Resource Tenures and Engineering Branch
March 1, 1998
The purpose of this document is to promote a common understanding of the status codes
used in FTAS. It defines how they are used, what they mean and how they impact other
business areas within the Ministry which share tenure data and use it for Revenue,
Silviculture or Enforcement purposes. They are also used as criteria for District, Region,
Branch, Executive and Freedom of Information reporting. Incorrect use of these codes or
local interpretation results in flawed report summaries and a distorted view of Ministry
activity.
Once this document has been distributed the code subsets used to define status codes in
the database will be reviewed and modified to ensure that only the correct status codes as
defined in this document can be used at the file, permit and block levels in FTAS. Data
corrections will be applied to the database to change any statuses that are not correct
for any given area. Audit reports will be run to identify files that have status codes
that have not changed for long periods of time and forwarded to the appropriate Regions or
Districts.
An audit of data used by the Forest Tenure Administration System was done in 1996. Data
integrity was measured in terms of five elements:
"to assess the level of data integrity in the FTAS database. In the context of
this audit, data integrity means the extent to which the information in the database is
correct. A lack of integrity can cause errors in subsequent computerized processing by
other business areas or generate misleading reports."
Impact : "The integrity of data records in FTAS can affect the quality of
reports. Consequently, decisions made by the ministry may be based on inaccurate or
incomplete information, and reports released externally by the ministry may be inaccurate
or incomplete. In addition, field operations may not be planned or performed in the most
effective or efficient manner or errors may be caused in subsequent computerized
processes, which would take time to resolve so that dependent activities are
delayed."
Problems: The FTAS data audit identified problems with status codes in the data
used by FTAS.
"Status codes used on licenses in the FTAS database were not from the approved
list of status codes. Status codes that are specific to particular levels within a license
were applied to the wrong level of license, permit or cut block"
Resource Tenures and Engineering Branch has undertaken several initiatives to correct
the problems identified in the audit.. Some of these are:
PL > PP > PI > HA > HI > LC > HC
PL (Planned TSL)
PP (Proposed)
PI (Pending Issuance)
HA (Awarded)
Tenders have been opened and the licence has been awarded, subject to the District
Manager's or Minister's Approval.
HI (Issued)
The legal tenure documents have been signed and issued to the Licensee.
LC (Logging Complete)
Normal or primary harvesting is complete; waste. residue may still be harvested and
billed. An indication that primary harvesting has finished and the logs are either removed
from the block or decked. This status does not mean that all harvesting obligations
have been completed.
HC (Closed)
Harvesting activity and obligations on the tenure have been completed, and the
tenure file is closed in FTAS
HX (Cancelled)
This status is only used when the licence has been cancelled by some action of the
Ministry This is not the correct status for a licence that has finished its normal life
cycle.
HS (Suspended)
Normal Sequence
Timber Sales (multi mark): PL > PP > PI > HI > LC > HC
Major CPs: SP > PP > PI > HI > LC > HC
These statuses refer to licences that have more than one mark or cutting permit i.e.
A23 Bid Proposal or A01 Forest Licence. Where a licence has only one mark, the status of
the mark is the same as the file status. i.e B20 Competitive Timber Sale. (see file level
statuses above).
PL (Planned TSL)
SP (Silviculture Prescription)
PP (Proposed)
PI (Pending Issuance)
HI (Issued)
The legal cutting permit documents have been signed and issued to the Licensee.
LC (Logging Complete)
Normal or primary harvesting is complete on all cut blocks; waste and residue may still
be harvested and billed. This is an indication that primary harvesting has finished and
the logs are either removed from all cutblocks or decked. All cutblocks would be in the
status of "LC".
HC (Closed)
Harvesting activity and obligations on the permit have been completed, and the
cutting permit is closed in FTAS. All cutblocks would be in the status of "S".
HX (Cancelled)
This status is only used when the licence has been cancelled at the discretion of the Ministry This is not the correct status for a mark/cutting permit that has finished its normal life cycle. This status can only be invoked from the District Overide Facility (DOF).
Status changes in FTAS at the Cut Block level normally progress in this manner:
Timber Sale Cut Blocks PL ->PP -> HB -> LC -> S
Major Licence Cut Blocks SP ->PP -> HB -> LC -> S
PL (Planned)
Timber Sale Licence Planned Cut Block.
SP (SP Only)
Major Licence cutblocks with approved silviculture prescription
PP (Proposed)
Gross Area and Net Area have been confirmed, Risk assessment and the Inspection
Setup have been entered into FTAS.
HB (Approved)
Harvesting has begun. Initial Inspection has been scheduled and Harvest Start Date is entered.
Note: When the Cut Block is approved (HB) and harvesting begins, it is mandatory
to enter the Harvest Start Date in FTAS.
LC (Logging Complete)
Normal or primary harvesting is complete; waste and residue may still be harvested and
billed; other harvesting obligations may still be pending.
It is now mandatory to enter the Silviculture Start Date into FTAS. This is the
date on which normal harvesting is complete (logging complete date). When the Cut Block
Status is changed to LC in FTAS, Planned Silviculture Handover Date becomes Actual
Silviculture Handover Date in ISIS for timber sales.
S (Silviculture)
Harvesting activities and obligations on the Cut Block have been completed and the Final Inspection has been completed. Responsibility for the Cut Block passes from Timber staff to Silviculture staff.
Note: Even if the cut block has no silviculture obligations the
block status should be set to 'S'. This will not impact ISIS/MLSIS since there will be no
records there. It provides a consistent way to identify
completed blocks.
