RDP providers are advised that the Q2 2024/2025 RCS reports have been updated and are now available to be completed. There are extra questions to address the IPPRS reporting requirements that have previously been done via the NIAA system. Providers are no longer required to provide these reporting data direct to the NIAA.

If you have any questions, please contact your contract manager.

MERIT 4.1 was released over the weekend. Fixes and improvements include:

• Improvements to how we handle Organisation names changes over time
• Fixes to shapefile uploads
• Additional reporting functionality for Regional Capacity Service reporting (RDP Service Providers Only)
• Minor bug fixes

If you notice that MERIT is not working as expected please contact the MERIT team as a priority (merit@dcceew.gov.au) and include a description of what you have noticed and if possible screen shots.

For RDP Providers only: Regional Capacity Service (RCS) reports will be unlocked later this week once we have completed a data remediation exercise. Please ignore any automatic notification emails that relate to previously submitted/approved reports. We will send out a notification as soon as 2024/2025 Q2 RCS reports are available for completion and submission.

Regional Capacity Service (RCS) reports for Quarter 2 will be unavailable until we have released some important changes to the report form. RDP providers will be informed once the updated form is available. Any Q2 report that has already been opened and data entered will not be impacted (i.e. no data will be lost, but the report will remain locked until the changes are released).
If you have any concerns please contact the MERIT team: merit@dcceew.gov.au

This release includes:

• General improvements and bug fixes across the platform.
• Inclusion of a time out banner which advises users on how to keep the system alive and not lose any information.
• The boundary conditions for spatial data (polygons) have been updated to ensure project electorate data isn’t overrepresented or incorrectly classified.
• Updates to electorate reporting functionality.
• The ‘My projects’ list now has pagination (document is now displayed into discrete pages).

Always Save and Exit your report before finishing work for the day or leaving your computer for more than 30 minutes. When the computer goes to 'sleep' it will disconnect the network and the session will timeout. There is a high risk that you will lose your work.

Please do not leave tabs or your browser open when you are finished. Save your work, log out of MERIT and close the tab/browser.

MERIT 3.4 will be released at 9.00pm AEST today

There will be a short outage of around 10 minutes whilst this occurs. Please save your work and log out of MERIT prior to 9.00pm. You will be able to log back and work as normal after 9.10pm.

This release includes:

• New Annual Regional Capacity (RCS) Report template for RDP Panel Provider Projects
• New Quarterly Regional Capacity (RCS) Report template for RDP Panel Provider Projects
• Addition of the 'Documents' tab to Organisation Pages to allow viewing and addition of documents relating to RCS reporting
• Fixed display errors in the static view of Dataset Summaries
• Added additional threat categories to the MERI plan template
• Added 'amount invoiced' indicator to project dashboards

If you experience any technical issues with MERIT after the release, please report it as a priority to merit@dcceew.gov.au.

MERIT 3.3 will be released at 4.00pm AEST today

There will be a short outage of around 15 minutes whilst this occurs. Please save your work and log out of MERIT prior to 4.00pm. You will be able to log back and work as normal after 4.15pm.

This release includes:

• New Annual Outputs Report template for RDP Panel Provider Projects
• New Annual Outputs Report template for the Sustainable Agriculture Facilitator Program
• Improvements and bug fixes for the integration with the Monitor field data collection app

If you experience any technical issues with MERIT after the release, please report it as a priority to merit@dcceew.gov.au.

At 9pm AEDT tonight we will deploy MERIT 3.1. This deployment is very large and covers multiple items related to the new NHT/RDP programs including new reporting templates and fixes to the MERI plan. A new MERIT user guide that explains the changes will follow shortly.

We expect that there will be a very short (less than 1 minute) outage when the deployment is made at 9pm AEDT tonight. This should not impact users, unless they attempt a save during this minute. If this does happen, simply re-press save.

If you notice MERIT behaving in an unexpected way after the deployment, please report it to merit@dcceew.gov.au as a priority so we can investigate.

Due to a major outage caused by the storm event in Victoria this week, many users will have received emails informing them that their access to MERIT has expired. These accounts have not expired and the email can be ignored.

However, we recommend that users that received this email attempt to login to MERIT. This should happen without any issues.

If you are having problems accessing MERIT, please contact us at merit@dcceew.gov.au and we will be able to assist.

The MERIT Team have implemented mandatory removal of MERIT access after six months of inactivity due to our Departmental IT security policies.

We appreciate that this is not ideal for MERIT users that are only required to report into MERIT every 12 months, however this decision is beyond our control. MERIT users simply need to login once every six months to maintain access, and where this has not occurred, will receive a warning email four weeks before the access is removed.

If access has been lost, please contact the merit team (merit@dcceew.gov.au) with your user details and the projects you need access to and we can assist.

A reminder to all project managers to regularly audit user access for the projects they manage, and remove any users that have moved on or are no longer involved in the project. If you are unsure how to remove a user, please contact the MERIT Team for assistance.

MERIT has reached over 3800 projects across 14 programs and over 70 subprograms since its inception. These includes historical programs like Caring for our Country and Biodiversity Fund, and current Regional Land Partnerships, Environmental Restoration Fund and various more recent program additions in response to bushfire recovery and the Future Drought Fund. And still more are coming.

The National Landcare Program:

the RLP Service Providers

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Natural Resource Management