DLS Gateway Tutorials: Original Orientation followed by FY2010-2012 Enhancements

Original Orientation to DLS Gateway• Login Accounts• Passwords & My Profile• Forms – Differences from Excel• Permissions – Sign Only vs. Save vs. Submit• Electronic Signatures• Correcting Submitted Errors• “What If” Classified Rate Analysis• Viewing Reports before Submittal• Submission Summary screen• Misc Forms and Schedule A• What can go wrong?• What happens at DLS after Submit is clicked?

Login Accounts – You have to be in LOD

Resetting Passwords – do it in “My Profile”

Differences from Excel

• <Enter> does not move you to the next cell and recalculate formulas. It does nothing or it clears out the data. (Try clicking Back button to restore data.) Stay away from Backspace – it exits the form.

• To calculate subtotals and totals, click the “Save & Calculate” button. Web applications require this extra step.

Sign Only vs. Save vs. Submit•Sign Only = No permission to change any numbers. Local Administrators must use – DLS can’t know what’s right in hundreds of communities.

•Save = Can enter & change numbers and sign form but cannot submit to DOR

•Submit = Can enter & change numbers, sign, and submit to DOR

Electronic Signatures – intentionally flexible

• Officials need a directory entry, login account, and permission to sign if they want to sign individually.

• Under certain circumstances, individuals can sign “on behalf of” others by commenting in memo box

Correcting Submitted Errors

If you have already submitted a form: call someone at DLS, explain that your submission has errors, ask for the form to be unlocked, correct the errors, and re-submit.

Checking Error Reports Before Submittal

• BOA Comparison Report LA4 Comparison

• LA13 Statistics

These reports will help you check for errors/omissions prior to submitting forms:

Tax Rate Submission Summary

Shows the last person to enter or update the form in the community and at DLS.

Schedule A – some forms are entered by function instead of a large spreadsheet

Misc Forms

Some forms are standard data entry with info saved in database

Other forms are for uploading your document “as is”.

What can go wrong?

• Strange error messages

• Necessary form approval sequence

• Web applications time out with no activity -Gateway times out after 35 minutes

Firewall error – report error id number to DLS

Program Bug Error – report what you were doing to DLS

Form Errors Highlighted – on top

Form Errors Highlighted – or on bottom

Current error list includes advisories on entries that are correct and working fine – this can be confusing in an “error list”. These will be slowly but surely eliminated from the list.

Form Approval Sequence

• If a LA4 is “unapproved” because of an error and the LA5 was already approved, the LA5 gets “unapproved” and waits for the new LA4 data, after which the LA5 has to be re-approved.

• LA5 Approval or Re-approval has to be in place before Recap Submit.

Inactivity Timeout – 35 minutes from last keystroke. Data not saved

What Happens at DLS after you Submit – automatic workflow notifications

Automatic Notifications – internal. Completion of any process step in a specific

community can trigger a notification

Current automatic notifications: tax rate & pro forma approval, preliminary & final certification, Schedule A approval, Free Cash certification

Automatic Notifications - External

External - Who needs to know?

Internally, DLS sets departments for auto notifications: all officials within those departments who have an email address in the Directory will get notified.

Objective – this message

DLS Gateway Fy2010 Enhancements for Assessors, Accountants, and Treasurers

• Current LA3 Sales for LA3 Mapping Program• Exemption Reimbursement Submissions On-line• Certification Recommendations Report• Printouts of Forms Show Data Status• Copy Last Year’s Data into New DE1• Automatic LA15 Calculated from LA3 Data• CIP Shift Options Table: LA4 Load & Export to Excel• Last Form Update and Signature Controls• Schedule A Fund Carryovers and Reduced Size Printout• Free Cash and E&D Automatic Notifications• Local Options centralized

MassGIS uses this program to update

mapped LA3 sales monthly.

Mapped verified market sales are useful for waterview/waterfront analysis.

Property Tax Exemption Reimbursement

processing now available under Misc Forms

DLS will data enter prior year individuals, who rollover to succeeding years for editing & submittal.

Q. Who will set permissions so assessors can Save & Submit on-line exemption data for reimbursement?

A. Your Local Account Administrator

BLA Certification Directives can be viewed – look under Tax Rate Reports

Current BLA Certification Directives are Available to Logged-in Users

Printouts will show data status(Information becomes “Public” when “Submitted”. DLS reports it as public information when it is “Approved.”)

Copy Button on DE1

Last Year’s Data Copied into DE1

Select process for LA3s: Interim Year Adjustment or Certification

Automatic LA15 – calculated from LA3 data

Assessors fill in only the circled fields below

Tax Rate Shift Options WorksheetClick button to load values from LA4

Set Shift Range and Increment to be Displayed

CIP incremented by 1 percentage point

Export to Excel

Options Tables

Print, Save, or Email to Share with

Others

Update and Signature Controls: Who last changed this form?

Tax Rate Submission Summary now shows last person to save data or perform a key step in a form, both in the community and at DLS

Automatic Email to Previous Signers if Anything in Form

Changes

Schedule A printouts exclude rows without amounts – reducing the number of pages.

Automatic notifications sent when BOA certifies Free Cash or Regional School District Excess & Deficiency.

A centralized Local Options database customizes billing and tax rate formulas and data for each community, including new meals tax option.