, this section omits information that is not directly related to specific business tasks. To learn more about this approach, see Use Finding Information for Business Needs.
EMS WR Screen-by-Screen Reference — describes each EMS WR screen and screen items such as buttons and fields. To learn more, see
Use EMS WR Screen-by-Screen Reference for Screen Information.
Sample Reports — provides examples of the different reports you can create using EMS WR.
Glossary — explains special terms this manual uses.

1.1.3 How to use this manual

Reading this section and the preceding section, How this manual is organized, will help you better understand this manual's approach to EMS WR. It will also help you find information quickly.

Use Finding Information for Business Needs

Most users will come to EMS WR with specific needs or tasks that they tend to perform frequently. For example, water purveyors might want to check the quality of their water samples every month. Health authorities might want to produce only certain predefined reports. Ministry staff might focus on customized reports that reflect both their business needs and expertise in the subject area (e.g. involvement in a particular study).

Thus, these users usually do not need or want to know the meaning of every field on every EMS WR screen. Instead, they require step-by-step instructions that will get them the information they need — with minimum additional detail.

The section entitled Finding Information addresses the business needs of these users. If you have specific tasks in mind, this is a good place to start because it indicates the typical user groups and business needs for each report and graph. This can help you focus on the areas that are of most use to you.

If you cannot find what you need in the Finding Information section, refer to the EMS WR Screen-by-Screen Reference section. Check the EMS WR Screen-by-Screen Reference section for details about:

fields
buttons
checkboxes
radio buttons
drop-down lists
links (and linked images)

Use EMS WR Screen-by-Screen Reference for Screen Information

Although Finding Information can help direct you to the sections that are most important to you, it does not prevent you from accessing any part of EMS WR that you are interested in. To this end, the section named EMS WR Screen-by-Screen Reference describes EMS WR on a screen-by-screen basis, with screen images for guidance.

The EMS WR Screen-by-Screen Reference provides details about screens and fields that might not appear in the Finding Information section. It also gives examples of reports and graphs.

The EMS WR Screen-by-Screen Reference can help users who are unfamiliar with certain terms or phrases. For example, if you want to know the meaning of the Sample Descriptor field on the Historical Statistical Reports - Criteria page, go to the EMS WR Screen-by-Screen Reference section and look up its meaning in a table that describes all fields on that page.

1.1.4 Document conventions

This manual uses certain conventions (i.e. consistent presentation methods and instructions) to express computer concepts. These include:

styles that provide visual cues about different types of information in the manual, such as headings
terms that describe common user tasks and computer tools, such as mouse clicks and radio buttons.

The next sections provide details about these concepts.

Styles

These are the main style conventions in this manual:

Convention	Use and Meaning
Italics	labels for EMS WR components such as fields, screens, data windows, radio buttons, etc. (for more information, see Terms and EMS WR user interface)
Blue (no underline)	cross-reference hyperlinks: you can click on these to go to the section named in the link
Bold	most headings
SMALL CAPS	keys that you press to type information
courier	text you type into EMS
bullet	an item in a list
o hollow bullet	a second-level item in a list
1, 2, 3...	numbered steps in a task
a, b, c...	multiple, exclusive options within a step

Terms

This manual uses these standard computer terms:

Term	Image (if applicable)	What it means
Click		A click involves positioning the cursor over a button and pressing and releasing the left mouse button.
Select		Select involves positioning the cursor over a pull-down menu item or check box and clicking once.
button		A button is an on-screen control that users activate by clicking on it with the mouse.
radio buttons		A radio button is a button that you click to select an option. Radio buttons always come in sets and are mutually exclusive; selecting one button de-selects any other button in the set.
drop-down list		A drop-down list is a single-line data field that you fill through a drop-down list. Clicking the down arrow button displays the drop-down list. Use the horizontal scroll bar to read through the list and then click on your choice.
scrollbar & elevator box		A scrollbar lets you scroll through a list of data that is too large to appear on-screen at one time. To scroll a display, drag-select the elevator box or click the scrollbar above or below the elevator box. The elevator box is the sliding box inside an active scrollbar that indicates your relative position in the scrolling list or page.
single-line data field		A single-line data field is the standard Windows data field.

1.1.5 Notes, tips, cautions, and business needs hints

This manual integrates special remarks into the sections where they will be most useful. It does this using a consistent style to highlight different kinds of important information:

Note: provides users with general information.

Tip: gives users special system information and best practices for

! Caution: alerts readers to things that can lead to system errors or problems.

Business Needs Hint: provides information that helps users carry out their business needs quickly and efficiently.

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