Release Notes 8.070.0

Changes were made to the Schedule of Insurance (SOI) charges with this ticket to make the SOI easier to read and to make four important data items stand out for the Grower: Crop, Grid ID, Total Insured Acres, and Insured’s Premium.

Also, now that Annual Forage can have the Dual Use (DU) option selected, the Option field was added to the Annual Forage format of the SOI.

Margin Protection: MCT received a request to add Margin Protection (MP) information to the Crop Summary when the MP coverage is linked to an associated MPCI coverage on the Acreage Report CLU form. The initial rollout of the Acreage Report CLU form was limited to crops and plans to control the scope at the initial rollout.

With this ticket, the Acreage Report CLU form's Crop Summary was updated to print coverage information for MP, MP-HPO, STAX-RP, and STAX-RPHPE coverages when they are associated with an underlying MPCI Coverage.

The 2020 RY Spot Checklist Handbook was issued by RMA. There is a new publication requirement that must be posted to each AIP's website as well as provided in writing annually to all insureds. It has been requested to have the required-in-writing-annually requirement be met by adding the Statement to Policy Declaration Pages for MPCI and Livestock.

The following changes have been made to all five formats of the MPCI Policy Declaration Page (Pasture, Rangeland, Forage [PRF] / Apiculture [API], Whole-Farm Revenue Protection [WFRP], Nursery, Annual Forage, and All Other Crops) as well as the Livestock Policy Declaration Page for LGM, LRP, and DRP for all years:

<AIP LONG NAME>, as an Approved Insurance Provider (AIP), is required to inform all insured producers that:

(1) AIPs will be assisting RMA in monitoring crop conditions throughout the growing season.

(2) AIPs will refer all suspected cases of fraud, waste, and abuse in Federal crop insurance to RMA.

WFRP: The WFRP Schedule of Insurance (SOI) was revised extensively to account for the 2020 WFRP Handbook changes.

NOTE: TFS #Ticket #110239 will add the Vertically Integrated Producer (VIP) field to the WFRP SOI, and TFS Ticket #112550 is a spin-off ticket to finish a couple of items, including the placement and printing of the legend and how the Revenue & Expenses table handles printing when a policy does not qualify for indexing procedures.

WFRP: A request was made to add an indicator when the WFRP coverage has Vertically Integrated Producer elected. With this ticket, the indicator has been added for all years:

NOTE: Some of the commodities do not have a WFRP Commodity Code those will print like this: ( ).

For the Schedule of Insurance (SOI) and SOI / Production Report, a rule has been updated to print premium information for Plans 04, 05, and 06 detail lines. This update applies to all years.

Livestock: With this ticket, effective dates have been added to the detail line selection under the Schedule of Insurance forms for both LRP and DRP policies (no changes were made for LGM as each detail line has its own coverage which can be identified by the various Insurance Periods), Additionally, the following issues have been resolved:

The Conservation Compliance Certification form has been updated in the following ways for all years:

Perennials: TX Citrus Tree functionality was reviewed as it was noticed that the Plan 40 Tree PAW format was not behaving accordingly at the save of the PAW. During review, it was found that there was a typo in the code which resulted in the wrong view template loading for the TX Citrus Tree PAW page, causing the PAW Grid to display incorrectly. This issue has been resolved.

For all years, the Area Classification field and the Detail Line on the Acreage Report have been updated to grow to ensure the whole Range Class data is visible for Plan 50.

With this ticket, the Confirmation of Coverage (COC) form has been updated to display the time stamp (added with TFS #109522) on the second line of the Effective Date field.

When entering a Private Product Notice of Loss (NOL) for Continuous or Annual policies, the System will no longer have the current date/time showing as a default for the date of damage. The user must now elect a date of damage in order to save the NOL.

Livestock: With this ticket, on the Print tab for LGM policies, the Endorsements selection field under the LRP SOI form has been updated to only display data for LRP policies; LGM data will no longer populate in that field, which will prevent incorrect SOIs from generating.

Enterprise Units: TFS #98357 redesigned the EU/EP override and verification functionality. The new functionality included a new popup that is launched from the Additional Functions dropdown to manage unit structure. This new ticket has been set up to add access to this new popup from the Fast Edit AR page as well.

With this ticket, a button was added to the Fast Edit AR page so users can access the new Manage Unit Structure popup from within the Fast Edit AR improve the efficiency. The new button will only display for coverages with the Unit Option code of "EU" or "EP" and is only applicable for 2020+ RYs. When the button is clicked, the System will invoke the Manage Unit Structure popup that was added with TFS #98357. There were no changes to the display/functionality/validations of the Manage Unit Structure popup with the following exception:

If the Manage Unit Structure popup is accessed via the Fast Edit AR page, the "Coverage will be marked complete upon Save & Exit" message is removed. The System will bypass the Mark Complete logic upon Save & Exit of the popup. The Mark Complete will be done either at the final save of the Fast Edit AR, if selected, or the user will need to perform a manual Mark Complete on the coverage, if they choose to bypass the Mark Complete upon save of the Fast Edit AR.

