1. FIA FIDO Forest Inventory Data Online Web Tool
There are a number of Web tools that use Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) data:
This presentation demonstrates how to run Forest Inventory Data Online (FIDO).
Interactive elements in this presentation are shown in bold.
Some parts of this presentation may vary from the current version of FIDO.

2. Why use FIDO ? Multiple output formats –HTML, CSV, PDF, Google maps
Visual interface for circular retrievals
Build a report collection
Save reports for future use
FIDO is user friendly – the FIA data base is vast and complicated – so users can create their own reports without knowing all the details of the FIA Database. FIDO has a wizard that guides the user through the process of making reports. It informs the user of what has been selected so far, and what remains to be done before a report can be produced.
FIDO produces high quality tables and maps suitable for publication in a variety of formats – HTML, CSV, PDF and Google Maps.
FIDO tool has a visual interface for performing circular retrievals – users can actually see the area of the circular retrieval superimposed on a google map. The area is very easily manipulated and altered to the user’s satisfaction.
Within a FIDO session, users can amass a collection of reports for edit, copy, or display.
Users can save a configuration file containing their custom reports on their PC. The files can be reloaded and further manipulated in another FIDO session.

3. Getting Started- http://fia.fs.fed.us/
FIDO is accessible from the FIA home page.
Either click on the FIDO link in the right-hand column, or click on the FIA Data and Tools link in the left-hand column.

4. Getting Started Getting Started
First time users may need to set up their PC with the proper software (MSXML) and internet options. Detailed instructions appear with a click on Instructions for installing software for FIDO.
There are also links to hands-on tutorials.
The FIA DataMart Download Inventory Data link goes to the FIA DataMart page.

5. At the Data Mart, you can get FIA data in comma-delimited or MS Access database files.
There is also a link to the FIA Database User’s Guide.

6. The FIA Library contains documentation for current and past versions of FIADB.

8. Likely to have changed by now.
Recent Load History page brings up a map showing dates of data available. There is also a listing of what data has been loaded and when.

10. All the population estimates are listed for every evaluation they are available.
FIADB Population Estimates table covers the entire country and every inventory loaded into FIADB. This is one-stop shopping for estimates.

12. Standard Reports by State goes here
Standard Reports are downloadable as Excel workbooks for each state or national forest.

13. FIDO Welcome Page
The welcome page provides a general overview of FIDO, lists regional contacts for FIDO help, provides information pertaining to system requirements, and determines whether your computer has the appropriate software to run the application. Check to make sure that the message: “-- Your browser has the required software plugins to run this application --“ appears in the Browser Check window, as in the above figure.
If you get a message that your computer needs additional software, click on the link for instructions on installing software for FIDO.
Even though you may have the proper software, you may still need to adjust your browser settings. Refer to a previous slide for the document posted on the FIA Data and Tools page available thru Instructions for installing software for FIDO ( for installing software for FIDO II.doc).
Once finished with the setup instructions, you are ready to run the FIDO application.
From this page the user chooses either the FIA Standard Reports or Custom Retrievals option. The standard reports option runs preformed reports, and allows the user to run more than one report at a time.
The Custom Reports provide more flexibility. Users have the option of designing their own templates or they can choose one of the premade templates. Users can save their report templates for uploading and use at a later FIDO session.
The Custom Reports will be demonstrated first- click on the icon for the custom reports.

14. Custom Retrievals This takes you to the Custom Retrievals Welcome Page
Here are the details of the 8-step process to creating a custom report. These buttons are not active on this page, but will be active once you start the Custom report application.
Click on the Go! or Begin Creating Custom Reports>> button to start.

15. FIDO Layout Layout of the FIDO tool site. Every page has 3 sections
The right hand column displays the 8-steps to building a custom report.
The left hand column contains selections that are dependent on which menu is currently running.
The upper middle space is the display area, used to show the report output, provide information on the menus, and display maps for selecting the geographic area of your report.
The Home button in FIDO and the Back button in the browser take you back to the FIDO welcome page, essentially, clearing all your selections and starting a new session. So, unless you want to start over, it is recommended not use these buttons while running FIDO.
The lower middle space contains the FIDO II Wizard, which guides the user through the report making process. It also provides a summary of all the steps completed. Note that the Wizard is telling the user that a template MUST be selected in this menu, or the program cannot proceed.

