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Firstly, it is important to explain what this manual is not.
- It is not a step-by-step guide to creating an ALMA proposal and/or observing program. Especially for inexperienced users, such a step-by-step guide to proposal creation is available in the form of the OT Quick Start Guide, which can be obtained either through the OT's internal help system or through the ALMA Science Portal. Observing programs are not intended to be created by normal users and therefore a Phase-2 counterpart does not exist.
- This manual is also not designed to describe everything that can be possibly be done with the OT, and in particular does not give an explanation of what each and every entry field in the OT does. If this is desired, then the OT Reference Manual should be consulted.
- Detailed technical information about ALMA is also not provided although, particularly with regard to the tuning and correlator setups, the basics are covered. The ALMA Technical Handbook is highly recommended for those users who want to know, well, everything.
Instead, this manual attempts to give an overview of what is possible with the OT, without going in to the kinds of detail covered in the resources mentioned above. Therefore, Phase-1 proposals are described in terms of their main components, their purpose and what kind of information should be entered. Where detail is given, it generally covers aspects of the OT that are not obvious. A list of acronyms (Appendix B) may prove useful.
Users who are completely unfamiliar with the OT are recommended to read the following chapters: Chapter 2 provides information about how to install, configure and run the Observing Tool, Chapter 3 describes the main components of an observing proposal and program, and Chapter 4 provides a general overview of the OT.
In order to create a Phase-1 proposal, all the essential information is covered in Chapter 5 - this describes the process in some detail and should be read by all users. Complementary to this is Chapter 7 which describes various OT tools and Chapters 8 and 9 that give detailed information on how to use the visual spatial and spectral editors.
Phase-2 programs are covered in Chapter 6 where this essentially means Scheduling Blocks. It is not envisaged that PIs will ever be involved with editing the contents of SBs, let alone create them manually, and this chapter therefore remains only or practical interest to observatory staff.
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The ALMA OT Team, 2017 Dec 18