BoS User and Agency Admin: 11/19/15
Please remember to enter the Audio PIN if dialing-in by telephone!
Welcome – New Users in the Meeting
NEW HOT TOPICS
December Meeting – Poll (None, Thursday the 17th, or Wednesday the 30th)
VOTE: None
Report Cards & Data Quality
We are going to make a strong effort to provide additional data quality & ART support via this monthly meeting. Every month we will focus
on a new area needing improvement, how the information applies to you, how to run the report(s) to correct nulls, etc. This month we are
going to go over the report cards and how this applies to your community in developing a data quality plan.
(Handouts: Discharge Destination)
System Upgrades: 5.12.4 (RHY Export) and 5.12.5
 RHY Export Feature Now Available in ServicePoint.
The upgrade to ServicePoint 5.12.4 was successful. This upgrade introduced the ability for grantees to export their data from
ServicePoint. Details on the export process (including screenshots) are available in the ServicePoint 5.12.4 Release Notes.
Attached to Minutes.
 Importing the Data
Login details will soon be sent by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) to all of the RHY grantee authorized representatives.
Using this information, grantees will be able to log in to the RHY upload portal. Once inside, grantees will be able to follow the
steps AIR demonstrated in the "Learning to Upload RHYMIS Data" webinar conducted on October 29, 2015. A video recording of
this webinar and a user manual are available on the www.RHYTTAC.net website.
Server Reconfiguration: To improve ART Performance, Bowman recently moved our application programming to the very large fancy
Server we purchased last year. This allows Bowman to move ART to the upgraded Server formally used for the Application. Initial testing
of this plan indicates we gain substantially in reduced rebuild time and they even believe that reports will return more crisply. As with all
changes, there may be some initial transition issues. We will be monitoring this change.
MCAH Help Desk Coverage: MCAH’s helpdesk will be closed on November 26th & 27th. If there is an urgent matter, please follow the
prompts on the MCAH Help Desk line, and your call will be routed accordingly.
Coverage Exercise: Please plan to review your Coverage in either December or January. This year for the Annual Count, we are asking
all CoCs to complete this process. This will also allow you to evaluate how your clients are flowing through your Coordinated Assessment
Programs. GET IT ON YOUR COC AGENDAs ASAP. See instructions in the addendum below. We have attached the Form developed
for this process. (Handouts: Coverage Exercise Worksheet)
2015 Policies and Procedures: The final version was emailed along with the October meeting minutes. Remember to review these with
your CoC. These represent the minimal standards or operation. Your CoC may elect to implement stricter Standards.
New MSHMIS Release of Information designed to accomplish the following: Jill Shoemaker and Andrea Kuhn will present and
provided an overview of the document.
2015 Assessment Revisions:
 Replacement of Chronically Homeless Questions. New Chronic questions and supporting instructions have been added to all
of the MCAH managed assessments. Questions must be asked as stated in the assessment. A MANDATORY chronically
homeless training is available on the MCAH website and was to have been completed by Oct.1st.
 Updated guidelines – Do not skip questions.
BOS (Balance of State) Data Quality Project Stipends: Stipend checks will go out by the end of November, to those who completed the
required reporting process.
Emergency Shelter Contact List:
We are in the process of pulling together an emergency shelter contact list for MDHHS. This information was requested for a variety of
reasons. First and foremost, MDHHS plans to use the information to assess the gaps in shelter. They also plan to offer training
opportunities and standards for sheltering which they plan to make available to all shelters (not just those funded by MDHHS). The
information used to populate the initial contact list was gathered from HMIS. Unfortunately, several key pieces of data were either missing
and/or out-of-date. An email went out on November 5th asking all System Administrators to review the list and update their information. We
received overwhelming response and would like to thank those of you that took the time to review/update your information. If you have not
yet done so, please review that email and get your changes to Shanna Cherubini (scherubini@mihomeless.org) ASAP.
AHAR News and Updates:
o HUD/ABT Has Moved the final submission deadline back to December 23rd: This deadline encompasses data for both the all
persons categories and the veterans categories. The draft submission deadline remains December 2nd for all persons and veterans
informations.
o The corrected AHAR Export function will be available in ServicePoint 5.12.5: Bowman has informed us that the corrected
version of the AHAR Export function (which includes the age category corrections), will be available in ServicePoint 5.12.5. We are
currently awaiting word from Bowman on a final release date for it. Watch System News for information on the upgrade schedule
when Bowman informs us that 5.12.5 will be available.
As always, the MCAH Staff is available to provide technical assistance for you through this time.
Contact Information in ServicePoint: All Users and Agency Administrators need to review their User Profiles, and ensure that their
phone numbers and emails are current.
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Pulling questions from ART: We have determined that a substantial reason that we have problems with running, mapping and building
reports in ART are duplicative and just too many questions. We are adding a new SOW that removes from ART any field that has not
been updated (with client data) since 4/1/2015 on the ClientPoint Side. We do understand in a few instances that you may need to run
historical data. Please call our office and we will help you resolve the issue.
BOS (Balance of State) Stipend holders may now start invoicing for the 2015/16 Grant year and we can begin to reimburse.
Please spend these dollars down prior to 12/31/2015 unless otherwise approved. We are encouraging all Option 2 communities with
stipend dollars to begin submitting receipts and requests to Gloria (gpecora@mihomeless.org) as money is spent down, to minimize the
annual “year-end” scramble for closing out the grants. It looks like we will be able to add some funds for local SA activities, please contact
Barb if you are struggling and/or have a special project you would like to complete.
