ICIS v4.1 Release Announcement

U.S. EPA Office of Enforcement & Compliance Assurance (OECA) sent this bulletin at 07/21/2011 09:09 AM EDT

    

ICIS FE&C and ICIS-NPDES Contacts and Coordinators:

This communication is to inform you of the June 30, 2011 production release of ICIS Version 4.1.  The release included 15 system enhancements and 19 problem fixes.  The enhancements addressed governance user requests, security improvements, new EOY reporting objects and several enhancements supporting the ICIS-NPDES batch submission process.  The Governance items addressed are as follows:

• A new Federal Facility indicator and comment field were added to multiple modules.

• Compliance Monitoring (CM) tabs screens are now sortable.

• The ability to populate the County Name for non-NPDES and non-ICIS facility interests from the parent FRS   record is now available.

•  Users can now enter the Defendant/Respondent functionality on the Add EA screen (the “Bear Trap” has been  eliminated).

• ICIS Security has been updated with new password standards (see New ICIS Passwords Standards Revised).

We are excited about these enhancements and the new capabilities that they bring to ICIS and our user community.  A list highlighting some of the new functionality is included below.  A more comprehensive detailed list of the enhancements and problem fixes is attached.  If you have questions regarding the June 30th release, please contact ICIS Customer Support at ICIS@epa.gov or by phone on 202/564-7756. 

John M. Dombrowski, P.E.
Director, Enforcement Targeting and Data Division
OECA/OC
Telephone:  202-566-0742

Enhancements to Support ICIS-NPDES Batch

• Delete Master General Permit (MGP) Business Rule Change

• Delete reissued, system generated, “off” Complying Tracking Status (CTS) flag when the previous permit version is made the current version of the permit.

• Modify the DMR business rule for Permit Termination

• Make Email Address the Government Contact Key

• Modify Batch Processing to not require Season Id during Batch DMR data input

• In the Storm Water Construction component of the permit, correct the problem whereby the Operator Area Disturbed field is receiving an incorrect validation error when it is the only field with data entered for the component.

• In the Storm Water Small MS4 component of the permit, corrected the problem whereby the Number of Minor MS4 Outfalls field is receiving an incorrect validation error during data entry into that field.

• Correct the problem of users being unable to delete the current version of a reissued MGP if there is more than one version of the permit.

• Remove ICIS-NPDES XML Schema Version 1.5 from the ICIS Production and ICIS Batch Environments.


ICIS Governance


FY2009

• Add the capability to directly mark activities as involving Federal Facilities along with the ability to report on these new fields. 

FY2010

• Sort Compliance Monitoring (CM) activities on the CM tabs  in descending order by Actual End Date, Activity Type and Category.

• Populate the County Name for non-NPDES and non-ICIS facility interests from the parent FRS record.

• Change the Defendant/Respondent functionality on the Add EA screen to allow entry of “Named in Complaint” during initial data entry of a new Enforcement Action a.k.a the “Bear Trap”)

ICIS Security

• Treat ICIS Voluntary Disclosure activities  as “enforcement sensitive” until resolved.

• Update ICIS Security (please see New ICIS Passwords Standards Revised attached)

o Correct the problem of users not being able to change their password to one that begins with a numeric digit.
o Enforce EPA’s password policy.
o Allow mixed case passwords.
o Incorporate case sensitivity, special characters (with a couple of exceptions), and a minimum of 8 characters.
o Add detection of “inactive” users (those who have not accessed the system in over a year) and give a specific message.

 ICIS is evaluating the new procedures (see New ICIS Passwords Standards Revised) and would like feedback.  Please submit your comments and suggestions to icis@epa.gov.

End-of-Year

• Create new Objects for the EA universe for “Most Recent Comp Status”.

• Correct the problem of the OECA National Priorities Object displaying blank in the OECA National Priorities column in certain cases.

QNCR Pre-Processing

• Correct a problem whereby linked informal EAs are showing up as issued by EPA when actually issued by the State on the Selective and Coordinator’s QNCR.

• Correct the problem of the Coordinator’s QNCR not selecting linked EA correctly.

• Correct the problem of the Official and Selective QNCR not consistently selecting the same data.

Other Important Changes

• Implement the capability to retrieve and report on the actual number of inspections and percentages for the Compliance Monitoring Strategy metrics.  Reports can be produce to report on the number of EAs having facilities discharging to Impaired Waters and allows for the evaluation of how states and regions are using the flexibility of the CMS to provide inspection coverage for NPDES and wet weather facilities. 

• Correct the problem preventing users from editing Unit Group Codes via the System Administration Reference Table Maintenance function.

• Correct the problem whereby EA limit and Compliance Schedule event violations are not being resolved when the EA is “closed”, or unresolved when the EA is “unclosed”.

• Correct the problem of State CM activities being saved without the “EPA Assist?” and “Joint” conditional business rules being enforced.

• Data fix for the “If State, Local, or Tribal lead, did EPA Assist?” field for state CM activities.

• Correct the error of the system not appropriately generating the Permit Tracking Events (PTEs) on save depending on where in the process the dates are originally entered.

• Correct the problem of the user receiving an unexpected error when clicking the NPDES Violations tab when more than 1,000 violations are linked to the EA.

• Change the label on the buttons used to access the sub-sections of the EA Edit screens to include  “Manage”

• Correct the problem of the system not copying down the Zip Code or the Region from the frs_facility_site table to the icis_facility_interest table for non-ICIS and non-NPDES facility interests.

• Correct the problem whereby an unexpected error is received when deleting a reissued MGP.

• Implement an enhancement to display the most recently entered Permittee Address displayed on the DMR Preprint.