IMS-PIC Headlines - 2008

Form 50058 and MTW errors

Infrastructure problems causing several errors in IMS-PIC

Nov. 3, 2008 - Several PIH systems are experiencing connectivity (or internal connection) errors. In IMS-PIC this is causing many regular HAs to receive errors 6076 and/or 6077 on their form 50058 submissions, while MTW agencies receive"Unknown Error" when uploading tenant records. The IMS-PIC team is working with the teams that handle hardware and infrastructure to correct the problems as quickly as possible. No estimate has been provided yet on when we can expect resolution.

In the interim, if your agency receives one of the above errors when sending in tenant records, please resubmit the same file and check the error log file - we have found that simply resubmitting the file in many cases solves the problem.

HAs that receive error 6034 in their transmission upload error report should contact their HA software provider to ensure that the software they are using conforms to the Form 50058 Technical Reference Guide (TRG). The conversion from JRun to J2EE to process form 50058s has uncovered that some files did not contain the HA code in the required field. Adding this code at the correct spot should allow the HA to upload the same file without incident.

IMS-PIC Reopened Early

IMS-PIC Release 6.3 Installed installed and running well.

Oct. 26, 2008 - IMS-PIC release 6.3 was successfully deployed over the weekend and has been validated as running well. We ask that if you encounter any odd behaviors or results that you please contact REAC-TAC and provide information such as HA code, module and screen that caused the problem.

HAs that receive the 50058 upload error 6006
At the time of the release there were approximately 150 form 50058 upload files in the queue that had not been processed. If you go in to IMS-PIC to check your form 50058 error reports and see this error

IMS-PIC Offline this Weekend

Release 6.3 installation shutdown Friday at 8pm eastern

Oct. 23, 2008 - IMS-PIC will be offline beginning at 8:00 pm eastern on Friday, October 24th, and will remain offline until 7:00 am eastern Monday, October 27th. This is being done to install IMS-PIC Release 6.3

A summary of the changes in the release can be found at on the PIC News Home page

Thank you for your patience and cooperation.

No Sanctions for April, May or June

System issues in spring lead to relaxed sanctioning

Sep. 17, 2008 - The IMS-PIC team received the follow guidance from the program office in charge of the Housing Choice Voucher Program:

Due to certain issues related to IMS-PIC during the months of April, May and June 2008, PHAs administering Housing Choice Voucher programs will not be assessed under Notice PIH 2007-29 for those months.

However, an amended Delinquency Report using real time reporting and leasing for the month of April based on VMS data for units under a HAP contract at the end of that month has shown that approximately 200 PHAs have delinquent reporting rates of under 94.5 percent.

Please review your reporting rates and ensure that all families leased have a corresponding HUD-50058 entered into IMS-PIC. Sanctions will be imposed starting with the month of July 2008.

Continuing Monthly Report Problems

June 30 data summarization issues still being resolved

July 22, 2008 - Although the Section 8 numbers in the Delinquency Report appear to be correct, we have found that some of the information in the other reports appears to be off by one month.

To remedy this, we are once again planning to run the June 30th summarization report this coming weekend (July 25 - 27) to ensure as accurate data as is possible. Prior to this we will be rerunning the process in a test environment to resolve any issues prior to this weekend's processing.

As part of this processing job, 50058s will not be processed after 7:00pm on Friday, July 25th until the summarization completes. Any submissions files that are in the queue at 7:30pm will remain there to be processed when the summarization completes.

Thank you again for your patience. Please check back here for the latest updates on the 50058 summarization process.

Section 8 Data Summarization Failed

Summarization of Section 8 Data failed again, will be rerun this weekend

July 15, 2008 - Despite the best efforts of IMS-PIC and infrastructure staff, the summarization of Section 8 data for June 30, 2008 failed again. We are reviewing each step of the process to better understand why this is happening and will take steps to fix the problem(s) so this does not continue to happen.

We are rerunning the summarization in a development environment to ensure it works properly, and then will attempt to rerun the summarization in IMS-PIC production later this week.

Please know that we are as frustrated as you with this continued failure and we are working diligently to correct the problem(s) and get a clean run of Section 8 data as soon as is possible.