Register for the MCAH Mailing Lists:
MCAH is using a brand new mailing list management tool to help us communicate better with you all. If you, or a co-worker you know,
would like to sign up to receive communication from one of our various mailing lists, you can do so by clicking the appropriate link below:
Michigan Statewide System Administrator’s Meeting Mailing List:
http://eepurl.com/bvmzNv
Michigan Balance of State Users and Agency Administrator’s Meeting Mailing List:
http://eepurl.com/bwokOr
FOLLOW UP ON PREVIOUS AGENDA ITEMS:
Coverage Exercise for Michigan. Calculating the correct coverage is critical for properly estimating the total number of
homeless in Michigan. Last year we realized that the flow of clients through local systems has been impacted by the existence
of HARAs and that at least some of the old coverage estimates were too low. MCAH Staff have developed a new Coverage Exercise
tool to assist communities with better understanding how clients are flowing and also the real coverage for the community. That is, many
clients that are enrolled in non-participating homeless service providers (such as your DV Provider or the small religious shelters) are also
receiving services through the HARAs, therefore they are being picked up by the system (even though on the PIT count they are included
in the nonparticipating count). The Coverage Exercise not only accounts for this but will give HARA’s a tool to identify where outreach
efforts may make sense. We would like the Exercise conducted at least 1 time prior to 12/31/2015. If framed carefully before hand, it
should be fairly easy to complete even in the larger communities. If, for some reason, the initial sample date proves to be nonrepresentative, CoCs should conduct this for a couple of dates and average. It important that we get it right. If you believe that you will
have problems getting participation from your local DV, MSHDA requires CoC participation from their DV grants. They have agreed to put
out a notice as needed. Basic Procedures:
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CoC set’s a count date (PIT). It can be 1 day or a week for very small places where the clients don’t overlap. All counts
reflect only those persons served in both participating and non-participating residential programs on that PIT.
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A master form is completed that lists all the participating organizations or projects and the known non-participating
organizations or Projects. You can use your HIC for this. However, if there is a project that serves homeless clients that
do not overlap with the residential programs (such as a street outreach), please include them on the chart.
A copy of the master form is provided to each Homeless Services Agency (participating and non-participating) and they
complete the row of values that is specific to them.
For participating agencies, the director simply provides a total count of those served on the PIT divided by those entered
into the HMIS and those not. For most participating projects 100% of the clients are entered into the System.
For non-participating Homeless Service Agencies (ES, TH, PSH, RRH) the program interviews those clients active on that
PIT and determines if (1) they have been referred & connected to the HARA during the current calendar year (2015) or (2)
if they were served by another participating agency during the calendar year (2015).
The form is returned to the CoC designated representative.
Instructions for calculation are provided on the form and the designated CoC representative compiles the data and
completes the calculation.
The CoC submits the new coverage rate to MCAH with an explanation of any adaptation they did in arriving at the
percentage. Elizabeth egraham@mihomeless.org will be collecting the information and updating our master coverage
chart for the count.
Updating Privacy Training Annually During 2014 we alert the local SA if we had users that failed the Quiz. Some of those users have
still not responded. At this point they will need to repeat the training and should be redirected to the Certification Module on our Website.
In addition to the basic Privacy Update, we are now requiring users to repeat a series of short refreshers on configuring Visibility on
Assessments (all SA and Agency Administrator Access levels), Securing the Client Record (all users) and using the Un-named Record (All
Users). That is Privacy Update:
 Privacy Update (1 hr) – All Users
 Securing the Client Record (19 min)- All Users
 Creating Un-named Records (6 min) – All Users
 Establishing Visibility (21 min) – System Administrators and Agency Administrators
A refresher of key components of sharing data through the System:
When it comes to visibility and security of client records in HMIS, we need to remember it is a two-step process. The first step it to
establish the default visibility on each agency provider page and the second is to ensure that when staff enter clients they add an ROI
(to “turn on” internal sharing) and adjust security on the individual record (to “turn off” or “limit” external sharing) based on the
clients that say “no” to sharing data.
***VERY IMPORTANT!!!***
If you are using CUSTOM ASSESSMENTS within your community, you must make sure the questions are updated to reflect the changes
to the HUD data standards after moving up to version 5.12. MCAH staff will update all of our standard MCAH created and maintained
assessments, however, local communities must do the same with their custom assessments to ensure you are compliant with the new
data standards.
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ESP& ShelterPoint Issue:
 Previously, there was a ShelterPoint issue that made client furlough nearly impossible to manage. Entry-Exits could not be deleted
if they were tied to shelter stays, which left us with some child only households or clients with multiple entry-exits for one provider
over a short period of time. Bowman has fixed this issue; EEs are able to be deleted once again, and the furloughing addendum is
valid.
 We now have a new issue. It seems that some clients with open shelter stay service transactions had that service closed for the
following day, though they may still be in shelter. ALL shelters should run their billing reports for July, August, September, and
October to see if they may have been affected. The good news is that this does not seem to be affecting every shelter. Typically,
this can be fixed by removing the shelter stay end date if the client has not left, as the EE is untouched in most cases, but not every
page has had the same results
HMIS Certification Site
 Recently, the certification site has encountered an issue with user emails. If a new user registers, they will get an error message
stating that an error occurred while sending information email to your address. However, we have temporarily disabled the
requirement for new users to verify accounts via email, so they should be able to login without doing so. Also, any users trying to
retrieve their current password will have to call or email MCAH to do so for them until further notice. We are working to resolve this
issue and foresee a day in the near future where the website will have to come down temporarily while we upgrade. All other
functions seem to be working at this time, it is only where the site has to pull the registered user email from the database where the
problem is occurring.
Additional Partner Community Issues: None.
BoS HMIS User and Agency Admin meetings are held on the last Wednesday of the month. Please mark your calendars.
Next meeting: January 27, 2016 10:00AM
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