Contact

Contact File Components

The contact file is a logical group (aka view) under SWUDS and GWSI.

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Important Links:

• Contact template
• NWIS User Manual

Mandatory Information*	Non-Mandatory Data	Conditional Mandatory Data**

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Site Contact

Agency Code (C4)*	Site Number*	Site Contact Alias Name*	Delete Record Indicator	Site Contact Start Date	Site Contact End Date	Edit Site Contact Alias name	Edit Site Contact Start Date

Contact

Contact Alias Name*	Contact Name*	Contact Phone	Contact Address Line 1	Contact Address Line 2	Contact City	Contact Postal Code	Contact Zip	Contact Country

Mandatory Information

Agency Code (C4)*	Site Number*	Site Contact Alias Name*	Contact Alias Name*	Contact Name*

Site Contact Tab

Variable	Definition	Data Entry Rule
Agency Code (C4)*	3-5 characters. Example: "USGS". The agency or organization that is the source of the SITE data. Enter, left justified. The code must exist in reference list AGENCY.	The site (site number and agency code) must exist in the site and water-use site files prior to associating contact records to sites.
Site Number (C1)*	8 - 15 characters. Unique site identification number. For ground-water sites, this is a 15-digit identification number assigned to the site, and contains no blanks or alphabetic characters. For surface-water sites, an 8- to 14-digit downstream order number is usually used for sites.Downstream order numbers also may be assigned to Spring, Outfall, and Surface-Water Diversion sites where water-use data are collected. For aggregate ground water, aggregate surface water, and facility site types, use a 10 to 15- digit number. The identifier should begin with the number ‘9’, followed by the state numeric FIPS code, plus 7 to 12 digits that constitute a unique ID.	The site (site number and agency code) must exist in the site and water-use site files prior to associating contact records to sites.
Site Contact Alias Name*	The site contact alias name identifies an individual or group of individuals that one would contact regarding the site. A site contact is an entity that physically operates the site, such as Mr. Smith operates the surface-water diversion owned by a city. The owner and contact can be the same entity. A contact is an entity that should be contacted for information. Site owner and site contact are two separate pieces of information.	Agency code, site number, and site contact alias name are required to enter a new site contact record. The site must exist in the NWIS site and water-use site files and the contact must exist in the database before site contact records can be entered. A site can have many site contacts. One contact can be associated to one or more sites. Site contact records are unique based on agency code, site number, site contact alias name and site contact start date.
Delete Record Indicator (Modify)	The delete record indicator is used in modify transactions to indicate which records should be deleted from the database.	On a modify operation the delete record indicator can be set to the value '$' or '*' to indicate that the site contact association should be deleted. One needs to specify the site number, agency code, site contact alias name, and site contact start date. On the delete of a site contact record the system only removes the association of the site to a given party. The system does not delete party records.
Site Contact Start Date*	Site contact start date. The first year, month, or day a site was associated to a contact.	Site contact start date can be null, not entered. Partial dates are allowed. If one only knows the year, then enter the 4-digit year (1999). If one knows the year and month, then enter (199908). Otherwise enter the full date (yyyymmdd). If both starting and ending contact dates are entered then the end date must be more recent than the start date. In some retrievals the current contact is output. The system (any application) will determine the current contact as the following: a.) ignore any records having an contact end date; b.) select the contact record having the latest contact start date; c.) if no records have an contact start date then the system selects the record with the maximum site contact sequence number (site_contact_nu). The site contact sequence number is not entered by the user. The system stores a sequence number with each site contact record. The number is generated by the system by auto-incrementing the site contact sequence number.
Site Contact End Date	Site contact end date. The last year, month, or day a site was assocated with a contact. If an end date is not entered, it implies that the site contact alias name is a still a valid contact for the site.	Site contact end date can be null, not entered. Partial dates are allowed. If one only knows the year, then enter the 4-digit year (1999). If one knows the year and month, then enter (199908). Otherwise enter the full date (yyyymmdd). If both starting and ending contact dates are entered then the end date must be more recent than the start date. A $ can be entered in an modify transaction to remove the ending date.
Edit Site Contact Alias Name (Modify)**	Used to assign a different site contact alias name to the indicated site contact record. If the wrong contact was assigned to a site contact record use a modify transaction with the edit site contact alias name to assign a different site contact alias name.	Agency code, site number, site contact alias name, and site contact start date are required for the system to find the record to be modified. The edit site contact alias name must exist in the database before site contact record can be modified.
Edit Site Contact Start Date (Modify)**	Used to assign a different site contact start date in the indicated site contact record. If the wrong start date was assigned to a site contact record use a modify transaction with the edit site contact start date to assign a different site contact start date.
Agency code, site number, site contact alias name, and site contact start date are required for the system to find the record to be modified.

