On your Elements home page you'll see all the modules for tracking activity data.

Type in the title and click "Search". This will look to 1) find if data for the item is available from an outside source (i.e. Google Books) OR 2) see if a collaborator at VT has already added the item.  If it finds it, this will save you time, as you won't have to manually enter in all the information about the item.

If it's unlikely to be found in outside systems or to have been added to Elements by anyone else you can click "Skip"

Required items will have a red asterisk. We recommend you fill out as much information as possible to ensure accurate data.  Dates are particularly important for what will be exported in reports.

Once you are done filling out the form, be sure to click Save.

As another example, go to "VIEW ALL" for a specific module.

From within a module you can add by clicking the plus button in the top right.

Again, required items are marked with an asterisk.

If you have questions, there are helpful hints available by click on the blue question marks.

Start and end dates are important to include for proper exporting to reports.

To better understand and ensure you are entering data in a way that will export correctly in the future.  We recommend downloading and reviewing relevant template(s) from the University Data Commons (UDC). To download your College's template for eFAR or Promotion & Tenure, go to: <https://udc.vt.edu/facultyactivity/activity/individual>

Then select the report you need. I'm selecting "Promotion and Tenure Dossier"

Scroll through the template or use Control+F to search for what you need. Text in red explains the parameters that data needs to be entered into Elements for it to be exported to that section of the report.  Let's look at the example of Editors, curatorship, etc. and the category of Journals or other learned publications.

If we look at the instructions in red, it tells us data should be entered into the Professional Activities module as 'Editorial/Curatorial'.

Back in Elements we can click Add New in the Professional activities module.

Next we see that we need to set the Type of publication or event to be either 'Book series' OR 'Journal'.

In Elements we see the Type of publication or event dropdown and can select the accurate option that matches - Book series.

The final instructions in the template tell us the Role needs to be set to either 'Editor/curator', 'Co-editor/co-curator', or 'Associate or guest editor/curator'.

In Elements we can find the field for Role and select one of the listed options, 'Editor/curator'.

With those settings matching the template, the item will be listed in your exported report - in this case the Promotion & Tenure Dossier.

Manually Entering Activities in Elements (for future export)