What is your support fee structure?

General ERIMS support is included within the monthly fee. Unlike other software packages, there is no yearly maintenance fee on top of the ERIMS monthly usage fee. General support includes tech support both via phone and email with 2-hour response time during normal business hours, 6am to 6pm MST Monday through Friday. Five after-hours incident calls per year are included in the standard usage fee. Additional after-hours support is provided at a cost of $100 per incident.

How do you manage internal quality control, change management, and product reliability?

All information and the actual ASP application (ERIMS) are controlled through a series of development sites where program changes, new modules, and beta testing occur. This is known as version control. All system changes are checked and monitored through a check-in/check-out mechanism to ensure data quality. Only after a component has been thoroughly tested within the development environment is it published to the live site. Enhancement notifications are transmitted to users via email.

Do you provide training for ERIMS?

A 1-day on-site training and system implementation session is included as part of the initial ERIMS contract at no additional cost. Environmental Strategies will conduct pre-training interviews of appropriate client personnel to determine the exact requirements for training. During the training session, Environmental Strategies will develop and implement the security model for ERIMS, demonstrate the overall functionality of ERIMS, and train the ERIMS system administrator. Additional training is available at a cost of $1,000/day/trainer. Depending on the information provided in the pre-training interviews, additional training days may be required to implement the system to client specifications.

Does ERIMS provide remote access?

ERIMS allows access using Internet Explorer from virtually any site worldwide where internet access is available. No thin client is required for remote access. Access only requires a low-speed Internet connection (ERIMS can very easily be accessed with a 28.8 modem connection).

Is ERIMS a modular application?

ERIMS is based on a modular architecture. The baseline functionality of ERIMS manages facility data such as location information, coordinate information (facility), ownership, status, categories, contacts, and general documentation. Any number of additional modules can be incorporated at no additional cost, such as environmental (including analytical and field data collection), real estate, permits, facility management, budget management, and compliance tracking. Any of the modules can be customized to meet a client’s specifications. Because it uses a standardized architecture, ERIMS can talk to other third party applications and integrate them if necessary.

How does ERIMS provide security and protect sensitive information?

The security model is one of the most important parts of ERIMS and what makes it stand out from all other information management applications. ERIMS provides the ability to control the visibility of EVERY component, facility, document, and module. ERIMS’ security model assigns every item in the system a security level or multiple security levels. You assign security levels to your users. As security levels are applied to items throughout the ERIMS environment, the visibility of the items to your users is controlled. Unlike in most applications, where your user might see a list of facilities or documents but be denied access, ERIMS does not allow unauthorized items to be displayed. Your users only see ERIMS exactly as it is designed for them, not as a generic display with access denied alerts.

What are ERIMS’ browser requirements?

ERIMS requires Microsoft Internet Explorer v4.x or greater. The standard security setting of “medium” is required for ERIMS to install and run correctly. . Other security levels will work with ERIMS provided the browser has the ability to download and install ActiveX controls and run JavaScript. All ActiveX controls used within ERIMS are signed and certified by the manufacturer. Currently the operating system platforms supported are Microsoft Windows 95 or greater and Macintosh.

Does ERIMS provide full-text searching of documents?

ERIMS supports full-text searching of Microsoft Office Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access), WordPerfect, PDF, plain text, and AutoCAD .dwg and .dwf files. All files are indexed immediately following their upload to ERIMS.

Can ERIMS export query results?

ERIMS supports the export of query results to Excel and Crystal Reports and as rich text or plain text.

Does ERIMS have the ability to print/generate Chain-of-Custody or sample labels?

ERIMS on-line chain-of-custody (COC) module provides field personnel the tools to select, complete, and print COCs. Not only does this save time and effort while in the field, it also provides for improved data quality by minimizing transcription errors, missed lines, or lost data due to rain stains or other field hazards. The COC data are stored in ERIMS and cross-checked to ensure that the data received from the laboratory include everything that was sampled. Sample labels are printed by ERIMS.

Does ERIMS support and automate laboratory data validation?

ERIMS uses the criteria set forth in Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guidance to prompt the chemist during data validation. During validation, ERIMS notifies the chemist when holding times are exceeded (sample dates are compared to the analyzed dates), high blank results are identified, or if surrogate recoveries are out of control (sample surrogate recoveries and spike recoveries are compared to the applicable limits). The chemist then uses his/her professional judgment to qualify the data as needed.

How does ERIMS’ provide for spatial visualization of data?

Numerous tools are available for the visualization and analysis of data from the GIS maps being served to ERIMS through the use of ESRI ArcIMS. ArcIMS provides you with query tools to select map items by string queries, spatial queries via polygon, line, area, and buffer zones. Once the data selection set has been retrieved, you are able to pass it to various data management tools for analysis. ERIMS allows you to print, chart, or display the results in tabular format.