Reviewer & Approver Accounts: Workflow & Capabilities Review

Reviewers

• Review trips strictly for those committees associated with their account when added to the system.

• Add new contributor accounts for their committee to the system.

• Receive trips from committee Contributors for review.

• Once Reviewer approves trip, trip moves to Approver for review.

• Reviewers can add new trips directly.

Approvers

• Receive trips from Reviewers for review.

• Once Approver approves trip, trip moves to AMC Editors for review.

• Approvers can add new trips.

• Approvers can add new reviewer accounts to the system.

• Approvers are restricted only by chapter, not by committee.

Reviewer & Approver Account Administration: Adding New Users

The trip listings application allows chapter approvers and reviewers to add new reviewers and contributors respectively. To do so, log in to the system at http://trips.outdoors.org/index.cfm/method/trips.showlogin using your current login information (current email address and password).

Click on “Add New/Edit Users.” For approvers, any chapter reviewer accounts currently in the system will be displayed. For reviewers, any committee trip contributor accounts currently in the system will be displayed. If no users are in the system, the screen will indicate so.

To add a new Reviewer or Contributor, click on the “Go” button next to “Add new Reviewer” (for approvers), or “Add new Contributor” (for reviewers).

The “Add New” screen will appear.

To add the new user, fill out all appropriate fields (including all those required: First Name, Last Name, Email Address, Committee, default Activity) and set a Password (re-enter it in the “Confirm Password” field.)

Note that the Activity field, in this application, is used to assist the end user search functionality. This affects the creation of a user account in that an activity must be selected for the new user. The selected activity should be the activity that user is most frequently associated with in the chapter. This default value will then appear when the user enters new trips; the “activity” field for the trips will automatically default to the activity associated with the contributor’s account – but also note the activity can be changed from trip to trip within the trip entry form.

E.g. Joe Smith is entered as a contributor for the Berkshire paddling committee, and upon creation of his account, the paddling reviewer selects “paddling” as Joe’s default activity. Then, every time Joe logs in to add a new trip, “paddling” will come up as the default activity for the trip. If Joe wishes instead to enter a social event for the paddling committee, he has the ability to select “social event” from the activities menu. This way, an end web user, when selecting “social event” as their search criteria, will find Joe’s trip.

Current guidelines for choosing passwords are fairly lenient – a recommended password would be at least 6 characters long & alphanumeric, however the system won’t disqualify most passwords – it’s only restriction now is that passwords be less than 50 characters in length.

Once you have entered this information and have checked it for accuracy, click on “Add New User.” The system will input the new user and return to the main “Add or Edit a User Account” Screen.

To edit a user’s information, click on “edit” next to the user’s name and edit the form similarly to adding a new user.

Note from the “Add or Edit a User Account” Screen, you also have the option to block a user from gaining access to the system or deleting a user from the system altogether.

Workflow Review: Approvers are able to add reviewers from any committee to the system. Once entered, a reviewer’s account is responsible (and restricted to) those committees associated with their account. That reviewer is then able to add contributors for their committee; contributors, again, will be limited to adding trips strictly for their committee. This policy has been set to ensure appropriate escalation of trips for approval.

E.g. a reviewer account would be added for the Hiking committee. The Hiking reviewer is then able to add other Hiking contributor accounts.

When Hiking contributors enter their trips, this ensures that those trips are passed back appropriately to the Hiking reviewer for approval.

Reviewers & Approvers: Editing & Approving Trips

Note: For bulk approval instructions see the following section.

Per the workflow of the system, once trips are added by contributors, they are passed first to committee reviewers for editing and approval, and then to chapter approvers for additional editing and approval. Once this process has been completed within your chapter, the trip listing is passed along to the AMC Outdoors magazine editor and/or the AMC web editor, as indicated by the trip contributor.

The process of editing and approving trips is the same for both reviewers and approvers. Once logged into the system, trips awaiting your approval will be listed in the yellow table at the bottom of the screen, under “Current Trips.”

