<HTML>
<Head>
<TITLE>Making GIS Happen in Rural Oregon!</TITLE>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<H1>Making
GIS Happen in Rural Oregon!</H1>
Roberta M. Robles – RARE Participant <HR>
rrobles@darkwing.uoregon.edu<HR>
University of Oregon<HR>
Resource Assistant for Rural Environments (RARE)<HR>
Department of Planning Public Policy and Management<HR>
http://www.ucgis.org/oregon/papers/robles.htm
ABSTRACT<BR>
In order to address environmental, economic and social impacts in Wasco County, the county’s Planning and Economic Development Office has formed a unique partnership. The Wasco County Geographic Information System (GIS) Program coordinates a countywide GIS Steering Committee to provide GIS data and specialty services to member communities, agencies and organizations. This partnership between federal, state, and local jurisdictions, and public utilities has been established to cost-share and coordinate data collection and mapping activities. It is anticipated that committee activities will establish a fully functioning and efficient GIS Department that serves the needs of Wasco County and North Central Rural Oregon residents. <P>
The
Wasco County GIS Department was started two years ago with funding for a full
time GIS Coordinator and tax lot base layer. The role I play, as an intern, is
to deliver specialized GIS products and services to the Steering Committee,
recruit more partners, and help with maintenance of the data library. Technical
assistance will be provided to the partners through various GIS projects as
needed and described; creation of a set of map books used in emergency vehicles,
weather and fluoride tracking for orchards in real time provided on the web,
county roads classification digitally tied to state and federal data, network maintenance,
integration of 911 data with county data, and development of county wide geodetic
base network in compliance with the National Geodetic Survey. To effectively
use this data specialized dialog boxes and easy user-interface applications
will be developed and training provided. In addition, specialized maps and data
analysis provided for the Planning and Economic Department as needs arise. <P>
Current accomplishments include ready to publish map books for emergency vehicles including large maps to be place in the fire station, updated road coverage with current features and attributes, procedure identified in which to link to federal and state data to the road coverage, update planning maps and data analysis provided for the comprehensive plan, land use planning maps and spatial analysis provided, a simple web site, and administrative boundaries established for school, election and postal districts. At the end of my internship I hope to have most repetitive tasks automated and most projects promised to the GIS Partners completed. <P>
<HR>
Introduction
Communities within Wasco County have been impacted by decreased employment due to Endangered Species Act listings of Snake River Chinook and Sockeye salmon stocks and the Northern Spotted Owl. Recent new listings will further impact this community. Adding to these economic challenges is the decreasing price of wheat and cattle, the primary agricultural commodities of at least two thirds of this county’s rural unincorporated land base. Despite these challenges population seems to be holding steady at approximately 22,500. Per capita personal income in the County for 1997 (the latest year available) is estimated to be $19,709.
County staff has been implementing projects to increase its
capacity for long-range land use planning. During the course of these planning
efforts, the county recognized that an in-house GIS system would be a truly
appropriate technology whose importance extends beyond efficient land use
planning. GIS technology is important to building and maintaining the
community’s ability to provide efficient emergency services, transportation
systems, updating the county’s share of the National Spatial Reference System, and maintaining an accurate data library for other
specialized needs.
Members of the Steering Committee provide a broad range of services to the communities within Wasco County. GIS technology and data serves as a tool for better decision-making and increased efficiency by providing more services with fewer resources to Wasco County residents. The capability of this technology is just being realized in this rural county.
Wasco County GIS Committee
|
Entity |
Role |
Wasco County |
Provides safety, health services, planning assistance and transportation support to 23,000 residences in 2,396 square miles. |
|
City of The Dalles |
Provides similar services to 12,000 residents. |
|
Columbia Gorge Urban Renewal District (CGRUD) |
Provides infrastructure projects in the downtown area, and adjoining sites in the form of parking improvements, access to landlocked areas of interest to residents and visitors, visual improvements and other projects. |
USDA Agricultural Service Center |
Provides support to Farmers, Ranchers, Orchardists and the Wy East RC & D Council in the from of technical assistance, cost share conservation programs, disaster assistance related to weather related crop loss, and restoration of agricultural lands damaged due to storm events. |
|
Mid-Columbia Fire and Rescue (MCFR), NW Aluminum |
Provides fire protection, ambulance service, safety and related concerns to 20,000 people from the Seven Mile Hill area to beyond the Deschutes River, The Dalles to Dufur; with 540 employees. |
|
Northern Wasco County People’s Utility District
(NWCPUD) |
Serving 8,500 patrons within its service area. |
Current Resources
The activities of the Steering Committee have proved invaluable to providing both fiscal support and focus for problem solving and decision-making. The committee meets quarterly to identify and prioritize projects within the county, assign tasks, and confers with county GIS Program staff who then make recommendations.
