TAPR reports must be submitted each quarter. Each report is to consist of records for Trade Act participants who have exited during a particular quarter. Because of lags that are caused by the use of wage record data for outcomes, there may be some confusion between "quarter of exit" and "reporting quarter", which mean different things. The "quarter of exit" is the quarter in which the participants, whose records are in the report, exited the Trade Act program. The "reporting quarter" is the quarter during which the records for the exiters should be completed and the report assembled. Reports are due to ETA within 45 calendar days after the end of the reporting quarter. The "reporting quarter" is five quarters after the "quarter of exit". The table below should make these terms more clear.

Quarter of Exit	Reporting Quarter	Due Date
July - September, 1999	October - December, 2000	March 30, 2001 (not 45 days after December 31, 2000 because it's the first report under the revised system.)
October - December, 1999	January - March, 2001	May 15, 2001
January - March, 2000	April - June, 2001	August 15, 2001
April - June, 2000	July - September, 2001	November 15, 2001
July - September, 2000	October - December, 2001	February 15, 2002
October - December, 2000	January - March, 2002	May 15, 2002

The reports must consist of individual TAPR records in comma-delimited format. This means that each data item must be surrounded by double quotes and separated from the other data items by commas. In a comma-delimited format, there is no need to "pad" data items with zeroes so that the item fills a particular number of characters. The first few data items for a record from the mythical State of Harmony might look like this:

"Harmony","123ABC4F67","19651022","1","","2","2","1","2","2","2","", (etc.)

Note that there are two fields in the example record above that do not have any data; there are only two double quotes between the commas, like this: ,"",. That is how missing or unknown data items are to be reported. There is no longer an entry (such as 9, for example) to denote missing or unknown. There are 49 fields in a TAPR record; therefore, there must be 48 separating commas (do not put a comma after the 49^th field).

States are prohibited from including actual Social Security Numbers (SSN) in any TAPR report. There are three reasons for this: (1) the OMB terms of clearance require this; (2) sending personal data identified by name or SSN is a probable violation of the Social Security Act; and (3) many State Unemployment Insurance agencies will not allow wage record data to be reported in other databases if the wage record data is identified by SSN. Therefore, the second field of each TAPR record must be an individual identifier, created by the State, that will conceal the actual identity of the exiter whose data are being reported. States are free to create these identifiers in the way that is best for them. However, this identifier must be between 1 and 9 characters in length, and may use only alphabetic and numeric characters (no punctuation marks or other special characters). IMPORTANT: individual identifiers should be created by the State in such a way that they identify the same individual no matter where that individual is in the State employment and training system. In particular, TAPR identifiers and the equivalent identifiers for the Workforce Investment Act Standardized Record Data (WIASRD) report should be created in the same way, and the same identifier should refer to the same person in both systems.

A record should be opened whenever a participant enters the Trade Act system. At that time, the participant characteristics should be entered and the pre-program wage record data obtained. As the participant receives Trade Act benefits and services, those should be entered in his/her record. Finally, once the participant is determined to have exited, the outcomes data and post-program wage records should be obtained and entered. At this point, the record should be ready for submission to ETA.

TAPR data must now be submitted directly to ETA's Office of Technology and Information Services (OTIS). The submission process is a simple file transfer over the Internet. Detailed instructions are contained in the document entitled "Data Submission Instructions", which is attached.

While preparing reports for the original TAPR, some States encountered confusion about reporting data in Section II, Activity and Service Record, when the participant did not receive any training. For the revised TAPR, if a participant receives no training whatever, all of the training-related fields (field numbers II.1a through II.1j) must be reported as no data (two consecutive double quotes with nothing between - see instruction 2 above).

There are certain fields in the original TAPR that are much the same in the new TAPR but have been rearranged to match the WIASRD specifications. All data on new participants should be gathered according to the new TAPR specifications. However, for the first few quarters, existing TAPR data (original format) for client characteristics and benefits/services rendered will be used to prepare new reports with the new outcomes measures. In order to convert existing TAPR data into new TAPR data, the following conversions should be made:

Veteran Status:   1 in the original TAPR should be mapped to 2 in the new TAPR.

Highest School Grade Completed:   both 17 and 18 in the original TAPR should be mapped to 17 in the new TAPR. The indicator for GED or equivalent (88) is to be used for new participants, unless the difference between high school graduate and GED can easily be obtained from the original data.

Trade Readjustment Allowances:   4 in the original TAPR should be mapped to 0 in the new TAPR.

There are two fields where occupational codes are to be entered, and two associated fields where values from the occupational coding system are to be entered. All States should be moving as quickly as possible to the O*NET Version 3.0 occupational coding system. The other possible systems are included for backward compatibility and for use during the transition period.

O*NET replaces the DOT, and the eight-digit O*NET version 3.0 is the current version. States may no longer use the O*NET 98 code system. In addition, the OES system is being replaced by the Standard Occupational Code (SOC) system. The SOC value for a classification is the same as the first six digits of the O*NET 3.0 code system, so there is no need for a separate choice of SOC in the TAPR specifications.

States may obtain assistance on preparing and submitting TAPR reports through their Regional Office Trade Act representative, or by calling Curtis Kooser on (202) 693-3569 or e-mailing him at ckooser@doleta.gov. The National Office will implement a regular feedback system so that all of the Regional Office Trade Act representatives will be current on the status of TAPR reporting for their States. Regional Office Trade Act representatives will also receive quarterly summaries of the actual data from their respective States, along with the national summary. States will receive immediate feedback on their submissions through the Internet. For more details, see the attached document entitled Data Submission Instructions.