Option B User Guide

Overview

The Option B Excel eForm is an application designed to assist you in electronically recording Pesticide Reporting Law (PRL) information and reporting it to the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. Each time you run the program you are asked to enter or verify some basic contact information. You can then view and fill out electronic forms that are similar to the four paper forms used to report pesticide usage and sales.  The forms are customized Microsoft Excel workbooks.

Option B runs under Microsoft Windows^® and requires Microsoft Excel®.

After you download the Option B installation file, see the PRL Software Installation Guide to help you install the software on your computer.

If you need further assistance, contact the Pesticide Reporting Service Bureau.

Getting Started

There are a couple of ways¹ to open up the main window:

• Double-click the "PRL Option B" shortcut on your computer’s desktop.

• Click on the Windows Start button and navigate to Programs -> Pesticide Reporting -> PRL Option B.  Windows 8 users will have a  "PRL Option B" icon on their Start Screen.

A message box saying something like “Data directory created called 'C:\PRL2011'.” may appear. This is normal. The data directory is the location to which your data files will be written.  The Registration form then opens.

Entering Contact and Identity Information

Use the Registration form to tell us who to contact when we communicate with you about your report.  You also need to provide identification information so that we can associate your report with the correct applicator(s) or organization.

Are you in the pesticide application or sales business?

Pesticide application businesses should submit

• a certification ID,
• the Applicator Name associated with the certification ID,
• optionally, a business registration number, and
• optionally, the Business Name.

Pesticide applicators should submit

• a certification ID, and
• the Applicator Name associated with the certification ID.

Pesticide sales businesses should submit

• a commercial permit number,
• the Business Name,
• optionally, a certification ID, and
• optionally, the Applicator Name associated with the certification ID.
  
  

Decide Which Forms to Use

If you have multiple applicators to include on your report, we recommend using Form 26A to submit their information.  The pesticide applications they made should be entered on a single Form 26.  Choose one of the applicators to list in the header area of the Form 26.  If any applicators that you are reporting for made any applications during the report year, you should submit Form 26.

If you are reporting for a pesticide sales business and you sell restricted-use pesticides, use Form 25.  If you sell pesticides to private applicators, we will need a Form 27.  If you have a commercial permit number, you must submit either Form 25, Form 27, or both.

You can report two different types of sales on Form 25; report either sales to another commercial permit holder who will resell the products or sales to commercial applicators for their end use.  In Options A and B, there are a set of radio buttons in the Form 25 header where you can specify the sales type.  Options D and O have drop-down lists for specifying the sales type.  If you have both types of sales to report, please send us a separate form for each type.  However, you do not need to complete a form for the type of sales you did not make (but you still need to report even if you did not make any sales).

Opening up a Form

When you have decided which form(s) to use, click the corresponding radio button in the Select a Form to Open area.  Do you want to start a new file or add to an existing one? To start a new file, click on the Blank Form button.  For an existing file, click the Existing Form button.  This will open up a dialog in which you can choose the file you want.

There are several buttons and menu items available on the Registration form that can help you prepare and submit your PRL report.

Report Forms

The PRL report forms are where you will enter the data that you need to report to the NYSDEC. Each form is used to report a particular type of pesticide-related activity.

Identity Fields

The identity fields in the header area of each form are filled with the values you entered on the Registration form.  Changing the identity fields here does not update the corresponding fields on the Registration form.  While the certification number and applicator name are editable, there are better methods for reporting for multiple applicators.  The commercial permit number field is editable so that you can report for multiple commercial permittees  in one report submission. 

Form 26A also includes a business registration number column.  If your pesticide business has more than one business registration number, you may but are not required to include all of your business’s registration numbers on the Form 26A.

Reporting No Activity

On each of the forms you can indicate that there was no reportable activity for the report year.

Excel eForms

If you have applications or sales to report, enter each pesticide application or sales record in its own row in the spreadsheet below the header area.  The header area is “frozen” — i.e., it will remain visible at the top of the spreadsheet as you scroll down through the data entry rows. Please ensure that you have scrolled up to the rows that contain data if you are editing an existing workbook.

For your convenience, if you hover over the header cell with your mouse, the column headers show a “tool tip” with a data description for that column. In addition, most of the data entry cells show a descriptive prompt when the cell is selected.  Additional information about the fields in each form is available from the Data Dictionary.

You can use standard Excel methods for moving around the spreadsheet from one cell to another.

Many of the standard editing features of an Excel spreadsheet are available for your use during data entry. For example, Copy, Cut, Paste, and Clear Contents can be used to edit individual cells.  Since the eForms do not have selectable row numbers, we have provided two buttons for copying or deleting an entire row. 

Values entered into cells are checked against a simple set of validation rules.  See Validation for more information.

The columns on each form and their descriptions are