EasyMTP Update June 2009 - All's well

posted Jun 26, 2009, 4:53 AM by a.pastore@cgxchange.org   [ updated Jun 26, 2009, 6:38 AM ]

2010-2012 MTP submission successfully achieved

All 20 MTPs have now been submitted and can be downloaded from CGMap. The MTP submission 2009 went off smoothly: by Friday June 19, the deadline for submission in CGMap, 15 MTPs were available via Download MTPs. The pending 5 had either deadline extensions, or were submitting over the weekend. 

All Centers and Challenge Programs have made their MTP available via CGMap this year. Of these, 18 used EasyMTP for authoring and upload, 2 are on their way. 

Coverage of MTP projects and their related metadata (countries of planned research, potential beneficiary countries, system priorities by output) is very close to 100% this year, based on the control we made during upload and document assembly. 

Behind the scenes

The new report functionality, made available in EasyMTP last May, has remarkably streamlined the formatting and assembly process. 

Our colleagues in CIAT have, as usual, been responsive in exporting the complex financial tables from FIS, a substantial contribution to the finalisation of the MTP documents. 

The Helpdesk has received a much smaller number of requests and issue reports than last year, which means that in spite of the limited upgrade implemented in EasyMTP and what still remains to be improved, users were able to update the MTP information without major impediments.

The extra step we took last winter to move more EasyMTP systems to the hosted environment has paid back. 11 systems are now hosted, while 8 are installed in Centers (Bioversity, IRRI, WorldFish, ICRISAT, ILRI, ICRAF, WARDA, CIAT). IFPRI, CIP, ICARDA moved to the hosted environment in 2009, in addition to the 8 existing systems set up in 2008 (CIMMYT, IITA, IWMI, CIFOR, 4 CPs - CCAFS to be set up over the next month). This setup has allowed the Helpdesk team to resolve reported issues and bugs very quickly, implement upgrades smoothly and with 100% quality control. For the locally installed systems, the Helpdesk team set up a monitoring mechanism that allowed them to be faster in analysing and resolving issues on this front as well.

What's next

We've already started updating the CGMap database with the 2010-2012 MTP information. Over the next week, we'll continue to:
  • generate the individual project PDFs for Browse MTPs and for submission to Google, the search engine behind Search CGIAR;
  • import all the EasyMTP databases in the CGMap database, so that Search Projects and Search Outputs can retrieve information from the 2010-2012 MTP;
  • update the Project Fact Sheets with the new information coming from both EasyMTP and FIS;
  • update the maps in Projects by Country with the new country and project data.
In addition, we're planning to redesign some parts of the system in order to improve its accessibility and usability. Stay tuned for more.

A shiny example of collective action

All the people involved in the submission, including colleagues in Centers, Challenge Programs, the Helpdesk at IRRI, our colleagues at CIAT, should be proud of these achievements. The fact that every Center and Program has been able to complete this important task via CGMap is simply a shiny example of collective action, a much needed demonstration that we can work together in these times of change. So, thank you, all!

Feedback welcome

We welcome your comments on this year's experience, drop us a note at cgmap-support@cgiar.org 

Until the next update

have a great summer

The EasyMTP/CGMap Team
i.e. Antonella Pastore, Tania Jordan, Michael Marus, Dominique Liberto
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