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IDP Reporting: Weekly vs In-Bulk

graduatearchitect

I'm in the U.S., and I'm filling out my IDP hours to submit to NCARB.

The NCARB website lets you report weekly or in-bulk.  I keep track of my hours (and their experience areas in an excel sheet and then usually I run a Pivot Table on the excel sheet for that time period and report all of those hours in bulk.

Is there any reason I would NEED to report the hours weekly instead?  I'm working in Indiana and hoping to get licensed here first.

 
Jul 20, 15 1:52 pm
Zbig

Weekly advantages:

  1. If you get fired, you don't lose hours.
  2. If your boss dies, you don't lose hours.
  3. If your Excel file dies, you don't lose hours.

In-bulk advantages:

  1. Less work.
Jul 20, 15 2:15 pm  · 
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Exactly. In fact if you are reporting hours on to time sheets in the office, it is a great time to also report put your IDP hours together. This would at least allow hours to be correlated with the time-sheets as backup resource. This is something that should be reported weekly, bi-weekly or monthly in connection to reporting periods of time-sheets so both matters are happening at the same time and in relatively recent recording. 

That would be how I would recommend out of record keeping sense. It makes sense to me. Better accuracy. I would recommend, weekly record keeping but submit them every two weeks or a month during pay period after time-sheets in the office (or equivalent) is done up. So all hours are recorded and recognize so pay cycles.

However, it shouldn't be more than a month. 

In case you are in a less than conventional employment, just record  hours daily and report the hours on a weekly or bi-weekly basis or a monthly basis at most.

Jul 20, 15 2:47 pm  · 
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My argument is more about frequency. In some cases, a daily record of each day's IDP should be spent each day after wok to record them into your personal record keeping. Then tally up at the end of the week. Then submit hours vs. saving them in the MyNCARB every two weeks to a month would be generally appropriate.

Longer than that and you can get into a number of problems as said earlier for example.

Jul 20, 15 3:30 pm  · 
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null pointer

If you were reporting to me every fucking week, I'd get you fired.

 

Once a month.

Max.

Jul 20, 15 3:33 pm  · 
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alphabits

I'm with null pointer.  I'm a supervisor for 4 people in my office and it gets rather annoying to receive all those NCARB reminders to review these peoples' hours.  I'd prefer larger batches of hours at less frequent intervals.

Jul 20, 15 4:38 pm  · 
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null pointer, 

Be happy.... it could be  DAILY !!!!

Jul 20, 15 6:46 pm  · 
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alphabits

If I started receiving reports daily I think it would be much more likely that I'd 'accidentally' hit the Reject button every now and then, in my haste to keep up with all those reports.

Jul 20, 15 7:24 pm  · 
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LOL.... seriously

Why the haste in the first place? 

You got 4 employees report. You have 30 minutes a week?

Do it when the office hours are closed for the day like a weekend...maybe?

Jul 20, 15 7:33 pm  · 
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I hope you all realize that you can create an experience report reporting your hours in the "weekly" format and submit it to your supervisor for approval at whatever interval you want -- every 2 months, 3 months, etc. (as long as it falls within the reporting requirements). The only difference is how it looks on NCARB's records of your experience, and how much time you want to spend on the website entering in information.

I do mine similar to what graduatearchitect explained with pivot tables in excel. I track my daily schedule in Outlook and then every 3-6 months I export my calendar to a CSV file from Outlook. Play with the data in a pivot table a bit and enter my hours in bulk on the website. Submit for approval every 3-6 months so my supervisor doesn't get annoyed. 

Pros:

  1. Minimal time on NCARB's website,
  2. Minimal time recording hours / no duplication of effort recording,
  3. Minimal time for supervisor to approve hours (1 effort every 3-6 months).
  4. I don't get fired.

Cons: 

  1. None so far.
Jul 20, 15 7:55 pm  · 
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kjdt

It was better back in my day, when we could submit 3 years of experience in one report.

Jul 20, 15 8:14 pm  · 
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good thoughts there E_I.

Jul 20, 15 8:24 pm  · 
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Who's fault was it for causing us to report experience every 6+2 months? Who's fault was it for implementing IDP?

Jul 20, 15 8:27 pm  · 
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alphabits

Fault?  IDP was started in the 70s in response to state boards' concerns that those entering the profession had very uneven experiences that led to newly licensed architects with wildly differing skills and backgrounds.