The GIS Coordinator, Tycho Granville, is also an important resource bringing to Wasco County considerable GIS experience and administrative skill. This position was originally funded out of the Wasco County general fund, but in the next two years we see this position and essentially the entire department being financially self sufficient. No small feat.
In terms of hardware, software, and data we support the following; NT system supporting 20 work stations, 6 printers, and two servers with a live link to the County Assessor’s office, we use ESRI software products including but not limited to ArcView, AutoCad Map, ArcExplorer, ArcInfo, and our tax lot coverage serves as a our base layer. Other in-house maintained coverages include road and zoning coverages. Our data library also includes many other coverages gathered from many sources. We also have full access to the County Assessor’s database, which we dynamically link to our tax lot coverage as needs arrive.
Recent Projects
As mentioned before Wasco County GIS provides specialized services for our Steering Committee on an as need basis. In this paper I will discuss the projects that I have been directly involved in including; a set of Map Books for dispersal in Mid-Columbia Fire and Rescue (MCFR) (http://www.mcfr.org/ ), integration of the Integrated Road Information (IRIS) system with the County GIS, designing easy to use GIS applications for Wasco County employees, and facilitating the update of the
Emergency Services
MCFR has been a very active participant in the Steering Committee. Their first priority was to get a set of map books of their area into every emergency vehicle. Unfortunately the data used to make these books is not the data used to dispatch emergency vehicles. Currently 911 services uses a MS-DOS program to dispatch vehicles. We hope to use these map books as a catalyst for integration of the 911 dispatch services with our GIS System. We hope to see the same data in both the emergency vehicle and the dispatch station.
Technical Notes:
A beta set of map books for the MCFR was finished in March 2000. Unfortunately this project turned out to be bigger than anticipated. The beta version in ArcView and the level of detail that Emergency services required proved too large of a project file for ArcView software to handle. For instance all of the following coverages; roads, address’, streams, and grid system require labeling. ArvView stores these labels as graphic images thus ballooning the file size to unmanageable proportions. We were able to produce a draft book, but we are now looking at ArcView Atlas extension as a tool to handle this problem. We hope to find a solution that will handle larger ArcView project files and a dynamic labeling device that is affordable and easy to use. Ultimately MCFR will be responsible for updating and maintaining their maps, we hope to provide them with a relatively easy format to accomplish this. See image 1 for a sample page in the book.
Transportation
Obtaining complete and accurate road layer has also been a top priority for our Steering Committee. We originally obtained our road coverage from Census Tiger Files, a source that did not include accurate attributes and barely acceptable line work. We have spent quite a bit of time editing and attributing the coverage to fit what actually exists in Wasco County. We are lucky to share an office with the Public Works Department. The ‘old’ timers who have worked on the Wasco County Roads for decades have been kind enough to share their knowledge with us. We have found this cooperation invaluable for accurate data. This also gives us the chance to educate County employees about GIS and how it can be applied to their job.
Creating a relevant and useful database to accompany the line work is of up most import. The integration of Integrated Road Information Systems (IRIS) with the roads coverage has been identified as the most viable information to attach. Sub-programs include but are not limited to Pavement Management System (PMS), Cost Accounting (CA), Road Inventory System (RIS), and Maintenance Management System (MMS). This database was designed by and is still supported by the Association of Oregon Counties http://www.orlocalgov.org/AOC/CRP/IRIS/default.asp. IRIS is currently used by all Oregon Counties (Bolt 2000).
Technical Notes:
We originally tied our road coverage with the Pavement Management System by linking the fields ‘road names’. Although this is a quick and easy first step for integration it did not provide us with enough matches to make it useful. The Pavement Management System tracts it’s data by mileposts and a unique number. For example the road segment between milepost 1.7 and 2.3 has certain characteristics that we would like visually mapped. By linking our databases by road names this essential element remains missing. To obtain this segmentation our roads need to be divided at the exact same lengths as the PMS. For our beta link we have identified this methodology as the most viable; attribute each road with the same ‘unique name number’ as PMS, join the database with the GIS coverage, than the ‘unique name number’ will provide a one to many link with the rest of the segmented PMS road lengths. We will use an Arc Info route coverage with Arc View’s add event theme to accomplish these tasks. This method was successfully completed by Multnomah County so we are expecting it to work with us.
