Introduction to System Administration Abram L. Hillson, New Jersey HMIS Collaborative Project Manager David Canavan, Canavan Associates Victoria Freeman, Chattanooga Regional Homeless Coalition September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

New HMIS System Administrators: Implementation and Rollout September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Abram L. Hillson New Jersey HMIS Collaborative Project Manager New Jersey Housing Mortgage Finance Agency

September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 3 Implementation and Rollout Presentation Overview · Identifying strategic partners—finding the right person at each level · Inter-agency coordination · Striking the balance between technical content and non- technical content · Creating rollout plans · Building buy-in · Tasks involved in implementing new agencies · Initial training · Preparing for unexpected issues · Issues affecting large and small implementations

September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 4 Implementation and Rollout IDENTIFYING STRATEGIC PARTNERS The New Jersey Statewide Homeless Management Information (NJHMIS) Collaborative is a unique technology partnership between state agencies and local communities New Jersey Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency (HMFA) New Jersey Department of Human Services (DHS) New Jersey Department of Community Affairs (DCA) 19 Continuum of Care (CoC) local homeless planning communities.

September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 5 Implementation and Rollout INTER-AGENCY COORDINATION

September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 6 Implementation and Rollout BALANCE BETWEEN TECHNICAL & NON-TECHNICAL CONTENT Establish clear and open forums of communication that clarify the HMIS software functionality Keep the channels open so providers have a platform to ask technical questions Make sure you and your staff realize the not all users are technically literate

September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 7 Implementation and Rollout CREATING ROLLOUT PLANS Determining how many agencies are involved in your rollout Determine a realistic set of deliverables/timetables and available resources, and evaluation process Develop your implementation rollout plan

September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 8 Implementation and Rollout

September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 9 Implementation and Rollout BUILDING BUY IN Economy of scale Decreased fragmentation Aggregate data (state & agency) State & regional data collection & planning tool Evaluation (outcome measures) Social capital

September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 10 Implementation and Rollout TASK INVOLVED IN IMPLMENTING NEW AGENCIES Provide agency executives with project objective and their roles and responsibilities Provide a pre-implementation orientation for agencies executives and their site administrators Allow enough time between the orientation and your actual training

September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 11 Implementation and Rollout INITIAL TRAINING Train the trainer model Provide clear and understandable policies and procedures Provide training on privacy and security Provide agencies with a post training implementation schedule to follow

September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 12 Implementation and Rollout PREPARING FOR UNEXPECTED ISSUES Be pro-active and perform a follow up visit Monitor the quality of the data being entered Have a well trained and knowledgeable staff

September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 13 Implementation and Rollout ISSUES AFFECTING LARGE and SMALL IMPLEMENTATIONS Implementing a standard data collection concept Personnel turnover Resources to enter data Privacy issues Training Making adjustment (being flexible)

Negotiating With Vendors September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development David Canavan David Canavan Associates

September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 15 Negotiating With Vendors Establish goals well ahead of time Build contract incentives in for vendor

September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 16 Establishing System Goals System Availability? How long can the community afford for the system to be unavailable? Technical Support? How quickly should the vendor get back to you? Issue Escalation? When does your issue become top priority? Upgrades? Are they included in the cost?

September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 17 Build Contract Incentives in for Vendor Identify down time limits Resolution timelines for bugs/problem functionality Build an official deliverable acceptance process Obtain written commitments from the vendor for delivery dates Distribute payments across life of contract Ensure that data can be exported from the system in the event of separation

HMIS Administrator Thoughts & Tips Victoria Freeman System Administrator, Chattanooga Regional Homeless Coalition September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 19 Presentation Overview Topics Software Vendor Support Provider Set-up Training / Work Flow Monitoring & Maintenance Reporting Quality Control Troubleshooting General Administration HMIS Specific Notes Final Thought

September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 20 Software Vendor Support Critical Issues: Knowledgeable support staff Work with the same support person as much as possible Do’s & Don’t’s: Don’t be afraid to ask about your primary support person’s experience Do make a good effort to troubleshoot a problem before contacting software support - you will learn a lot more that way Red Flag: If your support person sounds like they are just giving “textbook” answers to your questions, beware - your support person should know the system well enough to go beyond what is in a book

September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 21 Provider Set-up Critical Issues: Business agreements, confidentiality agreements and end-user agreements Initial training Do’s & “Don't’s: Do establish procedures and policies (related to data entry, confidentiality and agency responsibilities) before implementation [This is a good reality check for the agencies because it forces them to think about what their participation in the HMIS will involve; It also prevents any misunderstanding of what is expected of participating agencies]

September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 22 Training / Work Flow Critical Issues: User training Who provides the training / consistency in training Do’s & “Don’t’s: Don’t let a user on system without training Do provide training on how the HMIS works and how the information/data entry flows (instead of just giving step-by-step instructions to complete a task) Do tell the user which data fields you require them to complete (and why such data is important) Do get to know providers/end users and their work flow

September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 23 Training / Work Flow (cont’d) “Do”s & “Don’t”s (cont’d): Do get a copy of the provider intake form Do develop a consistent way to evaluate intake forms Don’t make custom assessments if you can avoid it (any system customization only complicates your support and ultimately lowers the quality of your customer support) Do be patient - some people get very nervous and anxious about working on computers

September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 24 Monitoring & Maintenance Critical Issues: Detailed monitoring of data entered by new users soon after implementation (within week after implementation) Routine contact with users Do’s & Don’t’s: Do plan to provide training on a periodic basis Do ask user how they enter their data so you can learn about the questions they are afraid to ask Do run periodic reports to find incorrectly entered data Don’t have unused licenses (this could add to your HMIS cost)

September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 25 Reporting, Quality, Troubleshooting Critical Issues: Universal Data Elements Data mapping Training site Do’s & Don’t’s: Do run a periodic report on the universal data elements to see if users are entering required data Do learn the data mapping of your database - It is critical to generating accurate reports and is helpful when troubleshooting

September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 26 Reporting, Quality, Troubleshooting Cont’d Do’s & Don’t’s (cont’d): Do make sure you fully understand a user’s needs before making a custom report - a standard report may be sufficient Do use a training site (if available) to help you train and troubleshoot

September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 27 General Administration Critical Issues: User groups Agency administrators Do’s & Don’t’s: Do carefully plan the purpose and format of user group meetings if you decide to have them Do maintain tight control over the scope of administration function at the agency level Do make sure you are accessible to the users, agency administration and management Do promote your HMIS and demonstrate it to non-users Do participate in HMIS studies

September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 28 HMIS-specific Notes If the question on a ServicePoint form has answers that may change with time and need to be reported on, make it a sub-assessment If you have providers that use ‘other’ in the goals section to get to case notes, you can go in and delete those goals after time so they do not accumulate too much

September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, Missouri Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development 29 Final Thought Be the master of your HMIS. Know it from the bottom up and treat your users with compassion and understanding. You will be a dynamite System Administrator!