Click on the “Edit” link next to the trip to open it for review.

Note: The “View Mag” button will allow you to preview the trip as it will be submitted to the magazine; the “view web” button will open the trip as it would look online once approved. The “Delete” option will delete the listing. Refer to the contributor user guide for additional information and illustrations.

Browse the trip information and make any edits you see fit.

Note that next to the Contributor Information area, a link exists to contact the trip contributor in case you need to relay any information or ask for additional information. For trips with which the leader differs from the contributor, the trip leader will be automatically cc’d on the email. Note that this link will open up a new message from your email application and automatically populate the “To” and “CC” fields respectively. If you wish to edit any of this information, you must do so in your email application.

Once you have made edits and are satisfied with the listing, click on the “Save & Forward to AMC Editors” button (or “Save & Forward to Approver” button if you are a reviewer).

Reviewers & Approvers: Approving Trips in Bulk

Following on from the previous section, trips submitted to reviewers and approvers may also be reviewed & approved in bulk.

The process of doing so is the same for both reviewers and approvers. To do this, log into the system and select the “Approve trips in bulk. Show me [5] per page” option. Note you will be able to select how many trips you’d like to approve at one time. Make this selection from the dropdown and click “Go.”

The approval page will open to list trips pending approval (x per page, based on what you selected from the dropdown on the previous page). For each trip, you’ll be able to preview the web listing as it would appear on Outdoors.org and the text to be submitted to the magazine.

For each trip listed, you’ll note a checkbox that allows you to approve the trip. After reviewing each trip, check the checkbox if you’d like to approve the trip. If you do not wish to approve the trip, do not check the checkbox. Review each trip on the page, checking the approval box as desired.

When you reach the bottom of the page, you may hit the “Cancel” button to return to your main administration area. Or, you may click “Review Approvals” which will take you to a confirmation screen as shown here:

This screen will summarize your approvals and allow you to either “Confirm Approvals,” which will process the approvals all at once, or “Cancel” the process, returning you to the main administration area. Note that those trips that are marked as “Do Not Approve” in the “Approval Action” column will not change in status and will continue to be marked as pending approval.

After processing the approvals, the system will bring you back to the main page, where you’ll see the status of all your trips, including those you just approved/did not approve.

Approvers: Editing Live Trips

Trips that have been approved by the Joy St. Editors are subject to edits by chapter-level approvers without being re-inserted into the approval workflow.

To do this, log into the system and click on the “Edit Live Trips” link.

The page will open to a list of all trips from your chapter currently approved for web and/or magazine.

To edit a trip, click on “edit” next to the trip’s listing. The standard trip entry/review screen will open.

Make your desired change within the form.

Click on “Save Edits” at the bottom of the screen to save your changes. The Live Trips screen will load and your changes will be reflected in this list.

Note, at this point, your change will also be updated real-time in the online listings and, if applicable, in the pending magazine submission.

Approvers: Downloading Trip Data

Chapter-level approvers are able to download trip information stored in the system for reporting purposes or otherwise.

To do this, log into the system and click on the “Download Trip Data” link.

The field selection screen will open, providing a list of all fields available to be included in the download as well as a number of search/sort options to better customize the data.

To begin creating your report, review the list of fields and select those you’d like included in the report by checking the checkbox next to the applicable fields.

Once you’ve selected the fields you’d like included in the report, use the “Search Criteria” box to filter your report by keyword, region, state, AMC Destination, Committee, Activity, or trip dates.

Click the Submit button to create the report. The Download Trip Data screen will load, with a CSV file link populated in the main area of the screen.

To download the report:

PC users: Right click on the link and select "Save target as..."

Macintosh users: Click on link and hold. Select "Download link to disk".

Save the CSV file to a convenient location on your hard drive. To utilize the file, open it in an application that supports comma-delimited files (e.g. Excel, Access) and manipulate the data as you see fit for your purposes.