Web Work For Texas NRCS EQIP

History

In early December 2003, the NRCS Texas State Office approached NRIAI for some assistance in developing their 2004 EQIP Program website. Texas has some unique problems, since all 254 counties were developing their unique EQIP program signup and ranking criteria. Also all 254 counties have unique cost lists. Combined with only one primary Texas web master and a short time table, they were looking for quick solutions. The primary three solutions were to:

1. Develop an Access database editable over the web so that each of the 254 District Conservationists could develop and edit their own county specific EQIP information in HTML format within that database.
2. Develop a public site that also links each county page to those specific state EQIP Resource Concerns priorities apply to the individual counties.
3. Use downloads from the Protracts database at ITC to display as the Texas 2003 and 2004 EQIP costs lists.

There are many NRCS Texas staff involved on this project, including the 254 District Conservationists creating their own webpages. In particular, Kathy Dean, PAS, and Webmaster for Texas, and Doug Sharer were full partners on these pages. They actually put in more hours on the project than the NRIAI staff.

Texas EQIP Editing Website, http://zeos.brc.tamus.edu/TXEQIPedit

Content

This Editing website includes access to the Access database for each DC, and html editing instructions. The database also includes certification columns for each county for both Program Manager approval of the county edited content, and webmaster certification for Look&Feel and 508 Compliance.

Future

This editing concept got the job done. Texas is obtaining two servers to host this site, and future program sites, one to service the public in the state office, and one for development work by the webmaster in the Houston field office. Using two machines also allows separation from the editing database to the public site. This site will be transferred to the Texas State Office NRCS equipment soon.

Texas Programs Public Website, http://www.programs.tx.nrcs.usda.gov/EQIP2004

Content

This website is the public accessible Texas EQIP website, using the county database entries developed by the DCs to serve county specific EQIP program information to the public.

Future

See above. In addition, the http://www.programs.tx.nrcs.usda.gov alias will be transferred to the Texas state office server after the website is functional there.

Texas Costs Website, http://www.programs.tx.nrcs.usda.gov/txcost

Content

As part of the required 2004 EQIP program information, Texas is required to provide county cost lists for each program. Texas had already put in all 2003 EQIP cost lists into the ProTracts program, and continues to put in the 2004 EQIP cost lists into ProTracts. Therefore, the simplest method to obtain 254 county cost lists for each program for each fiscal year was to download the information on a ‘roughly’ monthly basis from ProCosts, and display it on the local website.

Future

See above. In addition, the http://www.programs.tx.nrcs.usda.gov alias will be transferred to the Texas state office server after the website is functional there. The better method would be for ITC to develop a front-end to output the cost list information for Texas Counties directly from the ProTracts database. The monthly downloads are now routine for David Balthrop and David Buland, but they are still manual.

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