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NOTE: This information has been adapted from Faculty Affair’s extensive documentation at https://faculty.umd.edu/media/143/view. Content has been edited and adjusted to suit ESSIC faculty.
Table of Contents
Accessing the Interactive Annual Activity Report Tool
The Annual Activity Report Tool is a way to input your data onto a singular screen rather than going in and out of activity screens.
1. Navigate to Reports -> Annual Activity Report (Interactive)
2. Open Options and set the Date Range to the 2023 calendar year.
3. Be sure to uncheck the ‘All Dates’ option.
4. You can now review, edit and add activities that will be included in your annual report, all within this interactive report view
Data Brought In From Other Sources
Faculty Success automatically brings in activity data from other sources, in particular other campus data management systems. The below highlighted sections bring in such data so it does not have to be manually entered. These can be easily identified with the ‘Imported Data’ keyword.
Note that data populated from a number of campus integrations cannot be edited on the data screen. Click here (page 5) to see where the data is drawn from, how often the update occurs, how far back the data goes, and how to get changes made, if needed.
Adding Content
When you open the Interactive Annual Activity Report Tool, you will be greeted with a long, empty outline of fillable categories.
Note that not all of these categories need to be filled out. Faculty Success is meant to be suitable for everyone on campus, so there are many categories that may not be relevant to your work at ESSIC. Please only fill out the categories relevant to your activities. However, some data is buried in unintuitive locations. Please look at the “Important Tips” for each section to assure that you’re not missing anything.
To enter your data, click the italicized text below the category title (“No items exist for ____”) to expand the category and reveal the button to “Add New Record”.
Adding a new record will open a new tab on the side of your screen that asks for details.
Date Handling in Faculty Success
Here you should fill in all of the required fields (denoted by red asterisks) and as many of the optional fields as you would like. The dates are very important for activities and thus are required even not highlighted. Please ensure that you have at least filled out a month or a year of one of the date fields.
For reporting to work properly, and for activities to be properly organized on reports, entries must have dates. Most screens will have two spaces for each date, one for month and one for year. The day is very rarely asked for. The date format in Faculty Success is [Month Name] YYYY or [Month Name] DD, YYYY, if the day is included.
For activities that are ongoing, only enter the start date, and leave the end date blank. If the activity was only one day, or a period of time within the same month, enter the end date and leave the start date blank.
Some fields have additional help available through the ? help icon. In other cases, on-screen instructions provide guidance on how to enter data for the associated field(s).
Supporting Documentation
After filling in all required information, you may choose to add Supporting Documentation. This is completely optional. This is a way to store PDFs, videos or other files related to this activity.
To add supporting documentation, you can either drop the files or choose an option to upload under Supporting Documentation.
Saving Your Data
Once you have added the details of a specific record, click “Save” or “Save + Add Another” to continue.
If your activity is not getting saved, please check the activity page for any error messages like “At least one date is required.” or “This field is required”. These messages appear just below the field with the associated error.
Important Notes To Keep In Mind
- Please keep your name consistent as you enter it throughout the Faculty Success website. Always use your full first and last name. Avoid initials, nicknames, and misspellings. Discrepancies may cause your work to not be counted correctly.
- If you are the first author or presenter, it is vitally important that you enter your name as it appears in the UMD system. Nicknames, abbreviations, or variations in spellings and/or punctuation may cause your contribution to be misrepresented.
- Please write the full titles of organizations, associations, and journals rather than the abbreviations.
- Take special care when noting your data (i.e. publications) to correctly mark the item’s status. For example, publications can be published, in-press, submitted, or in review.
- Note that we will ask you to enter your task information as well. Click here to see where to put your task information.
Faculty Success is meant to be suitable for everyone on campus, so there are many categories that may not be relevant to your work at ESSIC. However, some data that is relevant to your ESSIC activity is buried in somewhat unintuitive locations.
- If you are looking to record Software Packages, Algorithms, or Datasets, these are to be organized under the Creative Works and Scholarship umbrella. Under “Creative Works and Scholarships” click the dropdown under “Type of Work” to indicate datasets, software, websites, instruments, etc.
- Technical Reports can be listed under any “Publications” screen. Click “Contribution Type” and scroll through the dropdown to indicate “Technical Reports”. Please provide link(s) if possible.
- For a full guide on where ESSIC-relevant items should go, click here.
Entering Your Task Information
Scroll to the very bottom of the interactive activity report, IV. Cross-cutting and Other Contributions.
Click the italicized text under “Other Contributions” (“No items exist for Contributions”) to expand the item.
Click “Add Record”. A tab that looks like this will appear on the side of your screen:
For Contribution Name, type the name and number (if applicable) of your task.
For “Contribution Area”, check “Task (ESSIC: NASA/NOAA)”.
Make sure to remember to mark the start and end date of your task. If the task is ongoing, leave the end date blank.
Make sure to “Save” before closing the item. Please add all your tasks in this format.
Importing Your CV
You may be able to save time by using Faculty Success’ built-in import service.
Click here for information on how to import your data into the Faculty Success system:
Importing Your Publications/CV
Submitting Your Work
You must submit your report in order for your work to be counted. This is a manual action that does not occur automatically after you finish entering your submissions.
To submit your report, use the main menu and navigate to “Workflow”.
You will see a page that documents your task and history. Find “Annual and Merit Review 2022” on this page.
Use Actions->Submit to Approver, when you are ready to submit your annual report and optional personal statement.
If after submitting you need to make a change, recall the submission, revise, refresh the report and submit it again.