End User Applications
I have just briefly described a fairly complicated task of database integration. Very few employees have the time or know how to maintain and update these tasks on a regular basis. As mentioned above we do have a cumbersome method for linking the County Assessor’s database with our tax lot coverage. This complicated task of linking the county database with our GIS has proved too great a hurdle for busy employees to learn and use with everyday ease. Therefore they continue to use the tried and true paper methods, not always efficient or accurate. With that in mind, it has also been my job to take these repetitive tasks and automate them for future ease.
Technical Notes:
At the beginning of my internship I chose ArcView’s Avenue as a viable GIS programming language to automate repetitive tasks. I have had the opportunity to modify 3 existing scripts to create 2 ArcView extensions for Wasco County. The first extension Custom Themes (Dalton, 2000) creates a user input box that displays available Wasco County Layers that “simplifies loading, classification and symbolization of themes for end users.” (Dalton 2000). See image 2. This allows users to load multiple themes quickly and easily without having to search through our file system. It also loads common agreed upon legends for consistency in map production. See image two.
Another cumbersome task, ‘notify by mail’ proposed zoning changes, has been automated through GIS. The planning department must, on occasion, buffer certain areas and mail out notifications concerning zoning issues. In the past map books were pulled out and a list was created by hand all landowners in the buffer. I have taken the ‘300 Foot Zoning Notification Extension’ (Quentel 2000) and combined it with the ‘Buffer Selected Features’ (ESRI 2000) to allow our Planning department to input a user defined buffer which will gather all parcels and export mailing address data to a MS Word mail merge macro. See Appendix A.
Before the internship is finished I hope to have one more process automated. I hope to write or modify a script that automatically links our GIS coverage with the county Assessor’s MS Access database. With this link all the data the Assessor’s office collects and maintains on each property would be linkable to our base tax lot coverage in an easy to user application.
National Spatial Reference System
The Wasco County Surveyor has identified the County Wide Control Network to be in serious disrepair. We hope to create a network of ‘blue booked points’ every 5-10 square miles. According to Curtis L. Smith the State Geodetic Advisor (http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/)
“"Blue Booking" is the process to incorporate a geodetic control point into the NGS national database which is the foundation for the National Spatial Reference System (NSRS). Surveyors establish monuments, a permanently placed survey control point, i.e. concrete post with brass survey disk in the top, then provide coordinates to the reference point on the disk. How those coordinates are established and to what order of accuracy they're determined is how a person using those coordinates bases their evaluation of coordinate quality. By submitting those coordinates to the NGS for inclusion into the national database specific criteria must be met, i.e. blue booking procedures. These procedures dictate how the monument was established, how the coordinates were determined, and to how those coordinates relate to all other geodetic control points in the NSRS through an accuracy statement. In effect we "bless" the coordinates, as some people describe it. So blue booking merely refers to establishing coordinates in a consistent and well-documented manor that those using the published information can "hang their hats" on. (Smith 2000)
In addition to having a network surveyors can “hang their hat on” the GIS Community will have the opportunity to tie our data to a more accurate control network. “GIS data are often created by measuring the positions of features with respect to the geodetic control network” (Wright, Goodchild 1997). The ability to tie our geodetic network and GIS data to a national standard is extremely important. As the National Geodetic Survey updates the network our data will be updated also. The Pacific Northwest exists in an active tectonic area. Data models and projections are changed and updated on a regular basis. Wasco County does not have the expertise to keep up with these changes. We hope that by setting up a tighter network of control points “blessed” by the NGS our data will be more accurate by the end of the summer and will remain accurate into the future.
Technical Notes:
The process of densifying our control network to ‘blue book’ status has been identified; determine a network of control points every 5-10 square miles, locate or create these monument, collect GPS data with a dual frequency receiver (as required by NGS), and than post-process them to NGS specifications. All of the field planning and post-processing will be done by Curt Smith to ensure accuracy and that all standards were met. We hope to have all fieldwork completed by the end of summer.
