Introduction to System Administration Abram L. Hillson, New Jersey HMIS Collaborative Project Manager David Canavan, Canavan Associates Victoria Freeman,

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, 2005St. Louis, Missouri

Sponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

New HMIS System Administrators: Implementation and Rollout



Abram L. HillsonNew Jersey HMIS Collaborative Project ManagerNew Jersey Housing Mortgage Finance Agency

September 13-14, 2005 St. Louis, MissouriSponsored by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development

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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


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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.


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INTER-AGENCY COORDINATION NJ Statewide

HMIS Collaborative

Steering Committee(HMFA, DCA, DHS)

HMIS Project Staff

Project DirectorProject Manager

Business Process ManagerTechnical Assistant ITechnical Assistant IITechnical Assistant III

Project Assistant

NJ Statewide HMISCollaborative

Advisory Council(2 Representatives fromeach participating CoC)

HMIS Sub-committeeHMIS Sub-committee

HMIS Sub-committee

HMIS Sub-committee

HMIS Sub-committee

HMIS Sub-committee HMIS Sub-committee

HMIS Sub-committee

HMIS Sub-committee

HMIS Sub-committee HMIS Sub-committee

HMIS Sub-committee

HMIS Sub-committee

HMIS Sub-committee

HMIS Sub-committee HMIS Sub-committeeHMIS Sub-committee

AtlanticCoC

BurlingtonCoC

CamdenCoC

Cape MayCoC

CumberlandCoC

EssexCoC

GloucesterCoC

HudsonCoC

MercerCoC

MiddlesexCoC

MonmouthCoC

OceanCoC

PassaicCoC

SomersetCoC

SussexCoC

UnionCoC

WarrenCoC

MorrisCoC

SalamCoC

HMIS Sub-committeeHMIS Sub-committee


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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


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• 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


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Sep-04 Jan-05 May-05 Sep-05 Jan-06 Apr-06

CoC Names# of

Agencies Users Total

Agencies

# of Agencies

# of Users

# of Agencies

# of Users

# of Agencies # of Users

# of Agencies

# of Users

# of Agencies

# of Users

# of Agencies

# of Users

Atlantic 6 30 3 15 2 10 1 5 6Burlington 10 45 3 10 3 15 3 15 1 5 10Camden 24 95 4 20 6 25 2 10 1 5 5 20 6 15 24Cape May 5 25 3 15 2 10 5Cumberland 4 20 2 10 1 5 1 5 4Essex 61 200 7 30 18 50 17 50 11 40 8 30 61Gloucester 11 50 3 15 6 25 2 10 11Hudson 25 100 2 10 2 10 2 10 6 30 13 40 25Mercer 23 100 5 25 9 30 6 30 3 15 23Middlesex 9 45 3 15 3 15 3 15 9Monmouth 20 100 4 20 3 15 5 25 8 40 20Morris 10 50 5 25 3 15 2 10 10Ocean 15 75 6 30 1 5 4 20 4 20 15Passaic 24 120 3 15 1 5 4 20 7 35 8 40 1 5 24Somerset 14 60 3 15 6 25 5 20 14Salem 4 20 2 10 2 10 4Sussex 7 20 6 15 1 5 7Union 18 90 6 30 2 10 5 25 5 25 18Warren 6 30 1 5 4 20 1 5 6

TOTALS > 296 1275 15 75 33 150 60 245 79 335 86 380 23 90 296

Phase III Phase IV

YEAR TWO DEPLOYMENT

Phase V Phase VI

PILOT YEAR ONE DEPLOYMENT

Phase I Phase II


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BUILDING BUY IN

Economy of scale

Decreased fragmentation

Aggregate data (state & agency)

State & regional data collection & planning tool

Evaluation (outcome measures)

Social capital


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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


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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


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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


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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



David CanavanDavid Canavan Associates


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Negotiating With Vendors

• Establish goals well ahead of time

• Build contract incentives in for vendor


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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?


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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 FreemanSystem Administrator, Chattanooga Regional Homeless

Coalition




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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


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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


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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]


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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


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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


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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)


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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


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Reporting, Quality, TroubleshootingCont’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


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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


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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


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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!

Documents

Introduction to System Administration Abram L. Hillson, New Jersey HMIS Collaborative Project Manager David Canavan, Canavan Associates Victoria Freeman,