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New York State Pesticide Reporting Law

Identity File — Creation and File Specification

The Identity File contains contact and identifying information that is important for properly processing an electronic PRL submission. This document describes the content and format for an identity file.

If you use the free PRL Reporting Software Options A, B, or C (version 6 or later) to upload your report files directly to our server or upload your report through the web site, the Identity information is automatically included in your submission. For other methods of submitting your report, such as email, you must include a separate Identity file. Some software tools for entering PRL data might create an Identity file for you, but you can also create the Identity file yourself if necessary. Use any text editor, such as Notepad, to create the file. Do not use Word, WordPad, or other word processing software, which include special formatting marks.

The Identity file is a simple one-line text file. It should be given the name “identity.txt”. For convenience, store the file in the same folder as the associated report files. The only line in the identity file is constructed as:

There are 13 fields in the identity record plus an optional record terminator. The fields are separated by a “pipe” (aka vertical bar) character: |. Tabs are also acceptable. Several of the fields are required (Phone, Contact Name, Email). You should include at least one of Business Number, Cert ID, or Sales Permit Number. Applicator Name is required only if Cert ID is included; use the same name as provided on the license indicated by Cert ID. If you leave any of the optional fields empty, you must still include the “pipe”s.

The 13 fields, in order, are:

1. BusinessName: (Optional) The name of the pesticide business
2. BusinessNumber: (Optional) The Business Registration Number assigned to the pesticide business by the DEC; a five-digit number.
3. CertID: (Optional) The certification id of a certified applicator or technician, an initial letter (B, C, or T) followed by 7 digits. If included in the identity file, the report should also include either a Form 26 (Pesticide Applications) or Form 26A (List of Applicators) or both. If you are reporting for more than one applicator, it does not matter which applicator is shown in the identity file; list all applicators in the Form 26A file.
4. SalesPermitNumber: (Optional) The company’s Commercial Sales Permit Number, if any. This number is assigned by the DEC and is an R followed by five digits. Most pesticide businesses do not have a Commercial Sales Permit and should leave this field empty. If a Sales Permit Number is entered here, the report must contain either a Form 25 or a Form 27 or both.
5. Phone: (Required) Telephone number at which the submitter can be contacted, in case we have any questions about your report.
6. ContactName: (Required) Name of the person submitting the report or the person we should contact if we have any questions about the report.
7. F26, F26A, F27, F25: (Optional) These four fields can be used to indicate which PRL forms are included in your submission. Enter a 0 if the form is not included or a 1 (or the number of form files of that type) if the form is included.
8. UniqueID: (Optional) Business Number, Certification ID, Commercial Sales Permit Number, or a combination of whichever of those entries are not empty. You can safely leave this field empty; we will update it as needed when we process your submission.
9. ApplicatorName: (Required if the Cert ID field is not empty.) If an applicator’s certification id is in the CertID field, put the applicator’s name here.
10. Email: (Required) The email address we should use to contact you about your report.
11. EndOfIdentity: (Optional) “EndOfIdentity” was used in prior versions of the software and some third-party software to mark the end of an identity record. It is no longer needed but does no harm if included.

For example, an identity file might look like: