One process Jon has supported at the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) is that of Global Agricultural Information Network (GAIN) reporting. FAS posts agricultural attachés in 100 or so countries; there they report on their host country’s agricultural situation.

The primary GAIN reporting tool is a set of Microsoft Word templates. Embedded in the templates are VBA macros which present a “wizard” the user follows to complete fields with information specific to the report. The wizard then prints the information from the completed fields onto the report’s cover page and tags it invisibly so that when the report is submitted, a server application can extract the information and insert it into a SYBASE database.

A related application, GAIN INI Builder, is a small Visual Basic 6.0 application that modifies an initialization file used by the GAIN Cover Page Wizard to tailor its forms to a specific post.