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Create and manage VPATs in AMP

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What's a VPAT?

A Voluntary Product Accessibility Template, or VPAT, is a tool used to document a product's conformance with the accessibility standards under Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. The purpose of the VPAT is to help Federal contracting officials and other buyers in making preliminary assessments regarding the availability of commercial electronic products and services with accessible features. VPATs are used by buyers to determine how accessible a product is and where any potential deficiencies are. They are required by some buyers before a purchase is made.

One way to expose accessibility features of your product is to create a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) to detail how you comply with the federal Section 508 standards. This way, you save valuable research time for interested agencies, and get much closer to sell your product to companies and government agencies who require accessibility. While VPATs are currently used to describe Section 508 compliance, any accessibility standards and guidelines, such as WCAG can be applied in a similar format to the VPAT.

Create a VPAT in AMP

Organization Administrators have the ability to easily create and publish a Voluntary Product Accessibility Template (VPAT) based off of AMP Reports. This is especially important for organizations who are selling software to the Federal Government. This streamlines the process of creating, editing and publishing a VPAT directly through the AMP interface. Users can now select one or more reports from their project to roll into a VPAT.

Follow these steps to create a VPAT:

  1. Navigate to the project dashboard that houses the report or reports that you would like to include in a VPAT.
  2. Check off the report(s) you would like to include in the VPAT and select the 'Create VPAT' bulk action button.
  3. Choose VPAT name and select 'Make it Happen' in the resulting dialog box. (Note: you will not be able to publish your VPAT until you publish the reports that are included in it.)
  4. The resulting dialog box will allow you to edit the VPAT to include the support level supported and remarks and explanations regarding the standards and laws included in the VPAT.

Edit VPATs

  1. Navigate to the Project that contains the VPAT.
  2. Select the 'VPATs' navigation tab.
  3. Select the VPAT you would like to edit.

Publish a VPAT

To publish your VPAT, follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to the Project that contains the VPAT.
  2. Select the 'VPATs' navigation tab.
  3. Select the VPAT you would like to publish.
  4. Select the 'Permissions' action icon that is visually represented as a padlock (it is located in the upper-right hand portion of the VPAT)
  5. Select 'Show Advanced' and check off the 'Publish this report' checkbox.
  6. Select 'Submit.'

This will publish your VPAT. If a VPAT is published, you should see the word 'Published' below the 'VPAT Details' box. You are able to change what you would like even after the VPAT is published. 

Delete a VPAT

  1. Navigate to the Project that contains the VPAT.
  2. Select the 'VPATs' navigation tab.
  3. Use the 'Delete VPAT' action Icon or select the checkbox next to the VPAT you would like to delete and select the 'Delete VPATs' bulk action icon.

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