As the countdown continues to the first mandatory ECMPS reporting period, which will begin on April 1, ECMPS Technical Support would like to share a few recommendations for ways you can insure that you are ready to begin reporting using the ECMPS Client Tool.

If you have already completed the following steps, pat yourself on the back. If not, get busy and complete these steps. You have just under three weeks until April begins.


Next Release Update: As of this morning, the next version of the ECMPS Client Tool is still on target to be released on March 17th.

Labels: Transition to ECMPS

Playing it Safe: Insuring Delivery of Emails from ECMPS

There are four email addresses which users should insure are allowed by both their email client and their company's email server and firewall. These should be added to your email client's "safe" list, as well as any "safe" list which is used by your company's email server or firewall.

If you have any questions about how to insure that you are able to receive email from these four email addresses, contact your IT staff. The four email addresses are:

Labels: Transition to ECMPS

Update on Daily Calibration Checks for March 2009 Client Tool Release

With the release of the next version of the ECMPS Client Tool which is scheduled on or about March 17th, there will be a few important changes related to the evaluation of daily calibration data.

First, the daily calibration data evaluation errors will become critical. Up to this point, the daily calibration evaluations have only returned informational messages in the event that the data did not pass the evaluation check. Beginning with the next version, the daily calibration evaluation result will be a critical error, if the data do not pass the evaluation.

Second, a bug in the Emissions XML schema will be corrected. Currently, all versions, including the latest version 1.2, of the emissions XML schemas allow there to be multiple daily calibration records for a the same exact minute for a component. This will be corrected in the March release. If there is more than one daily calibration data record for the same exact minute and component, the XML validation will fail the file and data will not be imported into the Client Tool. The correction will be made to the emissions XSD version 1.2 and the Reporting Instructions daily calibration data diagram will also be corrected.

For more information about how to perform and report daily calibration data, consult Part 75 and the Reporting Instructions.

Labels: Transition to ECMPS

Limited Technical Support Until the Next Release

In order to focus on the release of the next version of the ECMPS Client Tool which is scheduled for March 17th, technical support will be limited from now until the release of the next version. If possible, hold your questions until after the release.

Any questions submitted will be maintained in the technical support queue, but it is unlikely that a question submitted during this time period will be addressed until after the release.

As a reminder, the EPA Host System (the production system) will not be available beginning on Monday, March 9th. That means that production users will not be able to log in to the EPA Host System, sync data from the EPA Host System, retrieve data from the EPA Host System, or submit data to the EPA Host System.

Also, for those who are using the ECMPS Client Tool Preview (CTP), technical support for CTP will end on Friday, March 13th. At that time, access to the Test EPA Host System will also be ended. All CTP users should then plan on switching to using the production version of the Client Tool.

Labels: Release Schedule Information, Technical Support, Transition to ECMPS

The days of the dinosaur are numbered.*

MDC (and ETS-FTP) are about to be completely replaced by ECMPS.

As many of you know, the legacy data system is nearing the end of its operation. February 15, 2009, will be the last day to submit data using MDC and ETS-FTP. After that submissions of Part 75 data must be done using ECMPS.**

This does not affect sources who have already switched over to ECMPS. For sources who will first submit using ECMPS in April (or July for ozone season only reporters), this means that your data will be moved from the legacy system to ECMPS beginning on February 16, 2009. As currently scheduled, on March 17, 2009, a new version of the Client Tool will be released. At that time, all sources who have not already switched over to ECMPS will be able to access their data through the ECMPS Client Tool.

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* At ECMPS Support, we affectionately refer to MDC (and ETS-FTP) as the dinosaur.

** Any source who needs to submit data using MDC or ETS-FTP after February 15, 2009 will be able to make the submission. However, once the source is able to use ECMPS, the data submitted using the legacy system after February 15, 2009 will need to made in ECMPS in order for that data to be in the official database. The reason for this is that there must be a cut off time in order to give sufficient time for data to be moved from the legacy system to ECMPS.

All sources should work with their EPA ECMPS Analyst in order to keep CAMD informed about submissions which need to take place after February 15th.