Contact Tab

Variable	Definition	Data Entry Rule
Contact Alias Name*	Contact alias name. The alias name is used to uniquely identify a contact when more than one contact record has the same contact name. If the contact is an agency then the contact alias name should be entered with the code used to identify the agency. Agencies should be created in the master NWIS AGENCY reference list. Please contact NWIS support if you have new agencies to add as contacts. For any contact that is not an agency, it is recommended that the contact alias name be based on the contact name. Create contact alias name from contact name by left justifying, uppercasing, contact name with all extra white space removed (i.e. ' aa bb' would be 'AA BB'). If two different contacts have the same contact name, then sequence numbers can be used to uniquely identify the contacts. It is recommended that sequence numbers start with '2'. The first contact alias name should be entered with no sequence number (the sequence number is implied to be 1).	The contact alias name is used to uniquely identify an individual or group of individuals. The minimal amount of information allowed for an add is the contact name and the contact alias name. An error is raised if one adds a contact record where the contact alias name has already been used for another contact, owner, owner contact, agency (data source), or assigner of a permit. An error is also raised if one enters a unique contact alias name where the contact name, address, and phone number combination is not unique. On modify an error is raised if a record does not exist for the contact alias name entered. The system allows the user to enter what ever they want for a contact alias name as long as the values are unique. No leading white space is allowed in the contact alias name. The system will auto-left justify contact alias names. Use the PARTYALIAS view to change an existing contact alias name (party alias name). Contacts can not be deleted once entered.
Contact Name*	Contact name. The name assigned to an individual or group of individuals. A contact record can be associated with one or more sites with the Site contact view. The contact view is a master list of names and addresses that can be associsted to sites as contact records.	Contact names are not unique. contact name and address can be entered in mixed case. No leading white space is allowed in the contact name. The system will auto-left justify contact names. Contact records can not be deleted once entered. However, the contact name, address, or phone number can be modified. The minimal amount of information needed for a modify is the contact alias name and one of the other attribute. The contact alias name is used as the key to retrieve the contact/address data to be modified. The modified contact/address information must remain unique for the modify to be successful. If the values are not unique the system will raise an error. The system also generates and stores a search index based on the contact name (party name index, party_nm_idx). The index consists of the contact name with all white space, punctuation, and non-printable characters removed. The index is stored in uppercase. The system uses the party name index in retrieval programs as a key to find contact records by contact name. For example the user may want to retrieve contact records containing John T. Smith. The user enters the contact name John T. Smith, however, the system will retrieve a list of contacts where the party name index = “JOHNTSMITH”.
Contact Phone	The contact's phone number. The phone number of the phone at the address.	The user may enter a phone number when entering address information. The phone number cannot be greater than 24 characters or the transaction will be rejected. A $ can be entered on an modify transaction to blank out any entered value.
Contact Address Line 1	The first line of the contact's mailing address.	Any text can be entered for the mailing address. To blank out, remove, the first line of the address enter the value $ in a modify transaction.
Contact Address Line 2	The second line of the contact's mailing address.	Any text can be entered for the mailing address. To blank out, remove, the second line of the address enter the value $ in a modify transaction.
Contact City	The city name component of a postal address.	Any text string can be entered. The city name is not validated for spelling, capitalization, or typographical errors. To blank out, remove, the city names enter the value $ in a modify transaction.
Contact Postal Code	U.S. Postal Service postal abbreviation code.	The system does not validate U.S. Postal Service (USPS) postal abbreviations. However, see http://www.usps.gov/ncsc/lookups/usps_abbreviations.htm for a list of valid USPS postal abbreviations. To blank out, remove, a postal abbreviation enter the value $ in a modify transaction.
Contact Zip	U.S. Postal Service zip code. A zip code can be either a five digit zip code or a nine digit extended zip code. The zip code is usually a length of five or nine. Enter a hyphen in the sixth character position for a nine digit zip code.	The system performs no formatting checks for zip code. To blank out, remove, a zip code enter the value $ in a modify transaction.
Contact Country	Address country name.	The system does not validate country names against a list of valid country names. To blank out, remove, the country names enter the value $ in a modify transaction. The length of the country name cannot exceed 48 characters.