16. Start New Retrieval Start New Retrieval Page
The report template is the basic structure of the report and is the first step towards generating a report. The user cannot go beyond this screen without first selecting a template. The menu items in the right hand column are blacked-out.
The premade templates are grouped by the summary attribute (the value to be displayed in the report, e.g. acres of land, number of trees, or tree cubic foot volume).
Click on Area reports or the triangular button next to Area reports to view a list of premade templates.

17. Premade Templates
Click on the Retrieval Templates/Reports headings to view the lists of associated templates.
The User-defined reports section is a handy place to store and locate reports that you generate and save for future FIDO sessions.
The For power users section contains blank templates for advanced users.

18. Select Template
When a template is selected, the information about that template appears in the middle section. It provides the title, a description of the row and column variables, how the report is laid out, and the various filters used to create the report. Also, there are references to the FIADB attributes (e.g., volcfnet is a tree attribute used to compute the volume estimate).
The program will continue only after the user clicks on the Use as Template button.

19. Region of Interest
FIDO skips down from Start New Retrieval to the Define Region of Interest menu. That is because the pre-made template already contains the Summary Attribute, Design Layout, and Filter Options (FIDO always jumps to the next required step to complete a report). Users can still navigate back (click on the menu button) to these windows if they want to make any layout changes or select additional filters.
The Region of Interest refers to the county(s), unit(s), state(s), or circular boundary on which your report is based. Note that the Wizard states that this step is required in order to continue (also note the Hide Wizard option has appeared).
Selections can be made using the list on the left hand column or by using the map in the display window. This demo will show you both options.
Check the box next to Display Google Map to view map of the US.

20. Google Map Display
To get a larger view of the map, click on the Hide Wizard box or the maximize button in the right-hand corner of the display.
Use the navigation buttons on the left side of the map to adjust the view. You can scroll using either the up, down, right, and left arrow buttons or the pan hand. You can zoom using the + and – scale.

21. This is zoomed in on Wisconsin and Michigan.
There are a variety of view options – Map, Satellite, Hybrid, and Terrain. This is the terrain view.
Click on Michigan in the left column of the screen to display FIA survey units and county boundaries of Michigan.

22. The Survey units and individual county names are listed in the left hand column. The county boundaries appear on the map.

23. Click on individual counties in the map to select them
Click on individual counties in the map to select them. The boxes next to the counties are automatically checked when the counties are selected on the map. Conversely, the map will be highlighted when you click on the individual counties in the Region Selection list.

24. Select an entire state by either clicking on the map, or checking the box next to the state in the left column list. Either way, the state will be highlighted on the map, and the list box for the State will be checked.

26. Choose Survey Years
All survey years for which there are FIADB data will appear in the left hand column. They are listed by year and state
The survey year represents the set of plots that are used to make an estimate.

27. = year when majority of plots were measured or midpoint
Survey Years
Annual Inventory
Michigan, 2008
= 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008
Periodic Inventory
Wisconsin, 1996
= year when majority of plots were measured or midpoint
FIA started conducting Annual Inventories in 1999 as mandated by the 1998 Farm Bill. Under the annual system, between 10 and 20 percent of the State is measured every year. For most of the Eastern States, any continuous 5 year period represents a complete inventory. For some Western States it may take 10 years to complete an inventory.
Periodic inventories were conducted prior to the annual system. They were an intensive survey of an entire state over a single time period – taking one to several years. The initial estimates derived from a Periodic inventory were good at the completion of the survey, but lost significance by the time the next inventory was scheduled to begin (anywhere from 5-20 years)
The change over from Periodic to Annual was due to a desire to have the most up-to-date information on the nation’s forest resources. Annual inventories have the advantage of providing new information on every state every year.
For the annual inventory, the survey year defines the last annual inventory year for the rolling-panel set of plots. A panel corresponds with a year. For periodic inventory, the survey year is the year that best represents when the set of plots were measured. For example, Michigan survey year 2007 contains all the plots measured in the five annual inventory panels from 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, and 2003, while survey year 2005 has the five annual inventory panels from 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, and 2001.
For the Periodic Inventory, the survey year defines the year when the majority of the plots were measured, or the midpoint year of the survey.

