Present
Meghan Altimore
Sola Plumacher
Leslie Miller
Karen Ford
Mary Bourguignon
Josephine Wong
Mark Ellerbrook
Sara Levin
Eddy Haw
Kira Zylstra
Bill Kehoe
Kate Speltz
Dan Wise
Absent
Jason Johnson
Nicole Macri
Dina Wilderson
Mark Putnam
www.allhomekc.org
1/12/2016
Others Present:
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The Safe Harbors HMIS in Adsystech is scheduled to go offline March 13th,
2016.
Read-Only/View Only mode March 14
The Adsystech platform will remain open in th - April 1st, 2016. Safe Harbors will continue to provide support until April 1st, 2016.
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Sara took the opportunity to remind the Steering Committee to review the charter, think about whether any changes are necessary, and be mindful of the committee’s role in light of the pending transitions.
Josephine presented the Coordinated Entry for All Timeline which includes the HMIS Vendor timeline. The following key milestones were discussed.
December – Bit Focus provided the Security Plan and hosted two online demo sessions for our community
January – King County staff will attend System Administration training
February – Bit Focus test site to be set up and Bit Focus will conduct end user training
March/April – Adsystech application sunsets March 13 as confirmed by Mary Schwartz,
Bit Focus Go Live date moved to April 1 - they are working toward an earlier launch date if possible,
City support staff is scheduled to end March 2nd
Sara asked about user response since the December Bit Focus demo sessions. Turn-out and responses were good and since then some users have requested to see a list of Bit Focus reports. Patrice will post this list for all users on the Safe Harbors website.

Data Migration
Clarity Human Services is the HMIS application hosted by Bit Focus. Josephine conveyed that the biggest launch date challenge is data migration; this is a priority before Clarity goes live. Mary Schwartz stated that the new system will be turned on only after data is migrated successfully. There are current challenges to the data migration process from Adsystech to Bit Focus. The
Adsystech resolution is scheduled for January 21 st . Many on the committee were concerned that delays in migration are dependent upon Adsystechs’ resolution and that the Go-Live could be at risk. Bill strongly encouraged Josephine and Patrice to work with the State on extending the Adsystech contract and to put pressure on the vendor to deliver a technical solution on time. Mary Bourguignon also suggested for the state to utilize the AAG to hold the vendor accountable to contract obligations at end of life. Action: Josephine will work with the State to put pressure on the vendor to deliver in timely manner
minimizing risk to Go-Live date and to extend the current Adsystech contract.
Go Dark Period
The state Adsystech system will sunset March 13 th . The Bit Focus Go-Live date was updated from March 1 st to April 1 st . With this scenario, there will be a Go-Dark period where users will not have a system to enter data but instead use a manual process.
The Steering Committee expressed concern about the impact to agencies to enter a backlog of data. Dan asked about what support the Steering Committee could provide in regards to provider reporting for funders, major funders and suburban city funders. It was discussed that communications letters from funders should be considered. Sara asked whether Commerce had thought about the impact of additional data entry to the agencies. Dan expressed concern that some CCS programs such as HEN require real-time data entry and a Go-Dark period would impact reporting and funding. Kate mentioned that many programs perform intake to forms and data enter later, but some programs would be impacted. Committee members asked whether the
Adsystech contract could be extended to avoid a Go Dark period. Josephine relayed that the Adsystech state contract could only be renewed for a 1 year period and at a cost increase which Commerce is not willing to do. Sara asked Patrice if we could approach Adsystech directly about extension of our use of the system under our TSP contract.
Action: Josephine will work with Mary at Commerce to explore extending the state Adsystech contract.
Action: Funder communication to agencies regarding reporting will be investigated.
Action: Patrice will inventory agencies who will be impacted the most by a Go-Dark period including agencies who use the
system for daily operations
Five Transition Teams
Josephine introduced the five teams formed at King County Department of Community and Human Services using internal DCSH and All Home staff.
1.
Program Definition, Set-up / Housing Inventory – this team defines programs, organizes and prepares programs for basic set up in Clarity
2.
Data Quality / CSV Import – this team will develop data quality and csv import requirements as they become clearer
3.
Systems Administration – this team will manage structure, contract, oversight of work plan, training programs, and transition deliverables
4.
Updated Policies and Procedures – this team will manage policies on data quality, agency oversight (Vendor, funder,
CoC), agency responsibilities, other updates to HMIS policies and procedures in order to prepare agency agreements and user licenses Go Live
ROI/ Informed Consent – this team will manage policies and forms established for Release of Information, Informed
Consent in King County; align with Commerce and coordinated engagement among others
Community Communication
Two upcoming virtual Partner’s meetings are scheduled in January and February. Bit Focus will host the webinars and the community will have the opportunity to meet the vendor. Information about the webinars will be sent to the Steering
Committee and be pushed out in the All Home website and e-mails as well. Sara asked the group if there are ideas on how the committee can support in the communication of the good things that are coming. Kira responded that there are opportunities to talk about what’s coming in the new HMIS as they are out talking about Coordinated Entry, the two have linkages. Bit Focus will put up a FAQ site which will also be linked to the All Home website. Josephine will send the FAQ to the Steering Committee and will welcome the committees’ feedback. This is a great opportunity to communicate broadly about the transition.
Data Integration
Josephine informed the group that data integration will be supported in the new HMIS, Clarity Human Services provided that the integrating data is in the HUD XML 4.0 standard. In the future with Bit Focus, agencies will be able to work with the vendor directly to integrate the data. Data Integration will be in phase 2 after system go-live and stabilization. The data integration schedule is unknown at this time. Sola mentioned for us to be thinking about how data integration data elements and upload schedules will impact Coordinated Entry/HMIS alignment. Dan also reminded everyone that although our forward work on