Labels: Transition to ECMPS

The next ECMPS testing session is scheduled to run from May through September 2008. As that testing period draws near, we are receiving more questions about testing. This mailbag answers questions about what version of the Client Tool will be available for testing and how to transfer monitoring plan data corrections made in testing to the production environment. The answer to the second questions is a little long, but that is because there is a great deal of information to discuss on this topic.

Version of Client Tool for Testing

Question
What version of the Client Tool will be available for testing?

Answer
The Client Tool available for testing will be the same version as the one used by sources who have opted to begin reporting official data through ECMPS with one important exception. The exception is that the testing version will only allow testers to interact with test data. The test data which is available through the Client Tool is based on the most current official data, but that is where the connection ends. Any changes to the test data do not affect official data.

Transferring Monitoring Plan Data Corrections from Testing to Production

Question
I am interested in testing the Client Tool. If I correct the problems in my monitoring plan in a test version of the Client Tool, will I be able to use that corrected data once I switch over to use ECMPS for official submissions?

Answer
The answer to that question is both yes and no.

The are four reasons that the monitoring plan data corrections made during testing will not necessarily transition over to the production version. These are listed in order of increasing likelihood that the reason will make a difference.

The first reason is if the official monitoring plan changes between testing and when the source begins using ECMPS for official submissions. Right before the transition, EPA will load the official monitoring plan data into ECMPS. After the source installs the production version of ECMPS, the source will receive, through synchronization in the Client Tool, the official monitoring plan data. The data would not match any monitoring plan data which had been saved from the testing period.

The second reason is if the monitoring plan XML schema structure changes between testing and when the source begins using ECMPS for official submissions. Although there is no guarantee that this will not happen, at this point, it seems unlikely that a structural change to the XML schema will be necessary. If a structural change were to happen, any XML files saved from testing might need to be altered in order to conform to the new XML schema structure before the data in the files could be imported into the production version of the Client Tool.

The third reason is if the monitoring plan evaluations are modified between testing and when the source begins using ECMPS for official submissions. Although much testing has taken place to verify that the evaluation checks are operating correctly, there is the possibility that the evaluation checks will need to be modified because there is a bug or the evaluation specification is modified. In that case, although the monitoring plan data evaluated cleanly in the testing version, the data might have evaluation errors in the production version.

The fourth reason is that the nature of importing data is that for monitoring plan data, the imported data are merged with the existing data in the Client Tool. If one of the key fields for a particular data record is different between the imported data and the existing data in the Client Tool, there will be two records at the end of the import process for that particular data record. Typically, this happens for data for which the dates had to be corrected. There are good reasons for the data to be merged during import which necessitate that this remain the primary method for importing monitoring plan data. We have, however, begun to investigate whether there would be a way to allow the imported monitoring plan data replace the existing monitoring plan data in the Client Tool.

I would suggest using the following approach to correcting monitoring plan data. After the data have been corrected in the testing version of the Client Tool, run the monitoring plan printout report. Print it out and save it as a PDF file. This report lists all of the data in the monitoring plan, and it will be a useful reference for correcting your data in the production version. The second thing I would suggest is to export the monitoring plan data and save the XML file. Even if the file needs to be modified and the import method is not changed, the data in the file will be a good starting point for correcting the monitoring plan data in the production version. In production, after importing the data, the problems caused by the merge of data records with different key fields are fairly easy to find and correct. And in the case of data that was added and new requirements the data imported from the file should bring that in to the Client Tool without any problems.

For more information about particular monitoring plan data corrections, view the Blog series, "Preparing for ECMPS".

Labels: Industry Testing, Mailbag, Transition to ECMPS

As was announced at the Stakeholder meeting in Arlington, Virgina this past Wednesday, CAMD has added a registration page for those who will be switching over to report via ECMPS in 2008. Click here to access the registration page.

• Registration is by facility. All units at the registered facility must report using ECMPS.


• There are registration deadlines for each reporting period. You must submit your registration by the deadline in order for you to report in that reporting period.


• You can register up to five facilities with one registration form.


• After making the switch to ECMPS, you cannot use MDC or ETS-FTP to submit your data unless you first contact CAMD.

Labels: Stakeholder Meeting, Transition to ECMPS