Outlook
Wasco County has seen many fruitful projects completed and applied in successful ways. Our unique partnership has enabled us to take on projects that cross public and private lines. Considering our limited resources the ability to share the cost of a GIS has been of great importance. We are now looking at the surrounding counties for a larger regional GIS consortium. Wasco, Sherman, Wheeler, Gilliam and Hood County Assessor’s office have all joined a North-Central Oregon County GIS Group. These counties are smaller; less populated and have a limited tax base. In creating this consortium Wasco County hopes to offer technical and administrative support in catalyzing these counties into creating a base tax lot layer. Each of these counties individually do not and probably will not have the money to support a full time GIS Coordinator. We hope to create some economies of scale by sharing data and expertise. In addition to local economies of scale regional groups typically have greater access to state and federal funding.
The benefits of having five counties sitting at the table are extremely beneficial as mentioned above for fiscal reasons, but technically speaking a Multi-County GIS Consortium is important for creating coverages and layers that fit together effortlessly. According to the Oregon State Service Center GIS Coordinator Steven Barnett only 13 counties have a digital tax lot coverage (2000). Of the five counties in our North Central Oregon GIS Group Wasco is the only county with reliable, digital tax lot coverage. When we start to create the base layers we can design them so that they will seamlessly fit together. This may seem like a given but, unfortunately in Oregon the counties have not had to follow any standard data model and therefore it usually takes a bit of data maneuvering and reprojections to make tax lot layers fit together, if they exist at all.
Conclusion
In order to address environmental, economic and social impacts in Wasco County, the county’s Planning and Economic Development Office has formed a unique partnership. This partnership has created the necessary means for maintaining a self –sufficient department. In addition to the Steering Committee, Wasco County GIS has found successes by partnering with the National Geodetic Survey, other counties, and state agencies to share data, expertise, and even money. Wasco County has increased the capacity for long range planning through simple maps, emergency services, transportation systems, and maintaining and accurate base tax lot coverage. A fully functioning and GIS Department has been created that serves the needs of Wasco County and North Central Rural Oregon residents. Our GIS Department has proven our commitment to increasing our communities’ capacity for distributing services with GIS. While rural Oregon’s economy has changed from a resource based economy to a service based, Wasco County GIS has enabled local organizations to do more with less.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the folks at the University of Oregon’s RARE department, Terry Black, Megan Smith and David Povey. They have given me the unique experience to gain hands-on GIS experience while obtaining academic credit. They have also acted as a valuable resource in terms of technical and administrative support http://darkwing.uoregon.edu/~rare/what/what.htm . If they didn’t know the answer they knew somebody who did.
I would also like to thank Dotty DeVaney the Planning Director and Dan Bolt the Public Works Director. Both of these department heads went out of their way to support the GIS Department when it was in its infancy, when it was on the County General Budget cutting block :) , and now that we are taking it to a wider regional level. It could not have gone this far without the foresight of these two and Tycho Granville the GIS Coordinator.
References
Bolt, Dan. Wasco County Public Works Director. Personal Communication 6/10/00. dbolt@gorge.net
Barnet, Steven. GIS System Software Analysis DAS/IRMD/GGDC. E-mail communication 6/10/00. Steven.J.Barnett@state.or.us
Dalton, R. Custom Themes v 1.3, This ArcView extension was given to me by Ryan Dalton daltongis@mail.com, not currently published. Jan. 2000.
ESRI, Buffer Selected Features, ESRI Scripts page http://gis.esri.com/arcscripts/scripts.cfm May 2000
Quentel, Mike, 300 Foot Zoning Buffer Notification Tool, ESRI Scripts page http://gis.esri.com/arcscripts/scripts.cfm May 2000.