Timber marks issued to the owners of private land via the timber mark registry use a
slightly different set of statuses. Some of these are specific to private marks and are
used during the issuing process. They may not be visible on the screen.
Status changes in TMR normally progress in this manner:
PI>HN>HI>HX
PI (Pending Issuance)
The district has sent the electronic application to Victoria.
HN (Issued and not printed)
Victoria Timber Marks staff have statused and verified the supporting information
(legal description, ownership etc.) and the Registrar or Deputy Registrar has issued a
timber mark.
HI (Issued)
District staff have received the issued mark, printed it and forwarded the document to
the markholder.
HX (Cancelled)
The mark has been cancelled by the Registrar.
HC (Closed)
This status has not been used on private marks in the past, however they now have a term and will expire like crown marks. This status may be used in the future.
A status 'EE - Entered in Error" is used to tag data entered by mistake. There is
a significant number of files that have this status. They cause problems with reporting as
these files should not be part of a report. These files are removed periodically however
the process is risky as there may be dependent data which also has to be removed so that
there are no "orphans" in the database. Either a delete function or a batch
process which runs periodically must be added to FTAS to ensure timely removal of these
files.
All districts do not use the status codes consistently. 'LC' in one district may mean
something slightly different from another. The definitions in this document define what
these statuses mean and how they should be used.
Management reports are run internally for Regions, Branches and the Executive and
externally for FOI requests, consultants and industry. Subsequent to running reports for
the executive and the Minister for use in the legislature it was discovered that the
status codes did not reflect the actual status of the tenures, cutting permits or blocks.
This resulted in information that was incorrect. Since this corporate information is used
for workload studies, resource allocation, and to support the government on initiatives
like the "Jobs and Timber Accord" accurate data is essential.
Note: Audit reports will be run on a monthly basis by district and published on the
Ministry Web site to identify data problems and files that are not current.
Although there are many local systems and manual ledgers in existence, the Corporate Data Base where the data for FTAS, GAS , ISIS, MLSIS, ERA and other systems store their data is the official repository for the Ministry of Forests. Recent corporate reports have revealed that the status codes on many files are not up to date resulting in misleading information. This information has been used recently for decision making during new initiatives such as the Jobs and Timber Accord and Woodlot Licence initiative.
This report will display all files, marks or blocks where the status has not been
changed for an unusally long time. The time period benchmark will be based on the normal
life cycle of files, marks/CPs and cut blocks.
This report will compare the cut block status in FTAS to the form B in MLSIS. If there
is a Form B (post harvesting report) and the status of the cut block is not "S"
the block will appear on the report.
Compares the status at the file level to the mark and block statuses to see if they are
logical. For example if the file is closed then all marks and blocks should be closed
also.
Compares the status at the CP/mark level to the block statuses to see if they are
logical. For example if the CP/mark is "LC" all the blocks should be
"LC" too. If the CP/mark status is "HC" all the blocks should be
"S".
'HA' status is used to indicate that the licence has been awarded but the documents have not been signed yet. Normally the file will stay in this status for only a short time.
All the status codes are contained in the code list called TIMBER_STATUS_CODE. Status
codes for file, mark and block statuses are identified by code subsets of
TIMBER_STATUS_CODE. These code subsets are called FILE_STATUS_ST, MARK_STATUS_ST and
BLOCK_STATUS_ST respectively.
| A | Issued |
| AP | Appeal Pending |
| DD | Disallowed by District |
| DR | Disallowed by Region |
| DV | Disallowed by Victoria |
| EE | Entered in Error |
| HA | Awarded |
| HB | Approved |
| HC | Closed |
| HD | Harvesting Deferred |
| HH | HDBS - Harvest Database |
| HI | Issued |
| HN | Approved, but not Printed Private Mark |
| HS | Suspended |
| HX | Cancelled |
| IC | Inactive - Completed |
| ID | Inactive - Closed (Deactivated) |
| IH | Inactive - HDBS |
| IX | Inactive - Cancelled |
| LC | Logging Complete |
| PA | Pending Application |
| PD | Pending Deferred |
| PI | Pending Issuance |
| PL | Planned TSL |
| PP | Proposed |
| PR | Pending Review |
| PS | Pending Status |
| S | Silviculture |
| SP | PHSP only, no application received |
| TC | Trespass Investigation Complete |
| TU | Trespass Under Investigation |
| Original | Proposed | |
| AP | AP | |
| DD | DD | |
| DR | DR | |
| DV | DV | |
| EE | ||
| HA | HA | |
| HC | HC | |
| HH | HH | |
| HI | HI | |
| HS | HS | |
| HX | HX | |
| IC | ||
| ID | ||
| IH | ||
| LC | LC | |
| PD | PD | |
| PI | PI | |
| PL | PL | |
| PP | PP | |
| S | ||
| TC | TC | |
| TU | TU |
| Original | Proposed |
| AP | AP |
| DD | DD |
| DR | DR |
| EE | EE |
| HC | HC |
| HH | HH |
| HI | HI |
| HN | HN |
| HS | HS |
| HX | HX |
| ID | ID |
| IH | IH |
| LC | LC |
| PD | PD |
| PI | PI |
| PL | PL |
| PP | PP |
| PR | PR |
| S | |
| SP | SP |
| Original | Proposed |
| AP | |
| DD | DD |
| EE | EE |
| HB | HB |
| HD | |
| HS | |
| HX | |
| ID | |
| LC | LC |
| PD | PD |
| PL | PL |
| PP | PP |
| S | S |
| SP | SP |