===Progress Reporting Structure===__NOEDITSECTION__
Once the land/activity relationships and workflow are defined and documented for each type of land, the next step is to define how progress data for the land clearance processes is collected. Traditionally, incremental Incremental progress data is collected using progress reports. These reports are typically linked to the overall clearance operation and are used to collect the incremental progress for a reporting period, usually, the number of mines/UXO cleared, area cleared and hours workedfor tasks that take '''long''' time to complete. In {{IMSMANG}}, each progress report is stored as a new activity . This may be done in different ways:* Progress Reports linked to the Land* Progress Reports linked to the Clearance Report and the Clearance linked to the Land* Progress Reports combined together and linked to either Land or ClearanceInformation managers should assess which approach better meets the clearance. As a result, individual progress reports can be queried needs of their programs when selecting an approach to determine how much tracking progress was made during a given reporting period. In addition, aggregate progress information can be queried for each clearance (for example, the total mines that have been reported cleared for a given clearance operation).
An alternative approach ==== Progress Reports linked to the Land ====__NOEDITSECTION__The Progress Reports are linked to the Land. As a result, individual progress reports can be queried to storing determine how much progress was made during a given reporting period. In addition, aggregate progress information can be queried easily for each Land (for example, the total mines that have been reported cleared). This method requires to create a Land record and that the Land report is entered and approved in {{IMSMANG}} '''before''' the first Progress report is entered into the database. This method has the Land in focus and is getting more common. This is the method that we recommend to collect incremental first evaluate. ==== Progress Reports linked to the Clearance Report ====__NOEDITSECTION__The Progress Reports are linked to the Clearance report. As a result, individual progress reports can be queried to determine how much progress was made during a given reporting period. In addition, aggregate progress information can be queried for each clearance (for example, the total mines that have been reported cleared for a given clearance operation). This method requires to create a Clearance report and that the Clearance report is entered and approved in {{IMSMANG}} '''before''' the first Progress report is entered into the database. This method has the Clearance in focus and is not so common anymore. ==== Progress Reports combined together ====__NOEDITSECTION__An third approach to store progress information is to reconcile them the Progress Reports as updates to the clearance using the combine option during reconciliation. Using this method, the different progress reports do are '''not create independent activity items''' visible as individual Progress reports in {{IMSMANG}}; rather, their information is combined with, and added to, the clearance information collected to that point. This approach simplifies the reconciliation step for progress reports as well as provides a simple summary of clearance data on each land in the Summary. It maywill, however, become slightly '''more ''' complicated to determine progress during individual reporting periods. Information managers should assess which approach better meets the needs of , for operators to see their programs when selecting an approach Progress Reports and to tracking progressensure high data quality. We do not recommend this method.
In the example below, progress reports were collected for three separate reporting periods during a clearance operation. Collecting and linking information in this way makes it easy to determine that in Period 2 (PR-2), 4,500 sqm were cleared and 25 AP mines were found and that, overall, 15,000 sqm were cleared and 61 AP mines were found. A defined, standardized approach to collecting and storing progress information simplifies querying and reporting of statistical information and is a critical element to supporting operational mine action information management needs.