Water information reporting (WIR) system Frequently asked questions Looking after all our water needs Department of Water November 2013 Department of Water 168 St Georges Terrace Perth Western Australia 6000 Telephone +61 8 6364 7600 Facsimile +61 8 6364 7601 National Relay Service 13 36 77 www.water.wa.gov.au © Government of Western Australia November 2013 This work is copyright. You may download, display, print and reproduce this material in unaltered form only (retaining this notice) for your personal, non-commercial use or use within your organisation. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, all other rights are reserved. Requests and inquiries concerning reproduction and rights should be addressed to the Department of Water. Acknowledgements This project is supported by the state government's Royalties for Regions program. For more information about this document, contact Water Information Branch Phone: (08) 6364 6505 Email: wir@water.wa.gov.au. Disclaimer This document has been published by the Department of Water. Any representation, statement, opinion or advice expressed or implied in this publication is made in good faith and on the basis that the Department of Water and its employees are not liable for any damage or loss whatsoever which may occur as a result of action taken or not taken, as the case may be in respect of any representation, statement, opinion or advice referred to herein. Professional advice should be obtained before applying the information contained in this document to particular circumstances. This publication is available at our website <www.water.wa.gov.au> or for those with special needs it can be made available in alternative formats such as audio, large print, or Braille. Frequ ently asked questions WIR Contents Frequently asked questions..............................................................................................1 1 How current is the data in W IR? ..................................................................................1 2 Is there a cost? .............................................................................................................1 3 Are there any known system issues? ..........................................................................1 4 How long will it take for my data to arrive? .................................................................3 5 What browsers are compatible? ..................................................................................3 6 When can I use W IR? ..................................................................................................3 7 Can I apply advanced site filtering based on criteria such as particular variables or numbers of measurements? ........................................................................................3 8 Can I filter sites based on aquifer? ..............................................................................3 9 What keywords can be used and how are they applied?...........................................4 10 How do I remove individual sites from the site cart? ..................................................4 11 Can I select and remove several sites from the site cart at one time?......................4 12 Can I save my site cart?...............................................................................................4 13 Why does print preview not show just selected sites and identifiers?.......................5 14 Can I customise the site names and identifiers that are displayed for sites, and the zoom levels at which they appear? .............................................................................5 15 Can I obtain data by project? .......................................................................................5 16 Can WIR store my contact details so I don’t have to provide them each time?........5 17 Can I select and run more than one report at a time?................................................5 18 Can I obtain water level plots (hydrographs) through W IR? ......................................6 19 Can I obtain point data for the plots (hydrographs) displayed under pre-computed reports? .........................................................................................................................7 20 Can I obtain bore licensing information from WIR? ....................................................8 21 How often are the WIR reference codes and other metadata updated? ...................8 22 Why have I not received an email confirming that my request has been submitted?8 23 I have received the confirmation email but why have I not received the following email with the data?......................................................................................................8 24 If my report just contains headers but no data, does it indicate that the report has