This document describes the merit mark process and how to use DB2000 to submit merit marks.
This section was extracted almost
entirely from the original MM program’s help file which was written by P/R/C
Bill Crayne, FC now deceased.
A merit mark is the only means
the squadron has for recognizing or rewarding members for contributing to the
goals of USPS. Annually around November
15th, each responsible officer recommends those members reporting to
him, whom he feels warrant such recognition.
The MM component of DB2000 is used for creating, maintaining, and
tracking merit mark recommendations.
The integration of merit mark
processing with the organization’s database in DB2000 simplifies the merit mark
data entry process. Furthermore, DB2000
has the ability to import an existing merit mark file from a prior year to
kick-start your efforts.
Merit
marks are awarded on the basis of substantial personal efforts and/or results
on the behalf of USPS. Please familiarize yourself with Chapter 16 of the USPS Operations
Manual. You may also find the following tips, courtesy of P/C/C Gordon,
helpful.
Remember — Think in terms of
RESULTS.
|
If you recommend someone who: |
Include this in your
recommendation: |
|
Taught
courses: |
Name of Course (e.g. AP) |
|
Attended
meetings: |
Attending meetings is a
privilege of membership and does not count towards a merit mark unless
attending in official capacity and/or reporting to the members such as an
officer, committee chairman making a report, delegate to a district
conference or national meeting, etc. |
|
Took part in
committee meetings: |
How many meetings were held? |
|
|
How many persons called? |
|
Served
on Cooperative Charting Committee: |
How many TRIPS were made? |
|
Served
on Rendezvous Committee: |
Did they plan the
rendezvous (check locations, contact marinas, etc.)? |
|
Worked
on Squadron Publication: |
Did they write articles? |
|
Served
on Auditing Committee: |
Was an audit done and was
it presented to the membership? |
|
Served
as law officer: |
What was done? |
|
Served
on Rules Committee: |
Were bylaws reviewed? |
|
Served on
Executive Committee: |
How many meetings were
held? |
|
Worked
the boat shows: |
How many shows? |
|
Held job
of port captain: |
How many inquiries were
received? |
|
Served
on Membership Committee: |
How many meetings were
held? |
|
Served
as chaplain: |
How many meetings were
held? |
DB2000 is a program specifically designed, programmed, and maintained by ITCOM for the purposes of maintaining squadron records and creating necessary reports. It is the preferred way to create and print Merit Mark recommendations.
If you already have DB2000 installed on your computer then you may skip to the next section.
DB2000 only runs on IBM compatible PCs using various versions of the Windows operating system. It will run on a MAC if you have installed Virtual PC on the MAC.
You may acquire DB2000 in two ways:
1. Request a copy of the installation CD from HQ.
2.
Download a copy of the installation file from the DB2000
support site. The file is approximately
10 MB.
The DB2000 Support Site is located at
HTTP://www.accurecord.com\usps\outgoing\DB2000.HTM
It’s a good idea to create a folder on you machine named Downloads and place it
directly under the root folder of your computer. This would mean that you would create a folder named
C:\Downloads.
The DB2000 Support Site contains an index of links as its first page. Click on the Downloads link to go to the
Downloads page. The first entry on the
Downloads page is a link to Download Full Distribution. If you Right Click on that
link, a context sensitive menu will open containing among other things an
option to “Save Target As…”. Click on
that option. Your browser will then
open a dialog window. Use that dialog
window to navigate to the Downloads folder.
When you have succeeded in getting the white box labeled “Save In” (at
the top of the dialog) to contain the Downloads folder, you can then click on
the Save button in the lower right corner. (The quickest way to navigate to the Downloads
folder is to click on the down arrowhead located at the right end of the “Save
In” box. This will drop down a list of
various drives and folders on your computer.
Click on the Local Disk C: entry and then locate Downloads and click on
it to put it in the “Save In” box).