coordinated entry is great, agencies still have contracts to provide services and data and we should keep in mind ongoing operations requirements. Sola agreed and recommended considering contract and invoicing requirements and reporting moving forward. Josephine stated that agencies interested in data integration in Bit Focus are also interested in reports. Bit
Focus has demonstrated a robust third-party reporting tool named Looker.
Risks and Mitigation Strategies
Josephine provided a list of risks and mitigation strategies as it relates to the vendor and HMIS transition.
Risk Mitigations Strategies
Commerce is not extending the Adsystech Contract past March 13 th Data collection is manual. It may begin as early as
March 3 rd .How the agencies will deal with the data.
The Adsystech application will sunset March 13 th - Concerns include Good backup dataset on hand for reporting needs downtime between systems and the amount of work required to the agencies. Reporting for funders and the timing of these was
Commitment from funders not to ask for additional reporting.
Funder communication to agencies also a concern.
No parallel testing environment
Data Migration Challenges - Data migration dependent upon Provide the committee status updates on a regular basis on data migration progress Adsystech fixing CSV data export process. The migration process takes time and the Adsystech contract should be extended to allow time for data import and validation.
Needed ability for our continuum to produce the required reports for operations and funders
Data integration schedule unknown
Safe Harbors staffing will end as of March 2 nd
Communicate to agencies once schedules are known
HMIS Funding – City funding into HMIS budget moving forward not yet determined.
Extension of system downtime can increase the overall cost
City will communicate reasonable staff end date after working with labor.
Using King County one-time savings. Request for City to keep funding intact. Josephine will meet with funders about future HMIS funding distribution.
Family Housing Connection and Youth Housing Connection will also be turned off past March 13 th
All Home is working with CCS and planning on manual matching of referrals. FTE and processes established at All Home and CCS to deal with the manual process
Proviso Update
Josephine will report the HMIS transition work plan to King County Council on March 15
 th . The update is as follows:
Josephine received letters from United Way and City consenting to the transfer. All Home letter is forthcoming.
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KCIT retained the consultant MTG from the previous proviso to refresh the staffing option for when HMIS is located at the County. Report is forthcoming.
HMIS Administration Contract
King County signed a contract with Bit Focus to perform HMIS administration services for the continuum. This is a 1 year contract. They are hosting communications meetings and meeting with County and City staff to prepare for implementation.
Work and Staff Transitions
The administration transition from City to the County is scheduled for March 1 st . Critical reporting work is transitioning to the
County now. City staff were communicated a March 2 nd end date to provide staff with stability and for reinstatement purposes.
Some City staff have already resigned. The City is working on layoff procedures and communicating a reasonable end date after discussions with labor. The end date is also critical for HMIS funding transfer purposes. Sara asked if the County is hiring any other staff beside Bit Focus. Josephine answered no. Ongoing operations and reporting are potentially impacted. Megan encouraged ongoing communications with provider agencies on how they should operate during this transition period and as

much notice as possible. City will lead communication efforts. The committee also talked about their role in championing this work and a consistent message that although this is hard work, it will be worth it in the end.
Closing Comments
Before cheerleading we need to address the issues in front of us now. We decided on the following action:
1.
Avoid a go-dark period if possible: Aggressively pursue Adsystech for a possible extension
If go-dark period, establish a back-up plan: Plan for March 1 st – April 1 st , maximum City support, maximum implementation support from King County, participation from agencies
Recommendation to the City to be as flexible as possible on the end date to keep staff on long enough to transition
Monitor technical fix date from Adsystech in regards to data migration and investigate if providing less data would help speed up the migration process.
Update the Steering Committee weekly.
Next Meeting: February 9, 2016 - Mercer Island Community & Event Center (8236 SE 24th St, Mercer Island, WA 98040)