In this Issue
Insights from the Industry
Housing and Homelessness
In December 2017, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) released the Longitudinal System Analysis (LSA) to software vendors. The LSA significantly expands the scope of the Annual Homeless Assessment Report (AHAR) and is set to begin with the 2018 submission. The Mediware Housing and Community Services team is participating in the review process and will provide feedback to HUD. We will keep you updated as more information becomes available.
HUD also released updated System Performance Measure (SPM) Programming Specifications to all software vendors in late January. Updated SPM reports will be available in the ART Gallery no later than March 1st.
Information and Referral
The 40th Annual AIRS I&R Training and Education Conference will take place June 3 – 6 in Dallas, TX. Conference organizers are currently collecting presentation and workshop proposals. We want to partner with you! In past years, Mediware has partnered with our customers to co-present such sessions as Coordinated Entry, Mobile I&R Apps and Repurposing and Reusing Resource Data. Send your session ideas to deb.petty@mediware.com. The deadline for submission is February 16th, 2018, so submit your ideas soon!
Development Team Updates
Our Development Team has now completed four Sprints and are increasing their velocity with every cycle. We have added two Developers to the ServicePoint 6 team this past month, as well as a User Interface/User Experience Specialist.
ServicePoint 6
Progress continues with ServicePoint 6! Development is currently focused in the following areas:
- Workflows
- Conditional Logic on Forms
- Form Linkage to Entry/Exit
- Completing Core "ClientPoint" features
This list includes some of our newest features that we will focus on during our ServicePoint 6 Boot Camp training sessions in May.
We are seeking volunteers to provide feedback on SP6 beginning in March. If you would like to participate, please send an email to sp6feedback@mediware.com by February 16th. We are seeking participants from all sizes of implementations. Space will be limited during the March feedback period, so please submit your request to participate soon!
We are not yet able to confirm an exact timeline for releasing ServicePoint 6. However, with each Sprint we are able to gauge our velocity with increasing reliability. We plan to begin work on Qlik Sense integration into ServicePoint 6 in March and plan to begin work on ShelterPoint features in April. We look forward to incorporating user feedback from the March feedback session as soon as possible. Stay tuned each month for more updates!
Lessons from the Experts: Upcoming Qlik Sense Coffee Call
We released a ServicePoint 5 Qlik Sense update on Friday, January 26th, which included Household and Household Relationship objects, inactive record filters and more. Our next Qlik Sense release for ServicePoint 5 is expected in late February. We intend to include a more user-friendly format for Assessment and Sub-Assessment objects; Assessment values at various points in time; and appropriately linked Worksheet Question responses to their respective record types.
We are pleased to announce a Qlik Sense Coffee Call will be held on March 7th, 2018. Stay tuned to learn more about the newest features directly from our experts. Look for more information in your inbox soon!
We are in the process of updating the 0628 HIC Supplement and the 0706 Permanent Housing Placement-Retention reports. We will send an announcement once the revised versions are available in your ART Gallery.
Please note that all reports reflecting the changes in the 2017 HMIS Data Standard will be released on or before March 1, 2018.
Did you know that our Client Service team offers more than training? From developing Coordinated Entry workflows to programming your Eligibility Module formulas, our team can provide both onsite and remote consultation services. Contact your Customer Care Analyst for more information.
Customer Spotlight: How one organization gets the most from ServicePoint
This month, we would like to spotlight the Volunteers of America North Louisiana. This organization provides a wide array of supportive services to more than 7,000 children, families, people with disabilities, veterans and seniors. Initially using ServicePoint only for their homeless programs, the Volunteers of America North Louisiana has now fully integrated our software across all its programs and utilizes a variety of ServicePoint tools, including the Medicaid billing module. Learn more about this incredible organization and how ServicePoint has helped to improve and expand the work that they do here.
We want to spotlight you! Have you integrated an innovative project in ServicePoint? Are you expanding the use of ServicePoint to nontraditional programs throughout your community? Are you using ServicePoint in new and inventive ways? Email your story to john.wolf@mediware.com!
Check us out on Facebook and LinkedIn where you can read other great success stories from housing and community services organizations across the USA and catch up on the latest from your team at Mediware.
2018 Mediware Boot Camp
The 2018 Mediware Boot Camp is right around the corner! Join us May 15 and 16 for two full days of training, collaboration and fun at the AT&T Conference Center in Austin, TX. Sessions will be focused on ServicePoint 6, Qlik Sense and Spero. Registration details are coming soon. We hope to see you there!
AIRS I&R& Training and Education Conference
Visit us at booth 500 and 501 during the 40th Annual AIRS I&R Training and Education Conference. New for 2018, Mediware will host a special Mediware/ServicePoint User Group meeting! Join us on Sunday, June 3 at 9:00 AM for a day of product training and workgroup discussions.
Tips & Tricks: Inactivating a Provider
Do you have Providers in your ServicePoint site who have become "inactive", meaning they are no longer Providing services? Here are the best practices straight from the experts at Housing and Community Services:
- Enter an End Date for all transactions associated with this Provider, including Entry/Exits, Needs, Services and Referrals.
- Implement a standard naming convention to assist End Users in recognizing inactive Providers. We suggest adding the prefix "ZZ" or "ZZ_" in front of the Provider Name. This has the dual benefit of being easily identifiable, and moves the inactive Provider to the bottom of the list in report prompts. The Provider Name field is located in Provider Admin.
- In Provider Admin, un-check the boxes for "Operational" and "Uses ServicePoint".
- Also in Provider Admin, enter an Operating End Date, a CoC Code End Date, Bed and Unit Inventory End Dates and Federal Partner End Dates, as applicable.
- If there are subordinate Providers associated with the inactive Provider who are also inactive, you can repeat these steps for those Providers as well.
