November 2023

Welcome to the December HMIS newsletter! 

As we wrap up the year, we extend our gratitude to each of our HMIS users for the invaluable work you do every day. Your dedication to using HMIS is instrumental in moving the needle on solutions to end homelessness. With that, this newsletter edition provides resources regarding program enrollments, announcements about reporting season, and a volunteer opportunity with the Point In Time (PIT) Count. Please reach out with your questions and happy holidays!

In partnership, 

The Data and Analytics Department

Q: Hello HMIS Support, I accidentally enrolled my client as an individual instead of a group enrollment. Is there a way to correct this?

Q: Hi HMIS, I've identified a client who was mistakenly enrolled in our program twice. I can't find a way to fix this. Can you please help me?

Q: I enrolled a client in our housing program but I can’t add a housing service. When I look at their programs, this client is still enrolled in a shelter. Can you help clear this up? The client is definitely not staying in the shelter anymore.

A: What do all of these questions have in common? These enrollment issues all need assistance from HMIS staff to resolve them. For the first two questions, HMIS staff can delete the inaccurate or duplicate enrollment. For the last question, HMIS staff can facilitate a conversation between community partners to make sure the client is exited from programs where they are no longer being served. If you run into any of these kinds of issues, please email us so we can help you correct these enrollment errors.

To help you avoid these errors in the future, we recommend that you check out these HMIS training resources. In the next section, you will find more information about the Program Roster Report, which is one of the most important tools for any HMIS user. 

• Enroll a Family as a Group (pages 21 to 23)
• Enrolling a Group Member Mid-program (pages 24 to 25)
• Running a Program Roster
• Exit a Client

If there was one wish that the HMIS team had for this holiday season, it would be for all of our community partners to learn the magic and power of the…

This amazing report provides you with a snapshot of your current program enrollments and can help you easily identify all sorts of errors big and small. Verifying this information ensures accuracy and helps you and your staff avoid future data quality clean up work.

The Program Roster provides a list of all enrolled clients during a period of time that you choose and includes things like their program enrollment and exit dates, program enrollment types (individual or group), length of time in your program, move-in dates, and their assigned case managers. This one report can help you identify a lot of data quality errors including:

• Children who are accidentally enrolled as individuals
• Very long enrollments (clients who should have been exited)
• Client assigned to Case Managers who are no longer with your organization
• Clients who are missing move-in dates*

*Missing Move-in Dates cause serious errors and your staff will have to go add those in later when we have federal reporting like the LSA.

The LSA is underway! In keeping with our historic pattern,  this year’s initial submission to HUD has fewer errors to resolve than ever before.  We are thrilled to see that our collective work towards improved data quality is working.  Thank you for your dedication and responsiveness.  We couldn’t do it without each and every one of you.

We have been correcting data errors on the backend for weeks now; starting this month we will be asking for your help to resolve data errors that can only be addressed at the program level.  Keep an eye out for any emails from us.

To assist with any questions about how to correct these data errors, we will be providing real time support during our Wednesday Support Hour.  Please join us starting this Wednesday 12/6/2023 if you need our assistance.

Sacramento’s 2024 Point-In-Time Count needs YOU! Join us in the effort by volunteering through our newly revamped and user-friendly portal, linked below. Scheduled for January 24 and January 25, your involvement is crucial in broadening our reach and contributing to a vision where homelessness is both rare and brief. Sign up today to be a part of the action!

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