June PH Delinq Reports Completed

Section 8 and balance of 50058 reports to be refreshed over the weekend

July 11, 2008 - After much hard work behind the scenes, the Public Housing Delinquency Report information for the month ending June 30, 2008 has been successfully updated. Section 8 numbers will be refreshed and updated tonight.

Because this is a time and computer resource intensive process we will be running the summarization of the balance of the form 50058 reports over this weekend as well. These reports include the KMI, RCR, Late HQS, Late Exam, Newly Leases, FSS and SEMAP Indicators reports. Data currently in these reports are as of April 30, 2008 until this summarization completes this weekend.

We appreciate your patience while the problems have been resolved.

June 30th Summarization Failed

Plans in place to have 50058 report data corrected by this week's end

July 7, 2008 - The summarization of form 50058 data and reports failed to run to completion again this weekend. Although the report headers say the information is as of June 30, 2008, the data in the reports still appears to reflect the April 30, 2008 month end.

To correct this problem we will be running about a dozen stored procedures manually over the next three to four nights to get the data updated properly. The procedures must be run in sequence for the reports to populate correctly. Tonight we will be running the process to repopulate the delinquency report information, and then over the next two to three days we will run the procedures to complete the RCR, HQS, Late Reexam, Newly Leased and SEMAP reports. We believe that all data will be properly refreshed by the end of the week.

We share your frustration with this continued problem - we are working to ensure that all future monthly summarization run smoothly and without error. Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work to get this fixed.

Monthly Summarization this Weekend

July 2, 2008 - The summarization of form 50058 data for the month ending June 30, 2008 is scheduled to run this weekend, starting at 8pm eastern on July 4th. This will require the shutting down of 50058 uploads at 4pm eastern on Friday to allow all submitted forms to process completely before the summarization begins.

Unlike last month's data problems we anticipate the process to run smoothly this month. All reports should be refreshed and available for review by 7am on Monday July 7th.

Should any problems occur a new headline will be posted here as soon as is possible.

IMS-PIC fixes to be installed

June 26, 2008 - IMS-PIC will be taken offline beginning at 8pm eastern on Friday, June 27th to install two small fixes. We anticipate the system to be back up and operational by 7am on Monday, June 30th at the very latest.

Items being fixed with this release include the following:

• SEMAP profiles will be created for all SEMAP certifications that are currently stuck at "SEMAP Certification Submitted", allowing them to be scored and finalized.
• Changes from AIDs to SSNs for Heads of Household should now process correctly

Problems persist with the monthly May 31st data summarization but they can not be addressed by this release. Please rest assured that we are working on corrections as rapidly as possible to the monthly reports issues.

Monthly Summarization Errors

June 10, 2008 - The summarization of May's form 50058 data that ran over the weekend of June 6th was interrupted. Many reports contain information that is unchanged from the previous month's summarization.

We are working to correct this issue as quickly as we can. Updates will be posted to this site, as well as the PIC Internet site found at PIH Information Center

3/31 SEMAP Due May 30

March 31st SEMAP Certifications Due Friday

This is a reminder to 3/31 FYE PHAs with Section 8 programs that your SEMAP certifications are due in IMS-PIC production by no later than Friday, May 30, 2008.

Failure to complete the certification and to submit it in IMS-PIC by the due date will result in a SEMAP designation of "Troubled" for your agency. Please contact your Field Office staff with programmatic questions and call the REAC TAC line at 1-888-245-4860 (or email REAC_TAC@hud.gov) with IMS-PIC technical questions.

Please be advised that due to a technical issue, submitted SEMAP certifications may still show in IMS-PIC as "Certification Submitted" and not "Preliminary Rating to Field Office" as would normally appear. As long as your certification is in the Submitted status you will be scored by your field office. We should have this issue resolved with a short period.

FRS Patch Problems

Latest FRS Patch replaced - FRS users must download and reinstall.

May 15, 2008 - The FRS patch posted on Monday had an installation problem for many users. It installed itself as "Read only" which made it malfunction.

An updated patch file (FRS40.EXE) has been posted for download in the patch instructions.

Please note: It is not enough to download the patch. You must also "run" the patch file as explained in the above referenced instruction page.

In the patch page, you will also find a 4-page explanation of what has been changed in FRS with screen shots to aid you.

We apologize for the confusion caused by the file malfunction.

