Phase 2: Plan Your Project & Set Goals

Actions

• Review current participation in HMIS
• Review your data quality and identify common areas of concern
• Explore current reporting tools and identify reporting priorities

Understanding your legacy system helps shape how you move forward with Clarity Human Services. Consider the following as you plan your project:

• Participation: Who participates and who doesn’t participate in your HMIS? Will that change when you adopt Clarity Human Services?
• Workflows: What workflows are currently supported in your legacy system? Will these workflows need to be replicated in Clarity? Are improvement or increased efficiency a priority for you?
• Coordinated Entry: Is coordinated entry integrated into your HMIS? Would you like it to be?
• Data Quality: What data quality issues exist in your HMIS? What data quality issues do you want to be sure to prevent in your new HMIS?
• Local Reporting Needs: What critical local reporting needs do you have, and how quickly will you need to produce these data from Clarity?
• Trouble Spots: What challenges do you currently experience with your HMIS? What are you expecting to address by switching to Clarity?

The answers to these questions will shape your goals and plans as you move toward using Clarity Human Services.

Actions

• Review Coordinated Entry, Outreach and INVENTORY functionality
• Request product demos
• Determine if additional Bitfocus support is needed to implement Coordinated Entry, Outreach or INVENTORY

Clarity provides many tools to support your homelessness response system. In addition to meeting the needs of shelter, housing, case management, and many other workflows, Clarity offers robust tools for:

• Coordinated entry, including assessor, matchmaker, and provider workflows
• Street outreach and encampment management
• Bed and unit inventory

Explore our overview documents for Coordinated Entry, Outreach, and INVENTORY and decide how these tools fit into your HMIS plans.

Resources

Coordinated Entry in Clarity↗

Clarity Outreach↗

Clarity INVENTORY↗

Actions

• Determine tentative go-live date
• Identify measurable goals and complete goal-setting worksheet
• Discuss timeline needs for implementation:
  • Should functionality be in place for Go-Live?
  • What resources are available for implementation? 
  • What support does the community require from Bitfocus?

Now that your team is established and you understand your needs for your new system, it’s time to set your goals and create the project plan that will get you there.

Goals will help you stay focused on what you want to achieve. Begin by setting goals for your project. Our Goal Setting Worksheet can help you set measurable goals and identify steps needed to achieve your goals.

A project plan contains all the steps necessary to achieve your goals. Once you’ve set your goals, build out a project plan using our Sample Project Plan spreadsheet as a guide. The spreadsheet includes all the steps mentioned here, along with timelines and key considerations. A solid project plan will help you move easily through the remaining steps outlined here.

Resources

Goal Setting Worksheet↗

Go-Live Date Calculation Worksheet↗

Sample Project Plan↗