1. Introduction

The guidelines in this on-line publication are intended to help users fully understand the Beach Watch System, its features and its operational procedures. Whether a former user or brand new to the system, the concepts and guidelines provided in this publication should make it easier to use the system to its full extent.

Each of the actions explained in this book is presented with the associated business function, operational procedure, pre and post conditions and the underlying database activity. This should help the user to understand the purpose of each action and what happens in the background when the task is performed.

1.2 Intended Audience

Top

This document is for all users of the Beach Watch system, whether a novice or advanced level.

This document is organized into the following chapters:

Chapter	Description
Chapter 2, "Beach Advisories"	Explains the view, add, modify operations on Coastline Advisories maintenance (postings, closures and permanent postings.)
Chapter 3, "Rain Advisories"	Explains the add/modify operations on Rain Advisories.
Chapter 4, "Monitoring (Lab Results) data"	Explains the add/modify operations on Monitoring data that includes samples and bacteriological counts.
Chapter 5, "Data Uploads to Beach Watch"	Explains the process of data upload to Beach Watch by counties. The two sets of data uploads supported by Beach Watch are Advisory (Beach Status) data and Beach Monitoring (Lab Results) data.
Chapter 6, "Reports"	Explains the various reports that can be generated in the system. Navigation to the reports, the filtering criteria and output formats are detailed.
Chapter 7, "Profiles"	Explains the maintenance of agency, coastline segment, and user profiles. .
Chapter 8, "Master Tables"	Explains the maintenance of Master Table records.

The Beach Watch system is accessible via Internet at: http://water24.waterboards.ca.gov/BeachWatch/. The figure below shows the Beach Watch home page.

Figure: Beach Watch Home

There are three different groups of users who access the system. They are:

• General Public: Members of the general public who are interested in viewing the coastline advisories and using the data for research and other purposes.
• Local Health Agency Staff: Staff from various local health agencies who enter and maintain their agency's data in the system.
• System Administrators: Program and IT staff at State Water Resources Control Board

Each of these user groups has access to those functional parts of the system that are relevant to that group. For example, the "General Public" has access only to the reports on the system. Each of the user categories has a different home page or main menu when they logon to the system. The login procedure and the home pages are explained below for each category.

System Administrators

A valid user name and password are required to log on to Beach Watch as System Administrator. For more information about the user accounts and passwords, please contact beachwatch@swrcb.ca.gov or click on the "Contact us" link on the Beach Watch home page.  To log on, click on the "Administrators" link on the Beach Watch home page shown above. This will bring the screen shown below. Enter your user name and password in the fields and press "Login" button.

Figure: Administrators Login

After the system validates the user name and password supplied, the Beach Watch main menu will be displayed, as shown in the figure below. You may then navigate to different parts of the system as needed.

Figure: Administrators Home Page  

Local Health Agency Staff

A valid user name and password are required to log on to Beach Watch as Local Health Agency Staff. For more information about the user accounts and passwords, please contact beachwatch@swrcb.ca.gov or click on the "Contact us" link on the Beach Watch home page.  To log on, click on "Local Health Agencies" link on the Beach Watch Home page shown above. This will bring the screen shown below. Enter your user name and password in the fields and press "Login" button

Figure: Local Health Agencies Login

After the system validates the user name and password supplied, the Beach Watch main menu will be displayed, as shown in the figure below. You may then navigate to different parts of the system as needed.

Figure: Local Health Agency Home

General Public

Public Access does not require a user account. Clicking on the "Public Access" link on the Beach Watch home page will bring the screen shown below. Click on "View Beach Advisory Reports" link to run the Beach Watch reports.

Figure: General Public Home Page