failed? ............................................................................................................................9 25 Why are numbers formatted as text in data spreadsheets? ......................................9 26 Can I obtain all of the telemetered data for a site?.....................................................9 Contact information .........................................................................................................10 Department of Water iii Frequ ently asked questions WIR Frequently asked questions 1 Ho w c u r r e n t i s t h e da t a i n WI R ? This depends on the type of data. The WIR warehouses are refreshed on a nightly basis. • For discrete (WIN) data, this means that the data will be at least one day old; that is, it was entered into WIN on the previous day. This does not mean that it was collected on the previous day, because there is usually a lag of days or weeks between the time data is collected and the time it is captured into the database. • For time-series data loaded into WIR: − Archive data will be available the day after it is archived. Again, this does not mean the data itself relates to the previous day. Data may be weeks or months old before it can be verified and archived. − Telemetry data is not currently loaded into WIR. • For time-series data that is loaded to the pre-computed report folders: − Archive data is available the day after it is archived, the same as for WIR data. − Telemetry data is loaded at least hourly (only the last six days of data). This consists of plots and CSV files. 2 I s t h e r e a c o st ? No, data is provided as a free service to promote community engagement in water management. 3 A r e t h e r e a n y kn o w n sy st e m i ssu e s? The following intermittent issues have been identified and will be addressed in a future release: • When “checking out” the Site cart to order reports, sometimes the system cannot progress past the Contact details screen (the Continue button can be clicked but the Request details screen does not open), i.e.: Department of Water 1 Frequ ently asked questions • WIR To address this, Refresh the browser (F5 or View | Refresh). You may have to repeat the action. You will then be able to proceed to the Request Details screen. If the system has been idle for an extended period (e.g. overnight), the following may occur on wakeup: − If a keyword filter is applied, the map may not redraw properly after zooming in, and site symbols will look magnified and pixelated. Solution is to close and reopen the browser. − The confirmation email for the first report submitted may not be sent out, but the screen notification will be displayed and the data will still be delivered. • • Zoom to all filtered sites has been noted to occasionally zoom in too far so not all sites are visible on the screen. Use the mouse wheel to zoom out a little to ensure all sites are in view. If you try to run a report for a site that has no data available, you may receive a misleading error message: It simply means that no data was found for the site, for that report. 2 Department of Water Frequ ently asked questions 4 WIR Ho w l o n g w i l l i t t a ke fo r m y da t a t o a r r i v e? The time taken for data delivery will vary from minutes to hours, depending on the size of your request and the number of requests already in the queue (requests are processed automatically on a first-come-first-served basis). If your data does not arrive within one working day, please contact the department for further advice and assistance: Phone: (08) 6364 6505 Email: wir@water.wa.gov.au In due course you will receive your data or notification about its delivery 5 Wh a t br o w se rs a r e c o m pa t ibl e? Browser issues: WIR is designed to run on Internet Explorer 6 to 9. Other browsers may have compatibility issues and may not function as expected. Known issues include: • Firefox: when zooming to filtered sites, site symbols may not refresh properly and remain large and pixelated • Safari: opens links in new windows instead of tabs. 6 Wh e n c a n I u se WI R ? Hours of availability: Business hours Monday to Friday, but is also generally available after hours and on weekends. WIR is down for maintenance between 3:00am to 6:00 am AWST each morning 7 C a n I a ppl y a dv a nc ed si t e fi l t e r i n g ba se d o n c r i t e r ia su c h a s pa r t i c u lar v a ri able s o r n u m be r s o f m e a su r eme nt s? No, only elementary filtering was able to be provided for this version of WIR. Advanced filtering is planned for a future release. You are welcome to provide feedback on the types of filtering you need and we will investigate their feasibility. 