36 – 09/10/2012
Note that this date reflects when work on template version 36 was completed, not when this template version was actually released.  At the time this was written, it looked like template version 36 and Web Soil Survey 3.0 would be simultaneously released sometime in the first quarter of 2013.  Template version 36 is required for exports from Web Soil Survey 3.0.

Item:  The import process was updated to automatically import special feature descriptions, when available.

Item:  The main import process was updated to now verify that the data about to be imported is compatible with the SSURGO Template database into which that data is about to be imported.  In addition, a number of minor improvements to the main import process were also made.

Item:  The main import process was updated to now conditionally import the SSURGO metadata that is provided with every SSURGO export.  This metadata is now conditionally imported as part of the same process that imports the data for a survey area.

Item:  Tables “sdvattribute” and “SYSTEM – sdvattribute” were updated to reflect changes to parameters for what we refer to as the “aggregation engine”.  The aggregation engine is the part of Soil Data Viewer that, for a soil property or soil interpretation, derives a value to represent the map unit as a whole from that map unit’s constituent components.

Item:  Import specification “Sdvattribute Import Specification” was updated to reflect changes to tables “sdvattribute” and “System – sdvattribute”.

Item:  The following queries were updated to reflect changes to tables “sdvattribute” and “System – sdvattribute”:

SDV – sdvattribute – Append
SDV – sdvattribute – New Records
SDV – sdvattribute – Update
SDV – sdvattribute – Updated Records

35 – 07/13/2012
Item:  The template database was synchronized with NASIS data dictionary 6.2.7.  A number of additions and updates were made to existing domains.  The embedded data in the static metadata tables in a SSURGO template database was updated.  The corresponding SSURGO Static Metadata Version was updated to 2.2.6.  The "SSURGO Metadata Change History" section of report "How to Understand and Use this Database" was updated.

34 – 04/12/2011
Item:  The template database was synchronized with NASIS data dictionary 6.1.12.  A number of additions and updates were made to existing domains.  The embedded data in the static metadata tables in a SSURGO template database was updated.  The corresponding SSURGO Static Metadata Version was updated to 2.2.5.  The "SSURGO Metadata Change History" section of report "How to Understand and Use this Database" was updated.

33 - 10/17/2006
Item:  The template database was synchronized with NASIS data dictionary 5.3.2.  A number of additions and updates were made to existing domains.  The embedded data in the static metadata tables in a SSURGO template database was updated.  The corresponding SSURGO Static Metadata Version was updated to 2.2.2.  The "SSURGO Metadata Change History" section of report "How to Understand and Use this Database" was updated.

Item:  Report "Brief Map Unit Description" was renamed "Map Unit Description (Brief)".

Item:  Report "Map Unit Description (Brief, Generated)" was added.

Item:  Since the forestry soil interpretations were updated to be able to return "Not rated", like all other soil interpretations, since the last template database version, the same interp report templates and rating class name/rating value formatting logic is now used for all soil interpretation reports.  Prior to this change, the overall rating for miscellaneous area components in a forestry soil interpretation report was automatically set to "Not rated".  All interp report and subreport templates whose name ended with " - Old" were dropped.  The function named "FormattedInterpReasonOld" in the module named "Report Functions" was dropped.

Item:  The function named "FormattedInterpReason" in the module named "Report Functions" was updated to use the same logic that is currently used in NASIS soil interpretation reports, in order to display consistent results for the same data in both NASIS and a SSURGO template database.  A similar change was recently made in the Soil Data Mart.

Item:  Descriptions were added for the following reports:
Acreage and Proportionate Extent of the Soils
Acreage and Proportionate Extent of the Soils by County
Component Legend
Component Text
Map Unit Description (Brief)
Map Unit Legend
Map Unit Text
RUSLE2 Related Attributes
Selected Soil Interpretations
Selected Survey Area Interpretation Descriptions
Survey Area Data Summary

Item:  Function GetInterpReasons() was added.  This function returns a comma delimited list of the reasons for the corresponding overall interpretation result.  How many reasons should be included in the list is a parameter.

Item:  The font size of the narrative text in the following reports was changed from 8 point to 10 point:
Component Text
Map Unit Description (Brief)
Map Unit Description (Brief, Generated)
Map Unit Text

Item:  The template database change history was updated.