Once you have the installation file saved on your computer, use Windows
Explorer or My Computer to open the Downloads folder and locate the file you
saved. It should be named
DB2000R3.EXE. Once you have located it,
double click on it to execute it. If
you elected to have HQ send you a CD, then putting the CD in your CD drive will
normally be sufficient for the system to start executing the installation
file. If it doesn’t begin
automatically, use My Computer to open the CD and then double click on the file
DB2000R3.EXE to execute it.
Once the installation file begins, you will have to click on an OK button in a
dialog box labeled WinZip Self-Extractor, and then again on a second OK button
in a dialog box labeled DB2000V3 Setup.
Finally you will have to click on a large Icon to actually begin the
installation. When the installation is
finished, you will usually have a DB2000V3 Icon placed on your desktop. This icon looks like the USPS Ensign.
At this point the software is installed.
However, it still needs to be configured. To configure DB2000, double click on the icon to execute it. It will usually advise you that the program
is not configured when it runs the first time. Click OK to get past that
message.
There should be a Start menu in the upper left corner of the window. Click on it to begin the configuration. It will present a list of USPS
Districts. If you are doing merit marks
for a national committee or department select National MM. If you are doing merit marks for a
provisional squadron, select District 90 otherwise, select the appropriate
district entry and click OK. You will
then need to confirm your choice. If
you selected a district, it will now present you with a list of squadrons in
that district. Select the appropriate
squadron, and then confirm your choice.
At this point, you have configured DB2000.
Once you have a properly
installed and configured version of DB2000, you will need to acquire and import
a squadron roster file from HQ. This is
done by going to the HQ website at
http://www.usps.org/national/itcom/roster/submit_request.php3
and filling out the form which requests a roster. If you need the roster for national merit marks, call Lynnda
Stevens at HQ ext.-243. Otherwise, fill
out the form and the roster will be emailed to you at the email address you
provide. The code the form is looking
for is the 4-digit squadron account code.
The password required, can be the one for any of the three levels
provided to each commander in May.
In a short while (normally) you will receive an email from HQ indicating that your request has been received. Shortly after that, if not on a weekend, you will receive a second email with a file attached. The file will have a suffix of EX_.
The process of detaching the attached file and saving it on your computer varies widely depending on the email client in use. However, in general, you will usually have an icon or symbol of some sort representing the attachment. If you right click on that icon or symbol you normally will be presented with a context sensitive menu containing disposition options for the attached file. Choose the one that is closest in meaning to “Save As…”. This will usually open a dialog window that allows you to navigate to the folder in which to save the file. I would recommend saving it in your Downloads folder. Make sure that you do not change its name or suffix when saving it otherwise DB2000 will not recognize it.
After you have saved the roster file received from HQ you are ready to begin.
1. Start DB2000 by double clicking on the USPS Ensign icon.
2. Click on the Import menu item and select “Update With Email Roster File”.
3. This will open a light blue dialog window. Make sure that all the Discretionary Import boxes are checked.
4. Click on the Start button on the lower left.
5. This will open a second dialog window, which you will use to navigate to the folder in which you saved the roster file received from HQ (should be in C:\Downloads). When you have navigated to the correct folder, the file name will appear in the large white area. Click on the file name to select it, and then click on the Open button in the lower right corner of the dialog. Doing so, will close the navigation dialog and return to the light blue import dialog window.
6. The program will import the roster file, and when it is finished, the Start button will be grayed out and a Finish button will be enabled. Click on the Finish button to complete the Import process.
At this point you have completed all of the preliminary work necessary to install the DB2000 software, to configure it, and to import a roster and you are ready to begin entering merit mark recommendations.
To
begin creating merit mark recommendations click on the MM Button on the main
menu. This will open the Merit Mark
Recommendations page. On the top of the
page you will see a number of buttons.
Click the one labeled “Add All”.
This will add all the members of your squadron to the merit mark
candidate grid. At this time if you
look at the Submission Status column you will see that all rows have a status
of “No Data”.