IMS-PIC Offline this Weekend

Release 6.2 Installation begins Friday night

May 5, 2008 - IMS-PIC will be offline beginning at 8 pm EDT on Friday, May 9th, and will remain offline until Monday, May 12th. This is being done to install IMS-PIC Release 6.2

A summary of the changes in the release will be posted later this week. Thanks your for your patience and cooperation.

New FRS is Coming!

FRS being updated for new development number format

May 1, 2008 - We are currently testing an updated version of FRS that will provide more seamlessly for the larger size of the new development numbers and will assist users with converting their FRS data from old development numbers to new development numbers.

We expect to have this patch ready for download and use right after the May 9 - 12 weekend release.

We will announce in a headline here when it is available for download. Thank you for your patience.

Form 50058 Errors due to Bldg. Nos.

Error 4046 in Form 50058 is a building number mismatch

April 23, 2008 - As part of the recent transition to new development numbers, we were required to change 25,575 potentially duplicated building numbers to a different number to avoid duplication.

This issue and what to do about it was discussed in the April 11th PIC Headline but it bears repeating because users have begun receiving "4046" errors in their Form 50058 submissions. These are happening because the building number in IMS-PIC and the building number in the PHA's system are mis-matched.

We have posted a Development and Building Number Crosswalk Report web page where you can download the report for your region. It lists the old development number, old building number, new development number, and new building number for every building in the IMS-PIC active inventory.

Crosswalk Report page

As we said on April 11th, if you have any changed building numbers listed in the report, you must change the corresponding building numbers in your own database to match the ones in the report in order to successfully submit Form 50058 data for that building.

If you want to change these system-assigned numbers to some other numbers, you will need to request the change using a special spreadsheet template, which you can get from your PIC Coach. Add your data but do not modify the template. Please submit the change request template attached to an email to REAC_TAC@hud.gov.

Development No. Transition Completed

All PHAs are converted to new development numbers

April 20, 2008 - The development number transition process has been completed. All active PHAs have been converted to new development numbers.

More than half of the duplicate building numbers identified before the transition were changed as requested by HA Users. However, because of volume and time constraints, 25,575 buildings remained to be converted to a non-duplicate building number during the transition in accordance with PIH Notice 2007-28 to the format "B_0001".

For any PHAs desiring to change these or other numbers, we have posted a standard spreadsheet template for modifying building-entrance numbers pairs. You can download it from the link at the end of the Transition Progress Report headline located at: http://www.hud.gov/offices/pih/systems/pic/news/picheadlines2008.cfm#13 Please note that you must fill in all columns except "Comments".

A list of the 25,575 building numbers converted this way is available from your PIC Coach.

All normal edit and submission rights in Development and Inventory Removals have been restored. We thank you for your patience in this complex and lengthy process.

Reformulation Final Report

April 17, 2008 - The final stages of development number reformulation are here. We are doing a final transition for one large PHA tonight and then the final "clean up" scripts will be fun Friday.

Because we are not quite finished, edit and submit access to Development and Inventory Removals submmodules will be withheld until Monday, April 21 to avoid data conflicts.

Reformulation Progress Report

Duplicate Building Numbers Have Been Changed

April 11, 2008 - We are at the half way point of the reformulation process so we are pleased to report that everything is on schedule and the work is going smoothly.

Many but not all PHA requests to change duplicate numbers have been completed. We regret we could not finish all of them before reformulation began. We therefore have removed all remaining potential duplicate building numbers that would occur in the same new development by automatically converting one of them to a new number in the format " B_0001 " as described in PIH Notice 2007-28. To see if any of your buildings had to be re-numbered in this way to avoid a duplication, take a look at the new Duplicate Building Mapping Report. The report is located in the Housing Authority submodule.

Click the " Trans. to New Dev. Nos. " tab, then click " Duplicate Building Report ". Generate the report and, if any of your building numbers were converted to the “B_0001” format, they will be listed. The report columns are: " Development Number ", " Old Building Number " and " New Building Number ".

If none of your building numbers were converted this way, then the system will say " Duplicate Building Mapping Information cannot be found for the selected PHA ".