The 6+2 month thing evolved out of a plan formed at one of the "Young Architects' Summits" in the late 90s, as a response to that era's average 7.5-years between graduation and licensing.  That, and the various ways in which the IDP rules have been eased in the years since are all supposed to be streamlining the process and encouraging interns and employers to get through it in a straight line with fewer delays.

Jul 20, 15 9:08 pm  · 
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Ok... I chose the word a little strong on purpose but technically there is a fault.

However, what's the problem when someone could be licensed and worked while in college and be licensed in 6 years without these timesheet stuff. So why not have a wildly differing skills and background. We competently designed buildings for centuries. What's the issue?

I agree that the more recent rules for streamlining the process a bit.

So why are employers having issues with regularly reporting ideas because the idea of structured internship is that every hour submitted and approved are truthful and factual. The longer one waits, the degradation of a persons recollection of what occured is possible.

How do you know or don't know an intern is padding their experience. Simple round off... okay. Padding out on the other hand... not so much because it degrades the trust in the validity of the NCARB record.

Ther

Jul 20, 15 9:54 pm  · 
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LITS4FormZ

I was on a once every 3 month cycle, ain't nobody got time for weekly. 

Jul 21, 15 1:31 pm  · 
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Nobody has 30 minutes a week. When was the last time you worked 167.5 hours a week?

Jul 21, 15 1:55 pm  · 
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alphabits

It's not just an issue of having the time.  I need the office time sheets and PM staffing reports to verify the interns' NCARB reports.  There's a lag on that information.  You know how in any given pay period your paycheck is for the previous period?  Well the processed info from bookkeeping doesn't come to me until the pay period following the one in which you get paid - in other words 2 pay periods later = 3+ weeks and they come in batches.  It's better for me to do the reviewing quarterly.

If the interns file their reports every week it just amounts to more nagging emails from NCARB. 

Jul 21, 15 2:18 pm  · 
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Okay. My main suggestion isn't so much about weekly or whatever interval but correlates with pay cycle. The intern reports IDP when he or she submits his/her time sheets. Then supervisor can approve or otherwise with a week or two offset. 

In any case, the prevailing rule is what works for both intern and supervisor... anyway. I maybe nudging a little so reporting is as accurate as possible. If I was working for you, I would work with you but I would probably keep putting the information into the MyNCARB and saving. 

I prefer to keep reporting the information into MyNCARB right away as they say then wait 3 months and be in a position of 'ugh... how many time did I spend doing schematic drawings on April 20th... now that it's July 21st." You understand what I mean by that.

Now that you are speaking honestly with me. I can concur that NCARB's nagging emails can be an annoyance. In a contract work where you get a billed invoice for time spent than it is best to have the stuff pretty much correlated on a monthly basis. That would be a matter of contractual invoice billing per contract terms.

Jul 21, 15 2:36 pm  · 
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alphabits

When you say you prefer to keep reporting the info into MyNCARB right away:  are you actually doing that, or is this hypothetical.  I seem to remember you saying in another thread no more than a week ago that you have yet to submit any experience reports to NCARB at all.  Has there been a change in that? If not, why are you so interested in giving advice to interns and advisers about a process in which you have no actual experience?

Jul 21, 15 2:54 pm  · 
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I think your correlation of time is screwy. But I have submitted hours. They have been in the Leadership & Service category.

I also know that the process and part of the intent of IDP is timely reporting. That is why they imposed the 6+2 months rule. The sooner, the better because of accuracy of recollection of what happened.

There is more work that I need to do in IDP category because my experience setting by nature of independent building design doesn't in itself qualify for IDP. There are things I am working on that front.

Jul 21, 15 3:30 pm  · 
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Pritchard Stalkins, FUFEE

Employees hours can refer to activity that is undertaken to passtime and stay busy but in and of itself has no IDP value. Or it may has IDP value. Depending on the project and setting or type of Architecture or Engineering or Building Designer or Edifice Envisioner professional practice.  In one or more of these settings, IDP work has precedence as a means to corroborate and reinforce lessons and NAAB curricula by allowing IDP interns time to practice newly skill-sets independently. But if too independently than they may be fined because the adviser's responsibility is to supervise the practice of archtiecture.


IDP work also sometimes could occurs in business, military, church and other settings, in situations where people are required to be present but may lack the opportunities, skills or energy to do something more productive. People may engage in IDP to maintain an appearance of activity, in order to avoid notice of being inactive or idle.

 

In short this is why interns should report experience every week or seven days at the most, even though NCARB is retiring the word intern but it will still be a word.

Jul 21, 15 4:23 pm  · 
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Jul 21, 15 4:39 pm  · 
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