Let's dig a little deeper into some of the decisions you'll need to make as part of the transition. In this phase, you'll start planning for user support and thinking about how you want to make the best use of Clarity to meet your community's needs.
Actions
- Assign a key point of contact for providing end-user support and addressing issues
- Create procedures for problem resolution and support escalation.
- Ensure you have adequate resources (e.g., appropriate training for end users)
Happy users are the center of any successful software adoption. As you plan for your new system, consider the support your users will need to make this transition successfully. Work with your team to determine how you will provide:
- A help desk to address day-to-day user questions and issues
- Self-serve support, such as the Bitfocus Help Center, along with local workflow and policy instructions
- Training, including new user training, refresher training, role-specific, and topic-specific training
Worried about support capacity? Bitfocus can help! We offer help desk and training services and can work with you to build a package that meets your needs!
Resources
Actions
- Check with your privacy officer to determine if any revisions are needed to agreements or if new agreements need to be made
- Review your sharing agreements with providers and note any needed revisions
How (and whether) your community shares data has a big impact on how you’ll set up your system, so it’s not too early to start thinking about data sharing. Review the list below to ensure you understand your community's current data-sharing policies and practices. If you have a privacy officer, this is a great time to check with them!
- Client releases of information (ROI) and consent forms
- Memorandums of understanding (MOU) between the HMIS Lead entity and partner providers
- Contracts with funders who expect reports that include HMIS data
- Other local collaborative agreements that may address or set expectations around data sharing
Clarity Human Services provides flexible solutions for data sharing, and your Bitfocus onboarding team will help you configure Clarity to meet your community’s needs, but it’s important that you know what those needs are. Review the documents listed above to ensure you’re ready.
Resources
HUD HMIS Client Consent Form: Informed Consent Agreement (Sample)↗
Actions
- Assess your data quality and decide how far back to migrate
- Determine what data is critical to have available at go-live and what data can wait
- Review the HUD and Custom Migration Elements summary to understand what is included and excluded in the HUD Migration
The last step before onboarding starts is planning for the data you’d like to migrate from your legacy system to Clarity Human Services. Data migration happens in two phases:
- HUD Data Migration: This phase includes all data that are part of HUD’s data standards, such as enrollments, client demographics, and bed nights. This migration typically occurs before going live.
- Custom Data Migration: This phase includes all data that isn’t part of HUD’s data standards, such as most services, client notes, and client ROIs. This migration typically occurs after going live.
When thinking about data migration, consider the following:
- How far back do you need to go when migrating data? Do you know your data retention policy?
- What data is critical to have available at go-live with Clarity?
- Are you familiar with HUD data standards such that you understand what data is likely to be available at go-live? If not, our HUD Migration Elements Summary can be particularly useful
Resources
HUD and Custom Migration Elements↗
Actions
- Compare Clarity Human Services reports with needed reports
- Identify which reports are critical
- Identify custom reports needed
Getting your data into the system is only half of the project. Getting your data back out in the format and on the timeline you need is also critical. Ask yourself:
- What federal reports (APRs, System Performance Measures, LSA, CE APR, etc.) are due near my onboarding and go-live period? Will the data we need be available in Clarity, or will we need to pull reports from our legacy system?
- What local or regional funder reports are due near my onboarding and go-live period?
- What reports do we use regularly in our legacy system? Are there comparable reports available in the Clarity Report Library, or will we need to use Clarity Data Analysis Tools to build them?
Actions
- Review your community’s HMIS outage policy to determine your procedures for downtime
At the end of your onboarding with Bitfocus, you will undergo a “blackout” period. This is a period of 1-2 weeks immediately prior to your go-live date when your legacy data is being migrated into Clarity Human Services. During this period, you can no longer enter data into your legacy system and won’t yet be able to enter data into Clarity. The length of time for your blackout period will vary depending on how much data you are migrating from your legacy system.
Although your blackout period is still months away, it’s important to begin thinking about this downtime now. At a minimum, you should understand your community’s policies regarding HMIS outages. Don’t have a policy? Now’s a great time to put one in place!
Questions to consider:
- Will staff collect data on paper during the blackout period? The sample forms on our Help Center may help
- What’s the plan for entering manually collected data after the blackout period?
Resources
Head to Phase 5: Onboarding with Bitfocus
In Phase 5, you'll be working closely with your Bitfocus onboarding team as you configure your system and migrate your data.
GO TO PHASE 5