If you have any building numbers listed in the report, you must change the corresponding building numbers in your own database to match the ones in the report in order to successfully submit Form 50058 data for that building. If you want to change these system-assigned numbers to some other numbers, you will need to request the change using a special spreadsheet template, which you can get from your PIC Coach. Submit the change request template via email to REAC_TAC@hud.gov.

Starting this weekend, we will perform the reformulation of the old development numbers to the new development numbers. We expect the process to be completed by Thursday, April 17, 2008. We thank you for your patience and cooperation.

Edit Building & Entrance Numbers Template (MS-Excel, 12.5 KB)

During this time, the IMS/PIC System will continue to be operational with the following exceptions:

• The Department will temporarily remove the ability for users to make any changes to the building and unit inventory;
• During the evening hours (8 pm-7am EDT), the Department will suspend processing of 50058 submissions;
• Throughout the process of transition, the Department will continue to accept 50058 submission uploads, but encourages PHAs; if possible, to delay sending in Public Housing 50058 information until the transition is complete to alleviate load on the system and avoid potential rejections from the system.

Because some of your New Developments might have duplicate building numbers, we will automatically re-number buildings where there is a duplicate building number in the New Development. For example, if a new development has two buildings that have "1" as the building number, one of the Buildings will remain numbered "1" and the second building will be automatically renumbered in the format B_0001. If there is a third duplicate, it would be renumbered B_0002.

When realignment is complete, you should familiarize yourself with any system-modified building numbers and then submit Building and Unit corrections and HUD form 50058 submissions using the modified numbers. If a Building and Unit Correction or HUD form 50058 is submitted without the corrected building number, the system will reject the upload because there will be a mismatch for the Development + Building + Entrance + Unit number combination that you are trying to update.

Thank you for your cooperation.

Delinquency Reports Coerced

Missing VMS Data was restored

March 13, 2008 - The monthly summarization process run last weekend, which populates the monthly reports, was interrupted, leaving about 700 housing agencies with 0 units leased being reported by the Voucher Management system (VMS).

The Missing VMS data has been restored to all affected PHAs and the correct reporting rates re-calculated.

IMS-PIC Briefly Offline Tonight

March 10, 2008 - IMS-PIC will be taken offline tonight at 8:00 pm EDT to install updated security ceritificates on the servers. It is expected to be a brief outage (less than an hour) and the system will be restored to full operation as soon as the installation is completed.

Voucher Delinquency Rates Incorrect

March 10, 2008 - Our monthly summarization process that populates the reporting rate tables was interrupted, leaving about 700 housing agencies with 0 units leased being reported from the Voucher Management System (VMS). We are working to rerun the process as rapidly as possible.

Please be advised that no adverse actions will be taken against housing agencies due to this system glitch.

Once the process has been rerun we will post a new message that the reporting rates have been refreshed and are available for review.

We apologize for this data error and want to assure you that getting it fixed is a top priority.

IMS-PIC Offline this weekend

12/31 SEMAP Certifications due 2/29

Feb. 27 2008 - This is a reminder to 12/31 FYE PHAs with Section 8 programs with more than 250 contracted voucher units (or less than 250 vouchers under contract but in "troubled" status) that your SEMAP certifications are due in IMS-PIC production by no later than Friday, February 29, 2008.

Failure to complete the certification or to submit it in IMS-PIC by the due date will result in a SEMAP designation of "Troubled" for your agency. Please contact your Field Office staff with programmatic questions and call the REAC TAC line at
1-888-245-4860 (or email REAC_TAC@hud.gov with IMS-PIC technical questions.

You should start the SEMAP certification process well in advance of the due date to allow time to resolve any problems within the schedule. If you are not sure whether you are required to submit or if you are a MTW agency, call your local HUD Field Office.

IMS-PIC technical problems reported to REAC TAC on or after the February 29, 2008 submission deadline will not be considered as justification for a late FYE 12/31/07 certification.

SSNs Can Be Unmasked

HA Security Coordinators can unmask personal when needed

Feb. 20, 2008 - IMS-PIC has been masking personal information (first name, day of birth and first 5 digits of the SSN) to enforce the requirements of the Privacy Act of 1975. This has caused a hardship for certain HA Users who need to be able to see the full name, date of birth (DOB) and SSN to perform their duties.

