In the 1.4 releases recently, we deployed three features in the contract management features of ClimateSuite:

- Initials and password for providers accepting the contract
- Aggregators ability to upload contracts for contract acceptance when enrolling on behalf of providers
- Contract Acceptance document and timestamp on view parcel

Initials and password for providers accepting the contract

We have implemented a feature for provider’s accepting contracts by requiring their initials and password.  By requiring the password, this feature ensures the user accepting the contract is the valid user for the parcels.  If there is an issue with the password, the user will be prompted with the error and will not be allowed to complete the parcel registration.  The initial feature increases the auditibability of the contract acceptance. 

Aggregators ability to upload contracts for contract acceptance when enrolling on behalf of providers

Aggregators can now complete the enrollment registration process on behalf of the provider by uploading a signed version of the contract to ClimateSuite.  This signed document will be stored and available on the view parcel feature of the system.  Allowing aggregators to complete the enrollment process enhances the customer support of their providers who are less Internet savvy. 

Every Parcel has to be associated with a contract. As a Project Owner Enrolling on behalf of the Provider, you cannot accept a contract digitally. You can select one or more than one Parcel in the grid below to associate with this Contract.

Upload Signed Copy Contract– Have the Provider sign the Aggregator contract and upload as a PDF into the system. Once uploaded, you can click on Submit to simply finish the process, or click Submit and Notify. This will finish the process as well as send a notification to the Provider that they have an Account set up and can now access the completed Parcels.

Digitally Accepted by Provider Contract– If the Aggregator requires the contract to be accepted by the Provider online, there are two steps/requirements.  Step 1:   If the Provider has never been notified of their ClimateSuite user account, a button will appear on the contract page to the right of the ‘Submit’ button called ‘Submit and Notify’.  Click this button and this will complete the parcel enrollment process for all selected parcels in the ‘Parcel Section’ and sends the new user account details to the Provider for system access.  Step 2:  The Aggregator will go to the Message Center Tab and send a message to the Provider to log in and complete Digital Acceptance of contracts.  When the provider logs in, they will see a list of all parcels (complete or incomplete) set up for them.  If the Provider has previously been notified of their account, no ‘Submit and Notify’ button will appear.  Aggregator should go to Step 2 and send the system message.

Contract Acceptance document and timestamp on view parcel

We have released the ability to view contract and contract acceptance details on the view parcel feature.  If the provider has accepted the contract, the original contract will be available for view/print-only, along with the date and time when the contract was accepted.  If the project owner or administrator uploaded the contract (per the previous enhancement in this blog), then the signed contract will be available for view/print-only, along with the date and time when the contract was uploaded. 

We will continue to look for ways to enhance the contract management function of the system.  If you have any suggestions or feedback, please contact us at support@climatesuite.com.

We have recieved a lot of feedback from prospective and current customers on the field identification process.  We had already been planning enhancements to the map feature but the feedback reinforced our need to redeisgn the way in which users interacted with the mapping functionality.  When we started to think through the revsied map enrollment page, we wanted to make the field identification process a) more inutuitive, b) closely aligned to how the FSA maps are used and c) the increase the speed on the map interaction (pan, zoom in and out).    These new features have been released and are in the test and production environments.

The first step in the enrollment process is to identify the parcel.  The first part of Step 1 - Parcel Identification is outlined below:

1. Project details - These are the details about the project: name, description and term.
2. Parcel name - This is the name of the parcel that the you will recognize in a list of your parcels.  Tip: For Agricultural Soil and Grassland enrollments, name the parcel the FSA tract number.
3. Additional owners - ‘Your Ownership’ is defaulted to 100%.  If you share ownership on this parcel, click ‘Add Owner’ to add owners.  Your Ownership and Additional Owners must add up to 100%.
4. Go to Field Identification - After you have completed the parcel name and additional owners (if applicable) then click ‘Go to Field Identification’ to find the fields associated to this parcel.

1. Field Search - There are two ways to search for a field by address or by section, township and range.
2. To use the section, township and range search - choose your state then populate the applicable fields and click ‘Find It’.  To find your section, township and range  - look for the data on your FSA map or in the legal descrtipion of the property.
3. If the state has multiple meridians - the combination of section, township and range may be duplicated.  A box will appear in the map - choose the corresponding meridian.  To get back to these results - click on ‘Search Results’ in the top right of the map.
4. To zoom in or out of the map - use the scoll bar located on the left side of the map.  The bar can be slid down (to zoom out) or up (to zoom in).  At the end of the scoll bar are two arrows.  Use these to also zoom in and out.
5. In the top right corner of the map are three buttons:
- Search Results, Satellite and Map.  Search Results allow you to view the search criteria (important if you have multiple meridians). 
- Satellite is the default view of the map.  Allows the user to see the raw satellite imagery.
- Map is the more cartograpic view of the map.  It shows all the lables for roads, towns and counties.  This is generally used for trying to find a field using landmarks to identify the right area o fth feidl to zoom in on. 
6.  Once the field has been identified, you will see a blue outline.  Click within these boundaries of the blue line to highlight the field.  When you click a field, it will turn the field yellow and a bubble will appear with field information (CLU ID, county and acres).  Click ‘Select’ to add it to your list or click cancel to close the bubble.  If you have selected a field, the field will turn green and add it to your ‘ Added Fields’. 
7. After selecting the appropriate fields, the fields will be added for reference to the ‘Added Fields’ section.  To start over, click ‘Remove All Fields’ and begin the process again.
8. To go back to the Parcel Name area, click ‘Back to Parcel Name’. 
9) Once you have completed this section, click ‘Next at the bottom right of the page to continue enrollment.  Click ‘Cancel’ to cancel out of the session.

Once you have completed this section, you can finish off the enrollment process.  This feature is available to providers as well as portal administrator or project owners enrolling on behalf of providers.  To access any of this content while on the page, click ‘Help’ next to ‘Parcel Identification’.  Any questions, please contact ClimateSuite technical support at support@climatesuite.com.