Quick Guide on How to Enter Trips in the AMC On-Line Database

This guide is to provide a quick reference for contributors and reviewers to enter a trip or event into the AMC database. More complete guides are available in the site menu if needed. Any further questions can be directed to the Chapter Webmaster.

Trips and events can be entered by either a “contributor” or a “reviewer”. In general, the reviewer will be the sub-chair of the group and a contributor will be one of the leaders in that group. When a person applies for a password to enter trips or events, they will be assigned either a contributor or reviewer password. If the chair of any group does not want to handle the duty of reviewer, that responsibility can be assigned to anyone in the activity group. The reviewer will get an email from the AMC saying that there are trips to be reviewed any time a contributor enters and submits a trip. (A trip can also be listed by the reviewer just as if they are a contributor.) The reviewer then checks over the listing and if OK submits it to the Approver. The Approver will again check the submittal and send it to the AMC to be put on the database listings and/or in the Magazine.

To submit a trip or event you first go to our chapter web site, (if you are reading this you probably already are there) and use the main drop down menu as seen below under “Leader Support” and click on “Trip Submittal login (pw)”.

When you click on “Trip Submittal login (pw)” you will get a login page where you will enter your username (your email address) and your assigned password.

If you are a Contributor

If you are a contributor you will be served a page as below. (If you are a reviewer, read over the contributor information and then go on to see additional options for a reviewer.)

For most trips or events, you will click on the Add new Chapter Trip(s) and you will get the input form, which will be similar to the example page below. (Scroll down to see the example or click for a separate Tab/Window.)

Note that if you are adding an Interchapter Excursion or a Major Excursion, you should click on the appropriate item.

Before we look at the specifics of the form, note that certain fields are already filled in. This is because the contributor (used for this example) was issued an account password only for the Narragansett Chapter and only under the committee of *Backpacking, with “Backpacking” assigned as the *Activity. Also fields specific to the contributor are also prefilled.

One field can not be changed because the contributor is only allowed to enter trips for our Chapter and within his/hers committees. This field is *Chapter which is grayed out with Narragansett (R.I.).

While there are many obvious options in the form below, there are certain highlighted ones that the contributor should pay attention to.

Starting at the top of the page, click the button selection for where you want this listing to be seen, in the Magazine, Website, or both. The default is both.

The *Date Range is different from the 'official guides'. The date selection is now inserted with calendars (use the little calendar icons).

There are two windows for filling out the Magazine and Web Descriptions. Put your trip description here, observing the word limits. The program will tell you if you exceed the limit when you try to submit the form. Do not duplicate the title of the trip in the description. Do not duplicate leader and co-leader names and phone numbers, trip registration contact, etc. All these should go in other fields on the form. Clarifications and exceptions can go in the description, such as calling John Doe for details of the trip other than contacting the leader or the registrar.

Hint: Use copy and paste methods to fill out the form if you have a activity description from some other document or note. It is faster and eliminates a lot of mistakes. First Paste the entire description in the “Description” window. Then cut various text items from that window and paste them in the respective form fields.

For our Chapter we usually require that participants contact the leader of any trip, so you must change the default button to “Contact us to participate”.

The *Region must be selected. Usually RI, but if not, select an appropriate region.

The *Activity will be prefilled with the activity assigned to the contributor when the password is issued. It also will be the topic under which the activity is listed when you click on “Narragansett Activities” on the first page of the Chapter web site. An example is provided where one trip was listed for “Skiing” as the primary activity and the other as “Walks” listed as the primary activity. The 2^nd Priority listing will allow the trip to be listed under a second activity on the AMC database, but will not affect the “Narragansett Activities” listing on our web page. Here is are all the possible activities to be selected from.

The *Committee field is filled in with Backpacking, but in this case where the contributor is assigned to two committees, the menu is active with two selections. If you have been assigned to several committees and logged in under a single password, you must remember to choose the proper committee for your trip. This determines which reviewer your trip will be sent to for approval.

The *Name field is prefilled with the contributors name. The phone and email information is also pre-filled if this information was included in his password account. If it is not, something must be in at least one of the contact fields. Of course the contributor does not necessarily have to be the leader, co-leader, or registrar. If the contributor is not the leader, change the name to the trip leader. Don't forget to check the Show Phone/Email on Web box for the phone or email. If you do not check the email box, but have an email address in the field, what will be shown on the web is a link to a form (ie. blind) email to the AMC. The viewer will not see your email address until you answer their email which will be forwarded from the AMC. Note: If you choose to not check either the phone or email box, and rely on the “blind email” for contact information, there will be no contact information under the “Narragansett Activities” page. If you have a public phone number, it is suggested that you use that. If you have a cell phone that is unlisted, it's up to you whether you want it listed publicly. (If for some strange case where the leader does not want to be contacted directly, and the co-leader is not fully qualified to be the leader, contact the Webmaster for work-a-round solutions.)

If there are co-leaders fill in the fields for the Co-Leader Information.

If you wish to have someone other than the leader taking the calls for registration, fill in the fields for the Registrar Information.

At this point the form is completed for most of the typical trips the Chapter offers. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the [Save and Forward to Reviewer] button. At any time you can also use the [Save/Edit Later] button and logout. When you login again you can continue working on the form.

Note: If you leave any of the required fields empty, or in the wrong format, you will be prompted with a clear error message. But some errors do not give you informative messages. The worst is a new page saying saying “the site is having technical difficulties”. In this case it is you that did not fill in all the required blank fields, not technical problems at the site. Examples are; if you leave out the “Region” the program will tell you of the error, but leaving out the dates will give you the “technical difficulties” error. Use your [Back] button to return to the submittal page and check for obvious errors.

Any other questions or details can be answered by using the Contributor Guide or by contacting the Webmaster.

If you are a Reviewer

If you are a reviewer, your first page will be similar to a contributor, but labeled “Reviewer Administration Area” which will also include an option to add or edit a contributor account. (As a side note: The Approver is the only one who can add a reviewer account, but the Approver can not add a contributor account.)

If you want to add a chapter trip, the procedure is the same as if you were a contributor, but when you submit the trip it will only get one level of review from the Approver. So double check your trip before submitting it.

If you plan on adding a new contributor, follow the procedure below.

If as a reviewer you want to add a new contributor, click on “Add New/Edit Users” and get a page listing all the Chapter contributors, not just the ones in your particular activity.

Click on the “Add new Contributor” [Go] button and you get the following form to fill out.

The contributor has to be assigned to a *Committee, or more than one. This is important because it means that the contributor will only be able to enter trips for that specific committee. The default committee for the new contributor will be that of the reviewer. The *Committee menu is a listing of ALL the 12 chapters committees that are available. It is important that our chapter only use our specific committees, because if a committee is assigned that has no reviewer, the contributor's trips will never get reviewed and subsequently lost.

The contributor must also be assigned to an *Activity. You are only allowed one from the same list used for entering trips.

Pick a password. Keep it simple, we are not dealing with national security here. A suggestion is something that relates to the group, like “runner47” if we had a running group.

When done click on the [Add New User] button.