32 - 10/11/2005
06/12/2006 Item:  The unique constraint on column resultcolumnname was dropped for tables "sdvattribute" and "SYSTEM - sdvattribute".  We had dropped this constraint in the information system used to input and manage SDV rules, but had forgotten to also drop this constraint in the SSURGO template database.

Item:  The contents of tables "SYSTEM - Geomorphic Feature Type" and "SYSTEM - Geomorphic Feature" were updated on 07/27/2005.

Item:  The following sections in report "How to Understand and Use this Database" were updated:
General Information
Accessing an External Soil Database
Exporting Data
Soil Data Versioning
SSURGO Version
SSURGO Metadata Change History
Contacting Support

Item:  The SSURGO version was changed to 2.2, and the SSURGO metadata version was changed to 2.2.1.  SSURGO version 2.2 now includes five new Soil Data Viewer related tables: "month", "sdvalgorithm", "sdvattribute", "sdvfolder" and "sdvfolderattribute".  Soil Data Viewer related data will now be included in a SSURGO 2.2 export.  The following functions have been updated to account for this change:
Import from ASCII delimited files.
Export to ASCII delimited files.
Import from the tables in an external SSURGO template database.
Attach to the tables in an external SSURGO template database.

Item:  The version check made before importing data from ASCII files was modified to allow the import of any data in SSURGO 2.x format.  This means that the major version number is effectively redefined to mean that the only difference between subsequent subversions of the same major version is that data for additional tables may be provided.

Item:  The function to create data for WinPst was altered to set the high water table flag (water table depth to top less than or equal to two feet) only for apparent water tables.  Previously it was setting this flag for both perched and apparent water tables.

Item:  The following slew of report and report parameter related changes were made:

Report "Wind Erosion Prediction System Related Attributes" was added.

In the older paradigm interpretation reports, the phrase "Not Rated" was changed to "Not rated".

For both Rangeland Productivity reports, the Range Production column headings and units are now centered rather than right justified.

In report "Rangeland Productivity and Plant Composition", the line gap in the legend control break heading was closed.

Any disclaimer about a report including only major components now appears in the report's header text rather than in the report's page footer.

Report "Nontechnical Descriptions" was renamed to "Brief Map Unit Description".  Other aspects of this report and its related parameter form were updated in order to be consistent.

Report "Prime and other Important Farmlands" was renamed to "Prime and Other Important Farmlands".

The phrase "(includes Land Capability Classification)" was added to the end of the report name (but not the report title) of all crop yield reports.

All existing report narrative descriptions (aka "prewritten materials") were updated.

All report titles were moved back to the page header section of the report.  For some reports with variable length titles that could require more than one line, the report title had been moved to the legend group header.  When a person requested to include the description in such a report, no report title appeared on any of the pages containing the report description.

The Hydric Soils report was modified to always include the corresponding report description, regardless of whether or not the user requested it.  The report footer, which contains the report description, was also changed to start on a new page.  The part of the report description containing the hydric criteria codes always needed to be visible anyway.

The form title for all report parameter forms was shortened to something like "Select whatever".  I hadn't noticed that most of the previous form titles were being severely truncated.

In all report header text, the phrase "The table shows only the top five limitations for any given soil." was changed to "The columns that identify the rating class and limiting features show no more than five limitations for any given soil.".

In report "Water Features", column heading "Month" was changed to "Months" and column heading "Surface depth" was changed to "Surface water depth".

In report "Source of Sand and Gravel", all instances of column heading "Rating class and limiting features" were changed to "Rating class".

In report "Windbreaks and Environmental Plantings", the phrase "on the soil" was added to the end of the existing report header text.

In report "Engineering Properties", in the USDA Texture column, every texture phrase following the first is now in lower case.

In report "Taxonomic Classification of the Soils" the report header text now includes the phrase about taxadjuncts only when the corresponding report include one or more taxadjuncts.

In report "Rangeland Productivity and Plant Composition", all instances of unit of measure abbreviation "Lb/Ac" were changed to "Lb/ac".

In report "Brief Map Unit Description" a text category group header section was added.  In reports "Component Text" and "Map Unit Text", a text kind/text category group header section was added.  This was done so that the text kind and category information would be repeated across a page break that occurs in the middle of a text entry.

