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HMIS TX-500 Newsletter

March 2026

Changes Going Live March 2nd:

Office Hour Scheduled

On March 2nd, the following changes will go live in HMIS:

HUD Universal Assessment Revision
Copy Assessment Update

Please read more about both of those changes within this newsletter. We will be hosting an open Office Hour on March 2nd, from 11:00am-12:00pm. This Office Hour is optional and intended to provide live support for any questions that arise as a result of these updates.

Registration is not required to attend and attendance for the entire duration of the session is not expected. Please use the link below to pop in any time during the session to ask your questions.

Support is always available outside of this session by submitting a ticket.

Join the Session

HUD Universal Assessment Revision:

Live March 2nd

The HMIS Team will be revising the language of several questions on the HUD Universal Assessment. The questions slated for revision are those used to determine chronic homelessness.

Modifying the wording of these questions is intended to enhance clarity for both the assessor and the client. This change is expected to improve the quality of data collected for determining chronic homeless status.

The HMIS Team held virtual training sessions last month. If you missed them, a recorded session is available below!

The revised HUD Universal Assessment will be implemented on March 2nd (updated from 3/1).

Copy Assessment Update:

Live March 2nd

The Copy Assessment Feature that appears as an option when completing workflows will be limited to assessments that are dated in the past 30 days.

This feature allows users to select an assessment to pre-populate data and ease the data entry process by allowing the end user to focus on verifying or updating the information.

Limiting available assessments to 30 days ensures any potential data being copied is recent, as opposed to data that could be years old.

Newsletter Library

Looking for something featured in a past newsletter? We’ve made it easy to find!

Visit the new HMIS Newsletter Library to access both current and archived editions. Whether you’re revisiting an important update or catching up on previous announcements, everything is now available in one convenient location.

HMIS Questions Page

Mobile Portal Available Community Wide

The Mobile Portal is now live and available to all agencies.

This platform is designed to support Street Outreach staff by providing convenient access to enter and review HMIS data while working on the go without the need for a desktop/laptop computer. The data in the Desktop and Mobile versions of HMIS is live in both environments and data is transferred immediately. The Mobile Portal boasts extra features specific to Street Outreach work such as a digital ROI (Release of Information) and encampment documentation abilities.

Prior Outreach Grid access is not required, and there are no organizational restrictions for use. While early access was limited to a select group of users during the alpha testing phase, the full launch now allows all Street Outreach employees, from any HMIS agency, to utilize the Mobile Portal.

The Mobile Portal login link can be found on the HMIS Login Page. Please submit a ticket if you are a Street Outreach employee who would like to utilize the portal so we may make the appropriate changes to your account to allow access. Mobile Portal log in credentials are the same as the one used for the desktop version of HMIS.

HMIS Security & Compliance Specialist Job Opening

Work at HMIS! We are looking for a Security & Compliance Specialist to join our team. This is a hybrid position and candidates must reside in San Antonio, TX. See full details by clicking the job posting below.

Job Posting

Nina Gall, HMIS Director, will be the point of contact in the interim for all Security and Compliance questions/concerns that may come up in day-to-day operations from HMIS organizations.

Email: Nina.Gall@havenforhope.org.

Community Performance Monitoring Tool: Training March 12th & Live March 16th

The Community Performance Monitoring Tool (PMT) will be published in HMIS on Monday March 16th. Users will be able to view their agency's data within the dashboard in the Reports sections of their HMIS account. The data will be refreshed daily which means when viewing the Community PMT, the information should be reflective of data entered up to yesterday.

Click Path: Reports > PowerBI

A training will be held on Thursday March 12th 2:00pm-3:00pm. Register using the link below. Calendar invitations will be sent out the Friday after the registration is submitted. Register by March 10th.

FY25 System Performance Measures

Due date to HUD is Wed. Mar 4, 2026.

The SPM Report is a HUD-mandated report which is run on the fiscal year of Oct. 1 to Sept 30 and is submitted annually. The report consists of seven measures that show how our community is collaborating on a system-wide level to prevent and end homelessness. These reports are used to make data-driven decisions to better serve the homeless population. Most measures include both HUD-funded and non-HUD-funded projects.

Our HMIS Data Quality Analyst team has reviewed data in the SPM reports and reached out last month to all projects in need of data corrections. If you have any questions or need any assistance completing data corrections, please submit a ticket to the HMIS Team at HMIS.Support@havenforhope.org.

Updates to Coordinated Entry Prioritization

In collaboration with researchers from Notre Dame to improve Coordinated Entry prioritization for the priority pool. The new prioritization score will be a hybrid score based on the skilled assessor score and the data driven score. This update to prioritization will not change the workflow.

There is no need to update existing clients, unless the client’s data has changed since the last assessment. These changes are scheduled to go live on April 1st, 2026, all clients on the priority pool as of April 1st will remain unchanged. The Priority Pool will be refreshed weekly based on the new scoring tool.

March 2026 Calendar

Hints, Memos, Inklings, & Shortcuts!

Running Reports on Deactivated Projects

Reminder - Reports can be run on deactivated projects the same way a report would be ran on an active project.

Our naming convention for deactivated projects is to add 'ZZ' to the beginning of the original name of the project. For example, if your project name was 'Test HMIS ES' and it is now deactivated, the name will now be 'ZZ - Test HMIS ES'.

Timeliness

Timeliness is the number of days between the created date and the assessment date (Begin Assessment) on entries and exits. For example, if a client enrolled on Monday and the client was added to the project on Wednesday, timeliness would be two days - the difference between the assessment date (Monday) and the created date (Wednesday).

Although HUD defines and reports on timeliness, HUD directs communities to determine the acceptable number of days. Our community's current timeliness standard is 4 days across all program types. Always be sure to check the HMIS Data Quality Monitoring Plan for the current standards. This document is published on our Resources page.

The Assessment Date and Create Dates can be found for enrollments in Case Management > HMIS Custom Solutions

Reminders & Resources

Google Chrome is the recommended browser for using HMIS.
Make sure your pop-up blocker is set to allow pop-ups from HMIS.
Contact the HMIS Team within 24 hours of employee termination/departure for account deactivations.
Project Managers: Please inform the HMIS Team if projects are no longer being used so we can deactivate them.
Vendor updates occur every two weeks. Notifications are sent day of.

HMIS Login & Status Page

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