IMS-PIC has now implemented “Special System Privileges” which allow certain HA Users to see all of the personal information unmasked on screens and in reports throughout the system. These Special System Privileges are not intended for all users. They are intended only for those HA users who have a bona fide need to see all of the name, DOB and SSN to carry out their responsibilities. Users with special system privileges must be indoctrinated in the need to protect privacy data which they handle and how to do so.

These special system privileges must be assigned individually to HA Users by the HA IMS-PIC Security Coordinator. Here how it is done:

• Navigate in Security Administration to the account of the user to be given “special system privileges”.
• Click “Modify Special Privileges”.
• Put a check in the “View Unmasked Privacy Data” box and click “Save Special Privileges”.
• The user will immediately be able to see the full name, full date of birth and full SSN in all screens and reports in IMS-PIC.

To remove special system privileges, navigate to the user’s account, remove the checkmark and click “Save Special Privileges” to re-mask privacy data if a user no requires access to all of the personal data due to reassignment or promotion.

A limited number of HUD Users (1-2 in each field office) also have been assigned special system privileges in order to assist HA Users when needed. HUD Users cannot assign special system privileges to HA Users. Only the HA Security Coordinators can do so.

Cap Fund Certification Date Changed

Cap Fund Certifications now due on 2/22/2008

Jan. 25, 2008 - HUD just published PIH Notice 2008-7 and has set an adjusted deadline of February 22, 2008 for submitting certifications to the accuracy of data in IMS-PIC Development submodule for 2008.

As was the case last year, HUD will calculate Capital Fund allocations in 2008 based on data from the certification process, adjusted for valid data discrepancies.

Instructions for reporting data discrepancies, which are slightly different than last year, were distributed by email to all Public Housing Agencies. If you need another copy, call your local field office.

Try Form 50058 J2EE code in PICTEST

Jan. 9, 2008 - PIH is in the process of converting the code that processes Form 50058 data uploads into the OMB-approved JAVA (J2EE). We expect the change to be transparent to the users. We have installed the new J2EE code in PICTEST to permit HA users and their software vendors to test it.

We ask your help testing by submitting some of your Form 50058 data twice, once as usual in IMS-PIC production and again (using the same upload file) in PICTEST. We would like a mixture of action types. Compare results and report any differences in Fatal and Warning Errors to REAC_TAC@hud.gov.

You should get the same results with data processed in either mode: the same error messages and successful updates (except for some possible duplicated building number conversions, which will be corrected before the production release in May).

In conjunction with this testing, we have also converted the development numbers in PICTEST to the reformulated (AMP) numbers. You can submit Form 50058 data using the old or new development numbers and PICTEST Form 50058 Submission will convert the old development numbers to the new development numbers. The data will be displayed under the new development numbers in PICTEST.

There have been no changes yet to Form 50058 production processing and the change to J2EE there will be part of the May 2, 2008 release.

Reports Problem Resolution Plan

Jan. 7, 2008 - The monthly reports problem that affected voucher-related data from VMS impacts the Form 50058 Delinquency Report, the Form 50058 SEMAP Indicators Report, and the MTW Delinquency Report.

The reports are to be corrected this week as follows:

• Form 50058 Delinquency Report will be corrected as of Wednesday morning.
• Form 50058 SEMAP Indicators Report will be corrected as of Thursday morning.
• MTW Delinquency Report will be corrected as of Friday morning.

We thank everyone involved for your patience.

Monthly Reports Problem

Jan. 7, 2008 - Voucher-related monthly figures are in error

Due to a malfunction during the monthly summarization for December, some of the report values for voucher-related housing are incorrect.

These erroneous values include Voucher "50058 Required" and Voucher reporting rate. The cause was a double count of the vouchers from VMS. These errors appear in reports wherever these values are displayed.

The maintenance team is investigating the cause and, when that is determined, we will announce a schedule to correct the problem. We apologize for the inconvenience.

DIS Access is Restored

Jan. 3, 2008 - All access roles returned to normal

Access to Disaster Info System (DIS) Submodule in IMS-PIC has been restored to normal for all users.

Access had been turned off for all users during the year-end adjustments with FEMA.

Although it was supposed to be restored this morning, due to technical difficulties, it was not completely restored until 3:00 PM EST. We apologize for the delay.