Smith, Curtis. Geodesist, National Geodetic Survey. Personal and e-mail Communications 6/10/00. curtsmith@earthlink.net
Wright, D.J., Goodchild, M. F., Data From the Deep: Implications for the GIS Community, The International Journal of Geographical Information Science,11(6), 523-528,1997
Appendix
A. Modified Buffer Script
theProject = av.GetProject
theView = av.GetActiveDoc
theTitle = "Wasco County Buffer Tool"
theTheme = theView.GetObjectTag
theGraphics = theTheme.GetObjectTag
theProjection = theView.GetProjection
'theProject.GetSelColor.SetTransparent (FALSE)
'theProject.SetSelColor (Color.GetYellow)
theView.Invalidate
theGUI = av.GetActiveGUI
theShape = theGUI.GetButtonBar.GetObjectTag
r = theView.ReturnUserRect
if (r.IsNull) then
p = theView.GetDisplay.ReturnUserPoint
if (System.IsShiftKeyDown) then
op = #VTAB_SELTYPE_XOR
else
op = #VTAB_SELTYPE_NEW
end
if (theTheme.CanSelect) then
theTheme.SelectByPoint(p, op)
end
else
if (System.IsShiftKeyDown) then
op = #VTAB_SELTYPE_OR
else
op = #VTAB_SELTYPE_NEW
end
if (theTheme.CanSelect) then
theTheme.SelectByShapes({r}, op)
end
end
theftab = theTheme.getftab
thebitmap = theftab.getselection
av.GetProject.SetModified(true)
'CONVERTS SELECTED FEATURE TO A GRAPHIC
TheSelRecs = theFTab.GetSelection
TheOldSelRecs = theFTab.GetSelection.Clone
if (theSelRecs.Count = 0) then
theFtab.GetSelection.SetAll
theFtab.UpdateSelection
TheSelRecs = theFTab.GetSelection
end
theShapeField = theFtab.FindField("Shape")
theShapeFieldType = theShapefield.GetType
av.GetSymbolWin
' Determine the shape class of the input theme, make the appropriate symbol and set the defaults:
if (theShapeFieldType = #FIELD_SHAPEPOLY) then
theSymbol = Symbol.Make(#SYMBOL_FILL)
theSymbol.SetOLWidth(".1".AsNumber)
av.GetSymbolWin.SetPanel(#SYMBOLWIN_PANEL_FILL)
end
theSymbol.SetColor(Color.GetRed)
if (av.GetSymbolWin.IsOpen = true) then
theSymbol = av.GetSymbolWin.ReturnCurrentSymbol(theSymbol.GetType)
end
currentrec = 0
totalrec = theSelRecs.Count
av.ShowStopButton
av.ShowMsg("Converting "+totalrec.AsString+" shapes to graphics....")
for each x in theSelRecs
' Show Progress routine:
currentrec = currentrec + 1
progress = (currentrec / totalrec) * 100
proceed = av.SetStatus( progress )
if (proceed.Not) then
av.ShowMsg( "Stopped" )
exit
end
aShape = theFtab.ReturnValue(theShapeField, x)
if (theProjection.IsNull) then
aGraphic = GraphicShape.Make(aShape)
else
aGraphic = GraphicShape.Make(aShape.ReturnProjected(theProjection))
end
' if (aShape.Is(Polygon)) then
aGraphic.SetSymbol(theSymbol)
' end
' aGraphic.GetSymbol.SetColor(Color.GetGreen)
theGraphics.AddBatch(aGraphic)
end
theFTab.SetSelection(TheOldSelRecs)
theFTab.UpdateSelection
theGraphics.EndBatch
theGraphics.Invalidate
av.ShowMsg("Shape to graphic conversion completed!")
'------------------
alistofgraphics={}
thedisplay = theView.getdisplay
theunits = thedisplay.getunits
if (thebitmap.count<1) then exit
end
'Test if the Map Units have been set uses Distance units if they are set,
'otherwise uses distance units
if (theunits=#UNITS_LINEAR_UNKNOWN) then
msgbox.warning("Sorry no map units defined. Please define the map units in the View, Properties dialog.","Warning")
exit
end
check=TRUE
'MAKE DISTANCE UNITS FEET, IF THEY ALREADY AREN'T SET TO THAT
Distunits=TheDisplay.GetDistanceUnits
if (Distunits <> #UNITS_LINEAR_FEET) then
Distunits = #UNITS_LINEAR_FEET
end
'====================Insert Diolog asking what kind of Buffer
'SET TO 500' BUFFER
anum = (msgBox.Input("Enter the buffer distance in feet.", "Buffer", "100"))
if (anum=NIL) then return nil end
abuffernum = anum.asnumber
if (check = True) then
answer=Units.Convert(abuffernum, Distunits, TheUnits)
if (check=TRUE) then
answer=Units.Convert(abuffernum, Distunits, TheUnits)
abuffernum=answer
end
av.showmsg("Buffering...")
count=0
for each x in theBitmap
count=count+1
progress = (count/thebitmap.count) * 100
doMore = av.SetStatus( progress )
av.usewaitcursor
anewgraphic=theftab.returnvalue(theShape, x)
if (theView.getprojection<>"") then
newgraphic=anewgraphic.returnprojected(theView.getprojection)
else
newgraphic=anewgraphic
end
abufferdist=abuffernum
thebuffshp=newgraphic.returnbuffered(abufferdist)
alistofgraphics.add(thebuffshp)
end
av.showmsg("Dissolving...")
