United States Coast Guard Auxiliary - U.S. Department of Homeland Security

Sign up/in with USCG AUX

IT Department Logo

Most Frequent Usage Questions About the 7029 Webform


Index:

Why can't I enter more than 42 characters in the Mission Description field?

There is a 42 character formatting limitation on the email that gets transmitted to the IS officer. Prior to adding the limit to the form, IS officers were not getting all the information that a member might enter.

I do several different things in one day. How do I record them in a single line?

There is no requirement to use the Webform 7029 as a "monthly" form with one line per day. You can blow away all the dates by clicking on the icon with the red slash at the top or bottom of the date column, and then use as many lines for a given day as you want. You also may turn in as many forms each month as you wish.

But most people who wish to record several different activities the same day just abbreviate, and stuff it all on one line. And by the way, nobody really cares, in this event, how you allocate those items to the five 99 fields on the right (i.e., which activity is which column). Your IS officer just looks for "reasonableness", and the powers-that-be only use the data aggregated over large numbers of people and over long periods of time. Any fine detail you record is really just for you.

I have three active forms going at any one time. How can I tell them apart in the Dashboard?

Use the Notes and Log Number fields at the bottom of the form to put in descriptive information that separates one form from another. Both these fields show up in the Dashboard, next to each active or submitted form. This is a "best practice".

I typed in 31 lines of detailed information, and hit the BACK button on my browser. All of my information disappeared.

Yes, that is how browsers behave. They are not designed to remember entered data. Solution: as you enter data, hit the SAVE button ever few lines, which writes your form to the database. The most you will ever lose then, with an accidental BACK, is a few lines.

The SUBMIT Button is Grayed Out!

You must select at least one IS officer to receive your form, or the SUBMIT button will be disabled. Simply check the IS officer checkbox (usually the FSO-IS), and the button will be enabled.

The SAVE button is grayed out when I use the form in the collapsed, totals-only mode. How do I save a totals-only entry.

You save it by submitting it, with the SUBMIT button. There is no reason to save a totals only form as an "active" form. You are presumably working from a separate log or spreadsheet already, to generate your totals, and since that is where you detail work is, that is where you can save more detail. When you enter totals only, you are presumed to be simply a mouse-click away from submitting your totals to your IS officer(s), and sure enough you are. Your submitted form is saved.

I filled out an entire form, and hit SAVE, and my form disappeared!

You have timed out, by taking too long before you hit "SAVE". Web servers, such as the one serving up your 7029 Webform, will assume long periods of inactivity means you have closed your browser or otherwise have given up. Actively filling the form does not count, because the web server does not see that activity – only your browser does.

Experienced computer users know to keep their session alive by saving every few minutes. It's that simple; just hit the SAVE button after you enter 3 or 4 lines of data, or at least every 5-10 minutes, and your data will always be written to the database, and the server will know you didn't go out for a pizza. If you don't save often, please don't complain when you ultimately time out.

I want to print my form, but it prints on two pages.

Read "Printing", under "Tips & Tricks" on this site. But why print? The system emails you a concise version of your report, the same one the IS officer gets. Simply create a folder in your email client called "Submitted 7029s", and drag the email there to archive it. Set your email to make automatic archives from time to time and voila - no paper, and a backup.

The wrong IS officer shows up on my form. Can I submit it?

Webforms uses the name of the IS officer in AuxData (with a one week lag time). So, if the IS officer is wrong on the form, it is wrong in AuxData. Get your Flotilla Commander to complain to the SO-IS or DSO-IS, along with submitting the correct form, to get this corrected. In the meantime, the FC should simply ask the old IS officer to forward the submission emails to the new one, or to the SO-IS as a backup.

I'm cramming several activities in Mission Description for each day. How do I indicate which activities the miles or expenses on that line are for?

It doesn't matter; the IS officer only enters the totals from the bottom of the form in AuxData, so any detailed information you might have been able to put in would have been lost, anyways.

I love the system, but it takes a lot of mouse clicks to get to my active form. Can this be simplified?

It already has been. Use the "my.webforms.cgaux.org/7029" shortcut (which you should bookmark). If you have only one currently active form, it will open right up; if you have more than one active form, you'll open right into the dashboard, and can choose. My Webforms is such an important feature that it has its own, separate FAQ page to the left. Please visit "My Webforms Guide".

My Flotilla's FSO-IS moved to Bali; whose name will be on the Webform for me to submit my report to until a new one is appointed?

If your flotilla commander has taken immediate steps to have the old FSO-IS removed from AuxData, your forms will automatically go to your Division's SO-IS, with the DSO-IS as backup. After the change is made in AuxData, it takes 1-6 days for Webforms to get the news. In the meantime, simply uncheck the FSO-IS at the bottom of the form, and check the SO-IS to re-route your submission.

I hid the details of my form before I submitted it; now, when I re-open the submitted form, there is no detail. What happened?

The "hide details" mode is for members who wish to submit only summary forms (for example, monthly totals only). It should really be called "Enter Summary Details Only". If you submit a form with the details hidden, the system assumes that the details are no longer important, and deletes the records, to save daily disk backup costs. Solution: if you want to refer to the detail later, don't hide it prior to a SUBMIT.

My FSO-IS wants us to use a special email address for email forms. She yelled at me when she received a Webforms submission at her office email. What should I do?

Tell her this: the Webforms system emails submissions to the principal (or "first") email address listed for her in AuxData. She should simply go into AuxData and put her special email address first, or send a change of member information form to the SO-IS to do it for her.

My 7029 looks the same each month; only the hours change. Do you have a template?

No, but you do. In the dashboard, simply select last months form by clicking its radio button, and then press the COPY button. Presto -- you will have a new active form with all of the detail from last month. Then, simply click on one of the date arrows to change the dates if necessary, and be sure to change either the NOTES or the LOG NUMBER fields at the bottom, so you can tell this form from the previous one(s)..

My wife is also an Auxiliarist, and we share a computer. I decided to try your My Webforms shortcut, and her 7029 form opened up! What happened?

Despite advances in modern technology, your computer does not know whether it is you or your wife pounding on the keys unless you tell it. Although this has until now forced two-member households to use different browsers for each member who wished to use the My Webforms shortcut, Version 0.4 now throws up a quick dialog box and asks you which member you are. We still recommend each of you use different browsers, but it is no longer a requirement.

I use Internet Explorer 7. I cannot see a blinking cursor. How do I tell what cell I am in?

This a a bug with Internet Explorer 7. In Internet Explorer 8 the same bug exists, but the cell that has the "focus", as the geeks say, is shaded a slight yellow. The easiest solution is to upgrade to Firefox (www.firefox.com) or Google Chrome, which are free, fast, and do not have this bug. But, you can also just click the mouse in the cell where you want to type, and start typing. Then, use the mouse to click in the next field (or use the TAB key and keep count).

But wouldn't you rather upgrade? It's free, and simple!

I am using one of the approved browsers, but the form is breaking up. What gives?.

99% of the time, this is because you (or someone using your computer) increased the minimum default font size in your browser from the default (usually 9 pixels) to over 12 pixels. Read the help file for your browser to find out how to change it back.

I tried to start up Webforms and only got an ugly error message something like "Warning: mysql_connect() [function.mysql-connect]: Access denied for user 'webforms_admin'@...". What is wrong?

This incredibly rare event means that the database for Webforms has been taken off line. Wait a few hours, and try again. If the problem persists, submit an urgent help-desk ticket at help-desk.cgaux.org because it means that something unrelated to Webforms has broken.

I upgraded to Internet Explorer 9 Beta. Webforms doesn't look right.

Internet Explorer 9 Beta is not supported at this time.