This
grid has twelve (12) columns. You will
notice that six columns are arranged under two columns labeled “Course 1” and
“Course 2”. These columns are used to
enter the course name and number of
sessions taught and/or proctored, for up to two courses. But you say, “what do I do with a member who
has taught more than two courses”? The
answer is, you ignore the course(s) beyond two which have the least number of
sessions taught or proctored. It is not
necessary to write a novella describing everrrrrything someone has done during
the year. It is only necessary to
provide sufficient information to convey to the Chief why you are recommending
this member for a merit mark.
If you
are using the two columns to enter course taught data for a member, then follow
these instructions. Begin by
high-lighting the Course Name cell either by clicking in it or by using the
up/down and left/right arrow keys to navigate to it. When the cell background turns from white to turquoise it means
the cell is selected. To open the cell
for data entry either double-click in it or press Enter/Return when the cell is
selected. When the Course Name cell is
open, a pull down list will appear.
Select the appropriate course name in the list by clicking on it. This will close the list and move the course
name abbreviation into the cell. If you
make a mistake, just do it again.
Remember to do the course name before attempting to enter a number for
courses taught or proctored. Once the
course name has been entered, select the appropriate cell to enter a number for
sessions taught and/or proctored. Again
the background will become turquoise when the cell is selected. Open the cell in the same manner as
previously described. Use the up and
down arrows on the control which appears to enter a number. When you have entered the correct number of
sessions, close the cell either by pressing enter/return or by double-clicking
in the pink area. The column entitled
“Valuable Service Performed” is used to describe other types of service
performed. You must press Enter/Return
to close this particular cell. As you
finish entering data into a cell you will notice that the Submission Status for
that member changes from “No Data” to “No Recommendation”.
When
you have finished entering all of your merit mark data for all members, it is
appropriate to remove the records for members who did not do anything. Their submission status will be “No Data”. Use the Change Status menu, and select the
“Remove All No Data” option. The
records will be removed from the merit mark grid.
Next
we need to change the submission status for the remaining records. At this time they should all have a
submission status of “No Recommendation” and we want to change that to
“Submit”. Using the same Change Status
menu, select the “Mark All No recommendation for Submittal” option.
When
you have arrived at the point when you want to print the recommendations, Click
on the Print button.
The
Print button opens a second level dialog which is used to review the merit mark
pages to be printed.
If the
cover sheet content box does not correctly identify the person making the
recommendations you must go back to the database and insure that his record
correctly identifies his position.
Generally, his “Squad Rank” field does not contain Cdr. It is also possible that someone else’s
record incorrectly contains Cdr in the “Squad Rank” field. This must be removed. In both cases, double-click on the “Squad
Rank” cell and select the appropriate rank for the individual(s). Once these problems are corrected, the merit
mark cover sheet will correct itself.
In the
upper left of the print dialog is a box labeled “Type of Submittal”. This box has 4 radial buttons which allow
you to specify the type of submission to print. These 4 choices work together with the submission status column
to select only appropriate records for the print function. An original submission will only select
records with a submission status of Submit.
A Resubmission will only select records with a submission status of
Re-submit, etc, etc.
To the
right of the Type of Submittal box is another box labeled Output Options.
Draft
is used to print a single rough copy to proof the detail. Full Submittal Set
prints 4 final copies for distribution.
Master Copy prints 1 final copy which can then be copied/Xeroxed 3 times
to save ink on ink jet printers.
Clicking on Print Check List does just that. It prints a check list for you to determine if you have left out
anything.
When
printing a final set remember to click on Print All, otherwise your set will be
missing pages.
If you distribute merit mark responsibilities among
various officers and committee chairmen, a cooperative report may be generated
as follows:
1.
Provide each contributor a
copy of the DB2000 distribution and have each install and use the program
independently creating a separate MMDATA.DAT file on a diskette.
2.
Collect the diskettes after
making backup copies of each, and successively import each diskette with
the “Append to Existing Records” option selected. Edit/combine/delete as necessary before submitting your
recommendations.