Chesapeake Bay Program IIJA Funding Guide

Introduction & Purpose

The following document outlines the information provided by state and jurisdictional leads for their ability to share information on the location of IIJA-funded BMPs with the Chesapeake Bay Program through the FieldDoc Platform. Details that inform this guide has been collected through a series of meetings and emails with jurisdiction leads.

FieldDoc allows practitioners to create digital records of on-the-ground implementation that indicate where implementation will happen/has happened, what will be/was implemented, and how much it improved water quality. Tracking this information allows the Chesapeake Bay Program to analyze how much their investments within each jurisdiction helped meet environmental and community-based Bay-wide goals.

This guide exists to ensure that your agency has the information needed to complete FieldDoc reporting and remain within compliance of your federal grant reporting requirements. Any questions or changes to the processes outlined here should be sent to [email protected] and The Bay Program Office.

Grant Requirements & Reporting Context

Reporting Requirements for Infrastructure-Funded Grants

Infrastructure funded grants include additional post-award reporting requirements that help maintain accountability to taxpayers and advance equity. All Infrastructure-related grant and cooperative agreement programs must track and report post-award information on the status of award-specific goals and objectives, including 1) project-level location data and 2) the phase of project implementation.

CBPO has contracted with The Commons to utilize FieldDoc as the collection system for this information. Within FieldDoc, a “pact” is a unit for organizing an organization’s collection of practices. Within the pact, recipients should report geometry data for each practice implemented utilizing Infrastructure funds. The Commons and EPA CBPO have worked with each recipient to develop workflows for importing data to minimize reporting burden.

Recipients are required to submit this information in FieldDoc on a semi-annual basis, to coincide with progress report submission dates. Data for all activities completed since the start of their Infrastructure grant should be represented in the FieldDoc account. CBPO will use data collected through this process to assess compliance with the Justice40 requirements.

What must be reported in FieldDoc

• A record for each implemented activity (BMP) should be created in FieldDoc and linked to the IIJA Pact once the activity has been installed to completion.

• The record should include selecting an activity type from the provided list, a geometry that indicates the implementation location and extent (polygon preferred), and implementation date.

Points of Contact

Associated with	Point of Contact	Email
Bay Program	Matt Robinson	[email protected]
FieldDoc	John Dawes	[email protected]
FieldDoc	Erin Hofmann	[email protected]

FieldDoc Reporting Process Overview

Access & Accounts

How to request a FieldDoc account

If the jurisdiction lead does not have a FieldDoc account or if new staff need to be added, please email [email protected] for assistance.

Your jurisdiction’s IIJA workspace

When you log-in to FieldDoc, you will switch to the IIJA workspace. This workspace is separate from the general FieldDoc workspace and will exclusively contain records reported to IIJA. ( 💁 How to find your workspace)

Preparing Your Data

• Data will be exported from your management system to be imported into FieldDoc. You should import into FieldDoc all implemented BMPs funded with IIJA funds that have been installed to completion and have not yet been reported to CBPO via FieldDoc.

• The easiest way to prepare the data from the export is to create a .csv file with the following fields that capture the following (tip: if you have shapefiles or geojson files that contain polygon footprints for each implementation location, those files types are preferred):

• Activity name or code to enter into the FieldDoc Activity Name Field

• Activity description or BMP type to enter in the FieldDoc description field

• Implementation location: minimum standard latitude and longitude in decimal degrees

• BMP footprint/extent

• Extent unit

• Completion date

• Check your source file for completeness. Do all required fields have values? Are the coordinates accurate? Make any edits that you’d like to capture in the import. For example, is there a value for every acreage?

Importing Your Data

• Once your file is prepared, it is time to import into FieldDoc. The required fields as they appear in FieldDoc are listed below. Note that the import field name is dependent on how you structured your source file. You do not need to map the geospatial data, even latitude and longitude!

	FieldDoc Field name	Instructions
	practice:name	Give each record a unique identifier that you can use as a reference and differentiator.
	practice:description	Use this field to capture the BMP before selecting from the standard list or provide other details about the implementation
	practice:extent	Typically, the implementation footprint
	practice:extent_unit	Unit must map to the standardized vocabulary of acceptable unit names
	practice:completed_on	The estimated data that the BMP was installed to completion
latitude	Do not map	Imports automatically
longitude	Do not map	Imports automatically

Import File Preparation Tips

• FieldDoc can import .CSVs, shapefiles, or geoJSON files. The step-by-step guide assumes that you will be importing a spreadsheet converted to a .csv file. The locations will be indicated using latitude and longitude coordinates. If possible, shapefiles should be imported within each record after upload.

• You do not need to map the geometry fields during the import, FieldDoc recgonizes those as points and will create the geospatial data from them.

• Activity types fields cannot be directly imported into FieldDoc, that’s why we suggest mapping them to the practice description field for easy reference. You will assign the activity type field within the FieldDoc system.

• Extent units must match the standard vocabulary in FieldDoc. Please update your unit of measure field before importing. If they do not import you can simply select the appropriate unit within FieldDoc.

Find your Pact

A Pact has been created for you so that the records can be shared with the IIJA program managers. The pact is named IIJA Practice Implementation. The pact is accessible via the Pact view within the IIJA workspace portfolio. All activity records will be imported by you into this pact. Only activity records that are in this pact are visible to the IIJA program managers. The same pact will be used and updated through the period of performance.

Entering Activities & Practices

Once you have opened your pact, you will navigate to the pact Activities tab. Here, select the button to “Import file”. Select your source file. Then, using the mapping feature, map the source file fields to the FieldDoc schema. Click save. FieldDoc will create an activity record for each row in the source file.

Once the activity records have been created, you will need to associate an activity type with each record. This is easily done using the table view and keyboard shortcuts to copy and paste activity types for each record.

The locations have been captured by the source file coordinate fields.

Completing submission

• Email [email protected] once your bi-annual report is completed in FieldDoc.

• You will receive a confirmation of receipt from both The Commons and EPA-CBP.

Ongoing Reporting

• Repeat the data entry process bi-annually, as part of your existing reporting schedule.

• Only newly implemented BMPs, or those that have not yet been reported need to be reported in FieldDoc, should be imported in each reporting period.