In the report parameter form for selecting soil interpretations, the source query was changed to no longer include "class" type soil interpretations.  Such an interpretation should never appear in a traditional soil interpretation report.

For any report that requires one or more map units to be selected prior to report generation, when such a report requires that additional parameters be selected at run time, that list of parameters will now be constrained by which map units are currently selected.  This change affects the following reports:
All 3 component crop yield reports.
All 3 map unit crop yield reports.
Component Text
Map Unit Text
Brief Map Unit Description

The list of crop parameters for a crop yield report is now sensitive to whether the corresponding report includes only irrigated yields, includes only nonirrigated yields or includes both irrigated and nonirrigated yields.

Reports now assume that the source of all data is the Soil Data Mart.  All reports and report parameter forms were updated to no longer depend on any of the now obsolete distribution metadata tables.  The following reports, which were based on data in the now obsolete distribution metadata tables, were dropped:
Dynamic Metadata - Import Information
Dynamic Metadata - Soil Interpretation Descriptions

Report page footers now display survey area version and date rather than tabular data version and date.

The entire scheme for what property "keep together" should be set to, for report sections and groups, was rethought and implemented.  Certain reports were going into infinite loops because the "keep together" property for the group that included the detail section would be set to "with first detail" and the "keep together" property for the detail section would be set to "yes".  The infinite loop occurred when a report encountered data where the detail section for a given record didn't fit on a single page.  As far as I'm concerned, this is an Access bug.  The "keep together" property for a detail section is now set to "yes" only for a few special cases where there is a reason that we don't want the detail section to split across a page, and in each of these cases we know that the detail section will always fit on page.

31 - 08/27/2004
Item:  Reports containing soil component level information, with the exception of the Hydric Soils report, now have the option to either include or exclude minor components.  Note that this option is displayed for all soil reports, regardless of whether or not the option pertains to the report that is currently selected.  Report page footers now indicate when minor components have been excluded from a report.

Note:  In general, main report queries and subqueries and subreport queries and subqueries include the logic for including/excluding minor components.  I had to remove this logic from the interp rating subquries and interp reason subqueries because performance was severely impacted.  Having this logic in the main report query is generally sufficient.  I had thought that having the same logic in subqueries would improve performance in general.  The problem appears to arise when other conditions exist in the subquery, where each of those conditions has to be duplicated due to the "or" logic required for including/excluding minor components.

Item:  Column "surface runoff" was added to the Water Features report.  The report end notes were updated to reflect this change.

Item:  Soil report names in the list of available soil reports are now sorted alphabetically.  Column [System - Soil Reports].[Report Sequence] was left in the database but is no longer used.  This column is no longer required, and its corresponding unique constraint was dropped.

Item:  The "Importing Data" section of report "How to Understand and Use this Database" was updated.  The instructions displayed in forms "Import" and "Import Feature Descriptions" were modified.

Item:  The Prime Farmland report was modified and is now known as the Prime and other Important Farmlands report.  In addition to map units representing various kinds of prime farmland, this report now also includes map units whose farmland classification is either "unique farmland", "farmland of statewide importance" or "farmland of local importance".  Report formatting and sorting were changed.

Item:  For all soil reports, main report names were changed to be consistent with the report names displayed in the soil reports dropdown list.  For all soil reports, also changed reports so that the caption in the report viewer window is consistent with either the name displayed in the soil reports dropdown list, or is consistent with the report title specified by the user at run time (for those few reports whose title can be specified by the user), regardless of what the corresponding MS Access report is currently named.  The report viewer window, by default, displays the MS Access report name, and the MS Access report names had gotten pretty out of sync with the names displayed in the soil reports dropdown list.

Item:  All soil reports (but not system reports) were modified to always retrieve their title and header text (all or base header text) from the "SYSTEM - Soil Reports" table.  Related function nomenclature and use was standardized.  Functions "GetInterpReportHeaderText" and "GetInterpReportTitle" were superseded by "GetDefaultReportHeaderText" and "GetDefaultReportTitle", respectively, but were left in the database for backwards compatibility in case any state customized databases reference them.

Item:  The existing constraint on mustat