New PADRAP Website Online

June 8, 2011 — 

Work on the new PADRAP website has been completed! Please be sure to update your bookmark to http://vdpambi.vdl.iastate.edu/padrap/default.aspx. Your same username and password should still work and if you cannot remember them there is a new recovery function. To get to it, click on "Login" in the upper right hand corner then just click on "Forgot Password?".

All your information entered in the "old" PADRAP website has been transferred over and is available on the new website and new benchmarking reports can be run on them. For step-by-step instructions to help you navigate through the new website, click on "New Training Manual" on the left-hand menu.

Once logged in, you should be taken to an Overview that shows a summary of all your Production Systems and any Production Systems you've applied for that are pending approval by PADRAP administrators.

Click on Prod. System/Site Admin on the left-hand menu--this is where you can edit information about the Production System, add or edit Sites, and add or edit Users.

One major difference in how you access your Production Systems, Sites, and Surveys is that they now appear on a "tree". Each Production System has a plus/minus sign to the left of it's name. Just click on the plus/minus sign to expand or collapse information about a Production System's Sites. Once you've clicked on a Production System or Site name on this "tree" you'll see more detailed information about it to the right (not shown below) and that's where you can edit any information if needed.

To work with your risk assessment surveys, note "List Surveys" on the left and under that your choices include "New Survey", "View/Change Surveys", and "Copy Survey". Once you are in a survey the appearance has changed. Each section (Demographics, Internal Risks, and External Risks) has varying shades of brown (for Demographics), blue (Internal Risks), and red (External Risks) bars denoting sub-sections. Here you won't see plus/minus signs but will be able to expand and collapse sections simply by clicking on the colored bar for each section. On the right end of each bar, the percent of each section that has been completed appears, and recalculates on the fly as you fill in answers.

Running benchmarking reports is very similar to how it was done previously--by selecting from drop-down menus the Production System name, Site name, type of survey (Breeding Herd or Grow Finish), and finally Survey title. Once the Survey title has been selected the reports start generating. Once complete they can easily be opened or saved as either Excel files or .pdf files.

Something else that's new is for you statistics buffs out there--raw data for a survey can be exported to an Excel or .csv file. This can be found under the Benchmarking menu on the left side of your screen.

This is a brief summary of the new navigation and features. Like anything new, it may take a few times to get used to the updated look & feel but once you do hopefully you will find it to be quicker and easier to use. The PADRAP homepage will be updated more frequently to communicate things like upcoming training sessions and future enhancements to PADRAP that are currently in the works, as well as adding demonstrations and examples of using information from PADRAP with your clients.

If you have questions, please feel free to contact Chris Mowrer at clmowrer@iastate.edu.