8 C a n I fi l t e r si t e s ba se d o n a qu i fe r ? Not directly in this version of WIR. However, you can download the full_site_listing.xlsx file from the WIR Help and References page and filter on the ‘Aquifers (DOW)’ or ‘Aquifers (As reported)’ columns to create a site list that can then be loaded into the Site Cart (refer to User Guide for details). Note that: • the ‘Aquifers (DOW)’ column contains official Department of Water aquifers and holds most of the aquifer information Department of Water 3 Frequ ently asked questions WIR • the ‘Aquifers (As reported)’ column contains aquifer names as reported in third-party hydrogeological reports or bore licencing forms and may not relate to official department aquifers • screened aquifers have not been identified for all bores: − 45% of department bores have aquifers details − 2% of non-department bores have aquifer details 9 Wh a t ke y w o r ds c a n be u se d a n d h o w a r e t h e y a ppl i e d? A complete listing of WIR sites is available from the WIR Help and References page (full_site_listing.xlsx), and this will enable you to see the contents of fields that are used for filtering, and therefore the keywords that can be used. The actual fields searched include the following (all fields are searched, for any occurrence of the keyword within the field): WIN Site Id; Default Site Reference; Default Site Context Name; Default Site Name; Other Site References; Other Site Names; River Basin; Site Purpose Current; Infrastructure Status Current; Projects; Catchment; Estuary; Local Landmark Name; Local Govt Authority; Locality; BOM Rainfall District; Groundwater Province; Groundwater Area; Groundwater Subarea; Surfacewater Area; Surfacewater Subarea; 1:250;000 Map Index. 10 Ho w do I r e m o v e i n di v i du al si t e s fr o m t h e si t e cart? Click the site you would like to remove from the cart by selecting it in the site cart. The site’s identifier popup window should appear on the map window. Click the “remove from cart” link within the window and then close it. Repeat these steps to continue removing individual sites from the cart. 11 C a n I se l e c t a n d r e m o v e se v e r al si t e s fr o m t h e si t e c a r t a t o n e t i m e ? No, not in this release of WIR. It will be addressed in a future release. 12 C a n I sa v e m y si t e c a r t ? Your current site cart will be automatically saved as cookies in your browser (if they are enabled) and will be reloaded the next time you use WIR. However, this will be lost if you delete your browsing history. There is no direct functionality to save the cart and reload the cart. However, you can run a report (such as site details) and save the CSV list of sites that is provided with the report for reloading into the cart at another time (by using the import cart function). 4 Department of Water Frequ ently asked questions WIR 13 Wh y do e s pr i n t pr e v ie w n o t sh o w ju st se l e c t e d si t e s a n d i de n t i fie rs? The print preview functionality that was able to be implemented in WIR was constrained by limitations with current mapping software. A future upgrade of the software will allow a richer print previewing service to be built. In the interim, it may be more useful to take screen snaps of the WIR map interface and use them for printing. 14 C a n I c u st o m ise t h e si t e n a m e s a n d i de n t i fie rs t h a t a r e di spl a y ed fo r si t e s, a n d t h e z o o m l e v e ls a t w h i c h t h e y a ppe a r ? No. These settings are fixed within the application and cannot be changed by users. Only the default site references are displayed. They appear at Zoom 13. The zoom level cannot be changed, and site references cannot be turned on or off at will. 15 C a n I o bt a i n da t a by pr o je c t ? Not directly in this version of WIR. However, you can do so indirectly by using the project code as a site filter keyword (e.g. “SG-E-SWANEST”), and adding the resultant sites to your site cart. Then run your report and use Excel filtering on the Project Code column to exclude any samples not collected for the project. A list of projects and their codes and descriptions is available from the WIR Help and References page. A future release of WIR will include data extraction by Project. 16 C a n WI R st o r e m y c o n t a c t de t a i l s so I do n ’t h a v e t o pr o v ide t h e m e a c h t i m e ? No. This feature was not able to be provided for this release. It will be addressed in a future release. 17 C a n I se l e c t a n d r u n m o r e t h a n o n e r e po r t a t a time? No. Only one report can be run at a time. However, when the dialog appears advising that your request has been submitted, you can click cancel to return to the request details screen and submit another report (for the same set of sites). Department of Water 5 Frequ ently asked questions WIR 18 C a n I o bt a i n w a t e r l e v e l pl o t s (h y dr o graph s) t h r o u gh WI R ? Yes, through the pre-computed report store. This is available in two ways: 1 As a link in the site identifier popup window of an individual site, e.g. 2 As the ‘package of pre-computed reports for selected sites(s)’ available from the request details screen 6 Department of Water Frequ ently asked questions WIR 19 C a n I o bt a i n po i n t da t a fo r t h e pl o t s (h y dr o gr aph s) di spl a ye d u n de r pr e -c o mpu te d r e po r t s? Yes, by running a data report. Example using the pre-computed plots for site 70118112: 1 Add the site to the cart (e.g. 70118112) and submit a data request. 