Native Sod: As part of the new 2018 Farm Bill, RMA issued a new Program Indicator Code of "N8" for Native Sod. This code will apply when the ground was tilled after December, 20th 2018. Otherwise, the existing Program Indicator Code of "NS" will continue to apply. This ticket addressed providing a field for users to indicate whether acreage was tilled after December 20th, 2018 or not. Actual transmission of the new "N8" Program Indicator Code will be addressed with TFS #111605.

With this ticket, a field for "Acreage tilled after 12/20/2018" was added to the Internal Native Sod Written Agreement page. This field will only display if the NS Breakout Year is "2018".

Added Land: Per the Spring Train the Trainer Slides, RMA is updating the SA T-Yield procedures to allow use of an SA T-Yield so long as a Master Yield is not elected and approved. Previously, SA T-Yields were not available for crop/counties where Master Yields were available, regardless of if a Master Yield was elected/approved.

For the 2020+ RYs, if the commodity and state allow Master Yield procedures, the Added Land logic has been updated to now allow Simple Averages so long as no Master Yield Summary Unit exists for the coverage. This change in logic has been updated on all pages where Added Land-Simple Averages can be established: Legacy APH, Fast Edit PR (via the APH Drawer), and the Additional Functions (via the "Apply Current Year SA T-Yields" option).

Added Land: An issue was reported with the Added Land – Simple Average functionality on the APH. When an override of "Added Land – Simple Average" was selected and the System determined the Variable T-Yield was higher than the Simple Average, the System was removing the override entirely. This was causing agency users to receive the PRD lockout error since the PRD lockout functionality only allows agency users to create a new APH after the PRD lockout date if an override of Added Land or New Crop P/T is applied. Rather than removing the override, the System should have been changing the override from "Added Land – Simple Average" to "Added Land – Variable T-Yield". With this ticket, the Added Land functionality has been updated so that the System now changes the APH override from "Added Land – Simple Average" to "Added Land – Variable T-Yield" when the Variable T-Yield is higher than the Simple Average. This will also prevent agency users from receiving the PRD lockout error in this scenario.

Fast Edit AR: An issue was reported with an error being thrown for a "phantom" line created within the Fast Edit AR (unit number with 9999-0000) where a policy received a P11-9366 error (Days submitted early cannot exceed 60 days...). This error was found on a dual SCD Wheat policy when the AR Sign Date was entered for a Winter Wheat where no acres were reported. The System defaulted the Fast Edit AR to the first available option in the dropdown for the Type/Practice field. For example, if the Type is Spring and Winter, then "Spring" is populated because it's the first in the list. If Practice is NI, Irr, CC, or SF, then "Continuous Cropping" or "Irrigated" is populated because it's the first in the list.

For the example policy in error, the System was populating "Spring" as the Crop Type when the grower was reporting zero acre for their Winter Wheat. The error was thrown because the "Spring" Crop Type did not have an ARD until July. The workaround was to remove the AR sign date for the Spring crop, change the type on the auto-generated unit to Winter, and then enter the AR sign date for the Winter Wheat.

With this ticket, logic was added so that if the System date lands within the fall reporting cycle (December 31 and prior), then the System defaults the "phantom" line of 9999-0000 to a fall type. AIPs with current P11-9366 errors will need to manually go into the detail lines in error and update the type on the phantom detail line (9999-0000) to Winter to clear the errors. Then, remove the AR sign date for the Spring crop, change the type on the auto-generated unit to Winter, and enter the AR sign date for the Winter Wheat.

Written Agreements: In TFS #100625, a new suspension was introduced of "A Written Agreement exists that does not reflect a status of final.", which triggered for "DY" written agreements. In TFS #84089, a new check was added to the code that will skip over the MpciCoverageWA if the WrittenAgreementStatusCode is "03" and the RequestProcessCode is "DY". This same code check should have been added into the requirements of TFS #100625. With this ticket, the same check that was added into the code in TFS #84089 has been added to the code from TFS #100625 to have the system skip over the MpciCoverageWA if the WrittenAgreementStatusCode is "03" and the RequestProcessCode is "DY".

On the Private Product Dashboard, users were only being notified of the initial mark complete/submit acreage of a Private Product policy. If later mark complete/submit acreages were done that may have affected premium, the user was not notified through the Private Product Dashboard. The Private Product Dashboard has been updated to now show a message anytime a mark complete/submit acreage is done and the update will affect premium on the associated Private Product policy.

MPowerD: Liability was being received from Watts and displayed on MPowerD policies to the nearest cent vs. showing it to the nearest dollar, which is inconsistent with other Private Products. Beginning in 2020, the detail lines and policy will show the liability amount to the nearest dollar.

A request was received for an enhancement to be made to allow optional endorsements on Named Peril policies. The System has been updated, and users now have the ability to add optional endorsements on Named Peril policies through Batch Add Endorsement.

NOTE: This will not affect any AIPs that do not offer endorsements on Named Peril products. The Batch Endorse icon will show, but, if selected, the user will receive the following message: "This product does not have eligible endorsements at the moment."