count=0
thewhole=alistofgraphics.get(0)
for each agraphic in alistofgraphics
count=count+1
progress = (count/alistofgraphics.count) * 100
doMore = av.SetStatus( progress )
av.usewaitcursor
thing1=agraphic
thewhole1=thewhole.returnunion(thing1)
thewhole=thewhole1
end
newg=graphicshape.make(thewhole1)
theGraphics.unselectall
'newg.setselected(TRUE)
theGraphics.add(newg)
'newg.GetSymbol.SetOLColor (Color.GetRed)
aFill = Symbol.Make(#SYMBOL_FILL)
aFill.SetOLColor (Color.GetRed)
aFill.SetOLWidth (2)
'aPen = Symbol.Make(#SYMBOL_PEN)
'aPen.SetWidth (2)
newg.SetSymbol (aFill)
newg.GetSymbol.GetColor.SetTransparent (TRUE)
theView.Invalidate
av.GetProject.SetModified(TRUE)
av.clearmsg
'SELECT FEATURES FROM THE BUFFER GRAPHIC
if (System.IsShiftKeyDown) then
op2 = #VTAB_SELTYPE_OR
else
op2 = #VTAB_SELTYPE_NEW
end
thebitmap.clearall
finalselection = theTheme.SelectByShapes(alistofgraphics,op2)
'PRINT REPORT OF FINAL SELECTION
reportRequest = msgbox.yesno ("Would you like to export a database table of the selected parcels? You will than be able to import the table into a MS Word Mail Merge",theTitle, TRUE)
if (reportRequest = TRUE) then
theTheme.edittable
theTable = av.GetActiveDoc
theVtab = theTable.GetVtab
TheFieldList = theVtab.GetFields
ChosenFields = List.Make
ChosenFields.Add(theVTab.FindField("Owner"))
ChosenFields.Add(theVTab.FindField("Mailadr"))
ChosenFields.Add(theVTab.FindField("Mail_City"))
ChosenFields.Add(theVTab.FindField("Mail_State"))
ChosenFields.Add(theVTab.FindField("Mail_Zip"))
ChosenFields.Add(theVTab.FindField("Careof"))
For Each fld in TheFieldList
fld.SetVisible(False)
end
For Each address in chosenFields
address.SetVisible(True)
end
bmpSelection = theVtab.GetSelection
theVtab.SetDefBitmap (bmpSelection.Clone)
theVtab.UpdateDefBitmap
theTableWin = theTable.GetWin
theTableWin.Invalidate
theMailout = av.GetActiveDoc
c = "mailout"
theFileName = FileDialog.Put(c.AsFileName,"dbf","Table Export")
theVtab = theMailout.GetVtab
'e = "mailout.dbf"
theVTab.Export(theFileName,dBASe, True)
av.UseWaitCursor
System.RefreshWindows
theExpression = "(true)"
if ((theExpression = NIL).not) then
'theProject.SetSelColor (Color.GetYellow)
theTableWin = theTable.GetWin
theTableWin.Invalidate
theResult = theVtab.SetDefinition (theExpression)
if (theResult.not) then
msgbox.error ("Unable to reset the table definition...", theTitle)
else
theVtab.UpdateDefBitmap
end
end
theTable.GetWin.close
documentList = av.GetProject.GetDocs
for each d in documentList
if (d.is (View))then
d.GetWin.Activate
d.Invalidate
end
end
end
reportrequestb = msgbox.yesno("Would you like to import the "+theFileName.GetName+" table into MicroSoft Word to creat a Mail Merge?", "What next?", True)
if (reportrequestb = False) then
if (reportrequestb = True) then
msgbox.Report("To Print the addresses on the envelopes" +nl++nl+ "Go to the 'Tools' pulldown" +nl+ "" +nl+"Mail Merge --> Create --> Envelopes'" +nl+ " " +nl+ "'Get Data --->Open Data Source'" +nl+ " " +nl+ "Than navigate to where you stored the mailout table" +nl+ " " +nl+ "And don't forget to change the file type to .dbf", "How to print on envelopes")
system.execute("c:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\winword.exe")
end
end
end
</BODY>
<HTML>