Notification to WHER Users: Unable to Create New Accounts

Currently, the Wildlife Health Event Reporter (WHER) is experiencing some technical problems. The system is unable to complete creating new accounts. If a user attempts this, they will get the following message:

* An error was encountered when we tried to send you an account confirmation error message.

The WHER team is working on the problem and will resolve it as quickly as possible. When it is fixed, we will post another announcement.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

The WHER Team

Why do I need to create an account before I submit a report?

Most of the time, submitters should not expect to receive any follow-up information after reporting an event to WHER. There is simply not enough manpower to investigate every single animal death. HOWEVER, the information you submit, when used in aggregation with other user's single observations, begin to create an overall baseline of mortality incidence information.

In the event there are specific questions pertaining to your submitted report from a natural resources agency or an authority in the jurisdiction where your report was submitted, and you have checked the check-box in the 'My Account' section of WHER that says: ' I authorize project or natural resources personnel to contact me regarding my reports,' you may be contacted in order to get additional information if you are willing to provide it.

It is also possible that WHER personnel may contact you if we have questions about your report such as encountering any technical issues with your submissions or problems with your account information. Therefore, it is important that we have users create accounts in WHER and provide email address and phone contact details.

Thank you for participating in WHER!

WHER - down for maintenance 02/10/2011

In order to perform database modifications this Thursday, February 10, 2011, the Wildlife Health Event Reporter (WHER) application will be temporarily offline.  The outage is planned for early in the morning (approximately 7am CST) and we hope to bring the site back up as quickly as possible. 

Users will still be able to access the WHER URL (http://www.wher.org), but a temporary page will be up in its place until the system is brought back online.

Thank you for understanding!

A Short Video Introduction to WHER

The Wildlife Health Event Reporter (WHER) team has just launched a two minute video to provide a quick overview of WHER. The video highlights WHER's features and describes its purpose. Click play to watch the video now or view it here on YouTube.

The WHER team strongly encourages everyone to pass this video link along through email, listservs, blogs and other social networking tools to let others know about WHER.

The more reports WHER receives about sick and/or dead wild animals sighted by an engaged public, the greater the potential for everyone to gain a better understanding of wildlife disease and its impact on human, domestic animals and wildlife.

Oops, something is wrong with my entry! How do I change it?

In the event you complete the entry of a record and then realize, OOPS - something went wrong!  Don't fret.  You can quickly correct the problem by removing the erroneous entry and re-entering the correct information.  At the present, the ability to edit is not available.  However, due to the simplicity of the reporting process, it is a simple task to remove and re-add an event with the correct information. 

How to delete an erroneous entry on WHER (see full help file)

1. Log into WHER (http://www.wher.org)
2. Click on the 'My Reports' option from the main menu or the menu bar
3. Next to the corresponding entry in your report, locate the 'Delete' link
4. Click the 'Delete' link and confirm in the pop-up window that you wish to delete this record
5. That's it, you're done.

After you have removed the erroneous entry, you can start a new report to replace the incorrect entry.

Please make sure you spend a few minutes reviewing your data at the Review step in the simple data entry forms.  If you have additional questions, feel free to email us at wher@wdin.org.



  

I received an Internal Error message trying to save my record!

If you are saving a wildlife health event report and encounter this message, it may be caused by a number of things. The server the application is hosted on could have encountered a problem (not your fault!) or a cached version of information in your browser may be conflicting with the request to save your event.

To get past this issue, we recommend within your internet browser, clearing the cache. This may help clean out any 'dust' that may be causing the problem. Here are step-by-step instructions for clearing the cache in Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome and Safari.

Internet Explorer

1. Click on the 'Tools' menu in the browser. This should display an option to select called 'Internet Options' at the very bottom of the menu list.
2. In the first 'General' tab of options, select the button marked 'Delete...' about 1/4 down the dialogue window in the section called Browsing History. 
3. A new window will appear, with a series of check boxes. The one that is important is the Temporary Internet Files option. Click this box (at least) and then click the Delete button at the bottom of the screen.

Firefox

1. Click on the 'Tools' menu in the browser. Select the Options option.
2. Under the 'Privacy' tab of options, click the link marked 'clear all current history' - which will open another small dialogue window.
3. In the new small dialogue window, check at least the 'Cache' option and click the 'Clear Now' button at the bottom of the window.

Chrome

1. Press CTRL+SHIFT+DEL to open the Clear cache dialog. Alternatively, click on the "Wrench" icon in the upper right hand corner of the browser (when you hover over it, the tool tip 'Customize and Control Google Chrome' appears) and select the Tools -> Clear Browsing Data option.
2. At a minimum, check the box next to the 'Empty Cache' option and click the 'Clear Browsing Data' button at the bottom of the screen.

Safari

1. Press CTRL+ALT+E to open the Clear cache dialog window.  Alternatively, go to the Edit menu, and select 'Empty Cache' from the list of options. 
2. Click the 'Empty' button to complete the task.

After your cache has been cleared, go back to http://www.wher.org, log in, and attempt to submit your report again. 

If you are still encountering problems after clearing your cache, drop us a line at wher@wdin.org for more assistance.

WHER help documentation updated!

To reflect the most recent changes and modifications in the WHER application, the online help document has been updated. If you have any questions or problems while you're using WHER, check out the new document, as well as the FAQs posted to this blog.  If you don't find the solution to your problem, try the Feedback Form link at the bottom of each WHER page, or email us directly at wher@wdin.org