28. For this demo, only one survey per state is selected – choosing only one survey per state allows the summary of the individual state reports to be summed by the rows (this will be demonstrated later in the report output)
A trick – if you hide the wizard and then unhide it, the updated survey years will appear in the wizard window.
Click on Continue >> and FIDO will bring you to the next step necessary to produce a report

29. Produce Report
The report is listed in the left column. At this point, the user has the option of going back and altering the report by clicking on the various menus in the right hand column (do not use the back button on your browser – it will only bring you to the FIDO welcome page and all your selections will be lost)
To produce your report, you need to click the Submit button (once!).

30. The radio button next to the report will spin as FIDO computes the estimate.
The message in the Report Display tells the user that FIDO is working on it.

31. When the report is ready, the radio button will cease to spin, a message in the display window will appear indicating that the report is ready.
Display options appear in the left column. The default estimate is on Forest land and the default format is Html Table (Forest land is defined as land that is at least 10-percent stocked by trees of any size or has been at least 10-percent stocked in the past).

32. General options include customizing the report title, and removing any empty rows (particularly useful when row output is by forest type). Users choose between Forest land or Timberland (Timberland is Forest land that is unreserved and has a productivity class of at least 20 cubic feet/acre/year).
Export options are for comma separate values or CSV files.

33. Click on display to view the report.

34. Report Display The report appears in the center of the screen.
To get a better view of the report, check the Maximize button in the upper right corner of the Report Display

35. There are 3 tables displayed in your report
There are 3 tables displayed in your report. The first one is for the estimates for Michigan 2007.
The Michigan and Wisconsin reports are summed in the last table on the bottom. If more than one survey year per state were chosen for this report, then the summary would only include totals from each of the state report.
Note the different colors of the values in the table output. These indicate the range of percent sampling errors (black estimates have pse of 25% or less, green is 26-50%, and red is greater than 50%). Move your cursor over any estimate to view the percent sampling error

36. Single survey per state – Summary of all rows
Multiple surveys per state – Summary contains only table totals:
The content of the bottom summary table is dependent on what is selected for survey years. If there is only one survey per region selected, the summary will include a sum of all rows.
If more than one survey per region is selected, then the summary will contain only the individual table totals (because it wouldn’t make sense to combine totals of the same region).

37. Saving Report Output
There is a print button in the HTML output, however, wide reports (diameter classes) are often cut off. Another way to have an electronic (and nice looking) output is to copy the entire report window and paste it into Excel.

38. Paste into Excel to retain a clean copy of the output
Paste into Excel to retain a clean copy of the output. The standard errors, however, are not included in this format.

39. Other Output Formats
PDF output lists the estimates and the errors.

40. CSV output retains all the raw information
CSV output retains all the raw information. Use the Export options to select what you want in the output.

41. Other Features – Editing Report
Choose edit to make any changes to your report. The menus in the right hand column become available for selection.

42. The menus are now available for selection
The menus are now available for selection. Users can change every aspect of the report – from changing the summary output to choosing different survey years.

43. Other Features – Copying a report
Click on the copy button to create another copy of the report.

44. A duplicate report appears in the report list – users can now click on the edit button and change this extra copy.
A report can be deleted from the list by clicking on the x button to the right of the report.

45. Other Features – More Reports
Click on Start New Retrieval to add another report

46. Choose another report and the template information will be displayed.
Users have the choice of keeping the pre-selected area of interest and survey years.

47. Collect Reports
The reports are kept available for use during the current session.
Use the radio button to select any report for display, edit, copy. Reports can be deleted by selecting the X-box to the right of the report
For use in future sessions, use the save active retrieval function to save the report to the current session, then save the configuration file.

48. FIDO Exercise 1 – Basic Navigation
Basic navigation exercise to familiarize new users to the fundamental steps in producing a report using a pre-made template.