ECMPS Support

Although a large percentage of the third quarter emission submissions have been received (92% of the 4,191 expected submissions), there are a number that are outstanding. That means that many people will be hustling to complete their submissions before the end of the day on October 30th.

At technical support, we will answer as many questions as we can. However, if you are submitting a technical support request in these last hours of the submission period, please remember that you are arriving late to the queue and your question may not be answered as fast as you would like.

If you find yourself in the last minute mode trying to complete your submissions, please consult the information in the FAQ on what do if you are running out of time to submit.

We are about to hit the technical support rush hour which occurs at the end of each reporting period.

As technical support requests increase in these last two weeks of the month, please be patient. At technical support, we are working to answer your questions as fast as we can, but the later you wait to submit your question, the more likely it will not be answered in time. And, if you really wait until the last couple of days to submit a request, it is very likely that you will not get a quick turnaround because there will be a large number of requests ahead of yours in the technical support queue.

Labels: Technical Support, Technical Support Tip

On October 13th, historical emissions data were updated on the EPA Host System. These updates will affect users in two ways:

1. When logging into the EPA Host System for the first time after this update, synchronization may take longer than it normally does. Users who are associated with a large number of facilities will notice a significant increase in synchronization time.

2. Any emissions files that had been evaluated but not yet submitted may need to be re-evaluated. The Client Tool will automatically update these files to the status of "Needs Evaluation." In almost all cases, after reevaluating, the evaluation status of the file will revert to what it was prior to synchronization.

Recently, the number of subscriptions to ECMPS News increased to over 500 subscribers.

ECMPS News is the primary means for providing up-to-date information about ECMPS technical support. The ECMPS News posts include information about new releases, schedules for upcoming releases, planned outages, and new technical support information available on the rest of the Web site. Subscribers receive this information via email or RSS feed. Rather than having to check the Web site to determine what is new, you can simply have the new information delivered to your email inbox or RSS feed reader.

If you are not subscribed, we would suggest adding your email address to the list of subscribers in order to receive ECMPS News via email. New emails are only sent when new ECMPS News posts are made, and there is only at most one email per day. Finally, the emails are sent in the early morning so that the ECMPS News emails are one of the first new emails in your inbox when you open up your email in the morning.

To subscribe, click here, or enter your email address in the box in the upper right corner of the ECMPS New page and click the Subscribe button.

Labels: Technical Support

In observance of Columbus Day, the ECMPS Technical Support Help Desk will be closed on Monday, October 12th. Technical support will be available again on Tuesday, October 13th.

The ECMPS Technical Support Help Desk will also be closed on the following upcoming holidays:

• Thanksgiving - Thursday and Friday, November 26-27, 2009
• Christmas - Friday, December 25, 2009
• New Year's Day - Friday, January 1, 2010
• Presidents' Day - Monday, February 15, 2010

You can view the full technical support holiday schedule here.

Labels: Technical Support

October 1st marks the beginning of the 2009 quarter 3 reporting period. Sources required to report emissions data under the Acid Rain Program (ARP), Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR), and Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) have until October 30th to submit their emissions data to the EPA using the ECMPS Client Tool.

During this reporting period, the EPA expects to receive over 4,150 emissions data submissions. Given these large number of files that need to be submitted over the next 30 days, we, at technical support, encourage all sources to start working as soon as possible on the evaluation and submission of their data.

Start Early

We want to encourage sources to start early primarily because, with the large volume of submissions expected, if you have questions, you will get a faster response to your technical support request, the earlier in the month that you submit your request. If you wait until later in the month to begin working with your data and you run into problems that require technical support, your request will be added to a much longer queue than if you had submitted the request earlier in the submission period.

Technical Support Information

Information on getting technical support through the resources on the Web site or by submitting a technical support request has all been consolidated in the Web site's Help section. We would like to highlight that, as necessary, FAQs and Known Issues will continue to be updated throughout the submission period. Hours for technical support are listed on the Contact Us page. Note, that technical support will be unavailable on the business day of Monday, October 12th because it is Columbus Day.

Resubmission Requests

Requests to resubmit QA or emissions data should be made using the new Resubmission Request Form. The form has been put online in order to streamline the process of receiving the information for the request and providing the necessary submission access.

Keep Up-To-Date

If you have not been able to keep up-to-date with recent ECMPS News items, we would suggest reviewing recent news items on the ECMPS News page. Some of the recent posts include:

• A Known Issue with Updating the Shared Database to the 2009 Q3 Version
  


• Service Pack 1 for the 2009 Q3 Version


• The New ECMPS Support Web Site

Also, if you have not already subscribed, we want to remind you that you can receive the ECMPS News posts via email by subscribing to ECMPS News or adding the ECMPS News feed to your RSS Reader. To subscribe via email, simply enter your email address in the box provided on the upper right part of the ECMPS News page and click the Subscribe button. To receive the RSS feed, click on the RSS feed, which also located at the bottom of every page on the Web site.

Labels: Technical Support, Technical Support Tip