United States Fire Administration (USFA)
Software Users Updated Version 5.4.1

Information Updated February 27, 2006

To All NFIRS 5.0 Users and Vendors:

The NFIRS 5.0 On-line System will be unavailable from approximately 0600 to 0800 (EST) on Wednesday, March 1, 2006 to prepare for the USFA NFIRS 5.0 client software version 5.4.1 release and to address the following rules validation issues:

- A time zone bug that caused the inappropriate version of rules to be applied to Central Time zone incidents who Incident Date was between 12/31/2005 10:00 p.m. and 12/31/2005 11:59 p.m.

- The implementation of Relational Edit #53, which states: If Cause of Ignition is 3 or 4 (Failure of Equipment or Heat Source, Act of Nature) then Block E2 (Factors Contributing) is required (none is valid answer). The Human Factors field will not be required if Cause of Ignition equals 3 or 4..

- Rules Versioning change for 2005 fire incidents: the fields Factors Contributing and Human Factors will not be required for incidents from 2005 or earlier.

- The Warning Validation Edit for the Apparatus/Personnel Module’s Number of People field will be adjusted. The Warning will be generated only when at least one Personnel module is filled out, and the value in the Number of People field does not equal the count of Personnel modules (1810 records).

- Import and conversion of 4.1 data will result in incidents that are automatically Released status, and not validated against 5.0 rules.

These adjustments will be incorporated in the Vendor Validation Tool 4.10 which will be released shortly.

When the maintenance window is complete and the On-line system and the updates are available, a message will be posted on the NFIRS 5.0 web site home page:
                        http://www.nfirs.fema.gov/ 

USFA Software Users:

Users with USFA NFIRS 5.0 Version 5.4.0 Installed

On-line Users:

Upon login to the On-line Data Entry Tool, you will be prompted: “A newer version exists. Would you like to download it now?” Click yes. An automatic update will occur and the Data Entry Tool main view screen will display the Version 5.4.1 after successful installation.

Off-line Users of Version 5.4.0:

An internet connection will be necessary. Open the Configuration Tool and select On-line mode, save and exit. Open the Data Entry Tool. Enter Username, state and password in the On-line login fields. Click OK. Follow the Update prompts. After Version 5.4.1 is successfully applied, open the Configuration Tool and select Off-line mode, save and exit. Open the Data Entry Tool, leave the Off-line login screen fields blank, and click OK. At the prompt, “would you like to inject a User from the On-line system,” click yes. The Version 5.4.1 Updates will be applied to the local database. Click OK at the prompt: ”Your Internet connection is no longer required.” The Data Entry Tool main view screen will reflect Version 5.4.1.

Users with USFA NFIRS 5.0 previous Version 5.3.4 or earlier:

On-line Users:

After the maintenance window, a full USFA client software version 5.4.1 will be made available for download. To locate the software, go to the NFIRS 5.0 Users Section  http://www.nfirs.fema.gov/users/  and login on the User Login web page. In the sidebar after successful login, locate the link: Download Software.

Off-line Users of previous Version 5.3.4:

Users with the previous Version 5.3.4 or earlier must install the full version 5.4.1 before performing User Injection to a local database. Complete steps will be provided in the Version 5.4.1 Readme.txt posted on the NFIRS User Section: http://www.nfirs.fema.gov/users/  after its release.