Environmental Projects
Overview
Environmental Projects are used to track ongoing environmental efforts such as hazardous waste cleanup, site monitoring, and remediation activities. Each project in nVIRO is tracked as a Project Activity and supports many of the same attributes used by other functional areas in the system, such as workflows, documents, events, schedules, contacts, and program components. In nVIRO, the terms "project" and "project activity" mean the same thing and are used interchangeably.
All project activities are associated with a Master Project, which can contain multiple related project activities. The Master Project tracks details such as the environmental event date (i.e., the date an issue was initially reported, which led to the project) and the lead program, lead project manager, and status for the overall project.
Projects have the following features:
A unique project number. Project numbering schemes can vary based on project activity type.
A project activity type to identify the type of project for the program area.
A project activity category to classify the work in the project activity.
A project activity status to indicate the status of the activity (e.g., active, completed, etc.).
Project Activity Schedules - reports or other deadlines imposed upon the project activity vendor per the activity's scope of work.
Project Activity Purchase Orders - list of purchase orders authorizing payments to vendors performing work on the project activity.
Other Shared Attributes such as Events, Documents, Contacts, and Program Components
Project types and categories are customizable. For projects that follow standard EPA environmental remediation processes established under programs such as CERCLA or RCRA, however, project categories often correspond with the individual steps of the overall remediation process.
Project Activity Status
Project activity statuses are divided into three categories: Draft, Active, and Closed. The status category drives system behavior and allows for additional statuses to be configured.
Draft - The project activity is not yet active.
Active - The project activity is active. It is visible to external users. Schedules related to the project activity may be submitted.
Closed - The project activity is no longer active. Only users with elevated permissions can set a project activity from Closed back to Active status.
Among these three categories, there are several status descriptions. These statuses may vary by agency.
Status Category | Status Description | Special Considerations |
|---|---|---|
Draft | Pending | This is the default status for all newly created project activities. |
Active | Active | There are currently no automated status changes. Once a project activity is Active, it must be manually changed to a different status. |
Closed | Completed Canceled On Hold Withdrawn | Once an activity is set to a Closed status, external users may no longer submit schedules associated with the activity. |
Master Project Status
Like project activity statuses, master project statuses are also divided into Draft, Active, and Closed categories. At any given time, the overall status of the project may be active while all of its associated activities may be closed / completed. Some environmental projects may last for years, even decades, so it is important to track the overall status of the project while at the same time tracking the status of its individual project activities.