2 Request report “Water Level / Flow for Site(s) cross-tabulated (or flat file)” 3 A report “WaterLevelsForSite” will be sent to you by the system. 1 This report will contain all the water level data for the site. For the example above the file will include: a) Continuous logger recorded data: - Groundwater Level (AHD) – daily max Department of Water 7 Frequ ently asked questions WIR - Groundwater Level (AHD) – daily mean (as displayed in the plot) - Groundwater Level (AHD) – daily min b) Discrete point data: - Water Level (AHD) - Water Level (GL) - Static Water Level 20 C a n I o bt a i n bo r e l i c e n sin g i n fo r mat ion fr o m WI R ? No, WIR does not hold licensing information. Please refer to the Water register on the Department of Water website for this information. 21 Ho w o ft e n a r e t h e WI R r e fe r e n ce c o de s a n d o t h e r m e t a dat a u pda t e d? Reference codes, variables and analysis methods are updated on a frequent basis. Listings are re-published daily, and you are encouraged to download the latest versions when referring to them. Explanatory notes and metadata change infrequently and are only re-published when changes occur. You are welcome to download them at any time. 22 Wh y h a v e I n o t r e c e iv e d a n e m a i l c o n fi r mi ng t h a t m y r e qu e st h a s be e n su bm i t t ed? There may be several reasons why you have not received a confirmation email, for example: • you mistyped your email address during the checkout process • the department may be experiencing technical issues with email delivery. Note that if you have not provided sufficient or correct contact details we may not be able to let you know that a problem has occurred. Please contact one of our water information officers for further advice (refer to Contact Information.) 23 I h a v e r e c e i v ed t h e c o n fi r m ati on e m a i l bu t w h y h a v e I n o t r e c e i v e d t h e fo l l o w i ng e m a i l w i t h t h e da t a ? The requests work in a queue system that operates on a “first come, first served” basis. Therefore all other requests received prior to yours will be served first and depending on the size of these requests it could mean a short or a long waiting 8 Department of Water Frequ ently asked questions WIR period before you receive your data. If your data has not arrived by the following working day, please contact one of our water information officers for assistance. It could also be the email has arrived but been automatically moved to junk emails. Please check that folder. Another possibility is that your service provider or organisation has a limit on the size of emails that can be received. WIR data sent by email has a maximum size of 10MB. If this exceeds your allowable limit, contact one of our water information officers and we will place the data on our FTP server for you to download (refer to Contact Information.) 24 I f m y r e po r t ju st c o n t a i ns h e a de r s bu t n o da t a , do e s i t i n di c at e t h a t t h e r e po r t h a s fa i l e d? An empty report generally indicates that there is no data for the site(s) selected, or the date range, or the specific type of report you have requested. Check the Data Availability Summaries for the site(s). 25 Wh y a r e n u m be r s fo r m a tt ed a s t e xt i n da t a spr e a dsh ee ts? This occurs because results from measurements and observations may be expressed in one of four data types: numbers, ranges, dates and text (codes/names). Results may also be qualified by '<', ‘>' and '~' symbols. By necessity then, they must all be extracted as text, as it is the one common format that will accommodate all data types. Unfortunately this makes mathematical operations difficult. Instructions for converting textual numeric values back into true numbers are available from the WIR User guide and the Explanatory notes. 26 C a n I o bt a i n a l l o f t h e t e l e m e t er ed da t a fo r a si t e ? No. Telemetered data is unverified. The last six days of telemetry data is provided as a general-interest community service only, to indicate recent site conditions. Department of Water 9 Frequ ently asked questions WIR Contact information Our water information officers can be contacted during office hours, Monday to Friday 8:30 am to 5:00 pm: Phone: (08) 6364 6505 Email: wir@water.wa.gov.au Alternatively, contact Reception: The Atrium, Level 6 168 St Georges Terrace, PERTH WA 6000 PO Box K822, PERTH WA 6842 Phone: (08) 6364 7600 Fax: 6364 7601 Email: Atrium.Reception@water.wa.gov.au 10 Department of Water