9/30
SEMAPs Due Nov 29thSEMAP
Certifications for FYE 9/30/2008 are due by November 29th Nov.
25, 2008 - This is just a reminder that SEMAP Certifications for HAs with
a fiscal year ending on September 30, 2008 are due by close of business (5pm eastern)
on Saturday, November 29th. Small deregulated HAs that are unsure as to need
to submit a certification should contact their local field office to determine
their requirement to submit.
Monthly
Summarization to run 11/14Summarization of Form 50058 data to run over
the weekend of 11/14 Nov. 10, 2008 - Due to some technical
glitches, we will be rerunning the monthly summarization of form 50058 data this
coming weekend (11/14 - 11/16). This will allow fresh data to be pulled from VMS,
as well as allow the processing of all 50058s inputted before the deadline to
be included in the process. We apologize for any inconvenience that this may
have caused.
Form 50058 and
MTW errorsInfrastructure 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 EarlyIMS-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 6006 - File is empty then
please upload your file again. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
IMS-PIC Offline this WeekendRelease
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
JuneSystem 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 ProblemsJune 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
FailedSummarization 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 CompletedSection
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 FailedPlans 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 WeekendSummarization of 50058 data to run over July 4th 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 installedIMS PIC will be taken down at 8pm eastern this weekend
6/27 to install two patches 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 ErrorsSummarization Reports
for May 31st may contain 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
30March 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 ProblemsLatest 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.
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 CompletedAll
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 ReportReformulation
Process Extended through Friday 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 ReportDuplicate 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.
Development Numbers Change Soon Development Reformulation
coming April 5 -16 March 21, 2008 - Per
PIH Notice 2007-28, PIH will transfer the existing developments (Old Developments)
for your Housing Authority to the New Development Numbers (originally called AMP
numbers) in the Inventory Management/PIC System between April 5 and 16, 2008.
A full schedule will be posted here on March 31. 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
CoercedMissing 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.
We apologize for this inconvenience. IMS-PIC
Briefly Offline TonightSystem down at 8 PM to replace security certificates
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 IncorrectVoucher Management System Data incomplete
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 weekendSEMAP
Certifications due by 8pm EST Friday Feb. 27 2008 - IMS-PIC
will be unavailable from 8:00 pm EST Friday February 29, 2008 until 7:00 am EST
Monday March 3rd, 2008 for scheduled maintenance. This means your
12/31/2007 SEMAP certification, if required, must be submitted before 8pm EST
Friday. We apologize for any inconvenience.
12/31 SEMAP Certifications due 2/29SEMAP Certifications
for December FYEs are due Feb 29th 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 PICTESTResults should
be the same as in production 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 PlanThree affected reports
to be corrected 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. |