Mission Critical: Your System Administrator Can Make or Break Your Implementation

1. Mission Critical: Your System Administrator Can Make or Break Your Implementation Josh Gray, DCA, HMIS Lead Jon Magee, Eccovia Solutions Eric Wilka, Eccovia Solutions

2. Mission Critical: System Administrator • Introduction • Joshua Gray, • Senior HMIS Coordinator at Georgia Department of Community Affairs • Jon Magee, • HMIS System Administrator with Eccovia Solutions • Eric Wilka, • HMIS Product Manager with Eccovia Solutions

3. Mission Critical: System Administrator • Introduction to Georgia HMIS • Geography: • Largest state east of the Mississippi River! 21st in size of all states • Consists of Urban, Suburban, Super-Rural & “The Swamp” • 9 CoC’s Total • This year so far… • 1362 End users Accessed the System • 76,512 New Enrollments • 30,792 New Unique Clients Created • 499 Active Agencies • 1319 Active Projects • 1641 Issue Tickets Submitted by End Users • Database Age: 22 Months Old

4. Mission Critical: System Administrator

5. Mission Critical: System Administrator • Critical Events and Challenges for the HMIS Lead • Migration to new system/vendor – Kick off to go-live was less than 4 months • Additional migrations to bring in non HMIS data, and additional HMIS data. • Governing structure was changing. • All policies were being re-written and changed (not all from moving to new system) • Lack of institutional and historical knowledge of the data and setup (the people who asked for customizations or made policy decisions were no longer there).

6. Mission Critical: System Administrator • Critical Events and Challenges for the HMIS Lead Cont’d • Lack of knowledge about the data in the previous system: Very little information about data collected, projects recorded in the previous system. • Many “test” projects, test data in Production environments, or “work around” clients. • Previous tech support and configuration support structure had to change. • Each agency could contact the vendor to get changes applied, each agency had the ability to create or edit project data. –HMIS Lead couldn’t fully know what data everyone was collecting. • CoC’s were trying to implement or design their own CE processes.

7. Mission Critical: System Administrator • Response to challenges • New structure: • Created new role in the state, CoC Admins. Up to 16 CoC Admins (primary and back up). • This was added to the existing structure of System Admins (4), HMIS Lead, HMIS Steering Committee. • The responsibilities in this new structure (these mostly stayed the same): • HMIS Steering Committee—Provide oversight and direction for HMIS Lead. • HMIS Lead – Provide direction for HMIS day-to-day operations. Prioritize tasks and backlog for System Admins to work.

8. Mission Critical: System Administrator • Response to challenges • CoC Admins – Responsible for knowing the projects and end users of their CoC. • Users get appropriate and adequate training. • Users have access to the system. • Projects are setup in the system correctly, and maintain general knowledge of their CoC’s needs. • Resolve password resets, support issues for navigation, basic data entry, editing or reporting issues. • Stair-stepped responsibilities – when it started they only did a few tasks, now they’ve had expanded responsibilities. History of their responsibilities. • Lack destructive power. • System Admins – Support CoC Admins and HMIS • Responsible for knowing system configuration. • Train and support CoC Admins (escalated tickets, end user training materials, system adjustments to make their jobs simpler). • Providing guidance and advice on HMIS Policies. • Provide support for community reporting (HMIS and non-HMIS required reporting). • Take care of most everything between CoC Admin and Vendor escalation.

9. Mission Critical: System Administrator • Unique Aspects of this structure • With this structure, each CoC has local knowledge and control, but the HMIS Lead and System Admin team can ensure compliant data collection. • Sys Admin team completes the analysis and planning for new collection (documented). • Sys Admin team will build or coordinate build of new data collection. • In our structure, Admins know the system, but CoC’s are driving the direction. • CoC’s determine who can have access to the system, Sys Admins give the access. Sys Admins act as gatekeepers. • Make sure basic training and documentation requirements have been met.

10. Mission Critical: System Administrator • How Admins can make or break a system • Common traps we find ourselves in: • ‘’I don’t need to worry about writing this down, I’ll remember.’’ • ‘’I don’t need to test this any more, I know it’s right.’’ • ‘’Sure, I can make that change really quick. It should be fine to set it immediately.’’ • ‘’And our priority of the hour is….. ’’ • ‘’I’m sure someone else will take care of this.’’

11. Mission Critical: System Administrator • How Admins can make or break a system • Ways we’ve tried to overcome those traps: • Documentation – because you’ll never need to remember what you did or why you did it for at least 2 months after you do it. • Everything is written down in a ticket or ticket response (even if we have phone calls or emails, it goes in the ticket). • Technical notes added for report and form changes. • Document things in advance – Backlog. • Backlog • Document needs in advance. • Attach requirements and any type of documentation. • Good backlog item vs. Bad backlog item: Must be able to define your work in concrete tasks. Know when you are done. Should be narrow in scope to be a single task/project. (Good backlog item: Add VI-SPDAT to intake workflow for heads of household. Bad backlog item: improve the intake workflow). • If you can document what you want to do, you’ll know what to do. • Weekly call to review progress and reassign priorities. • Strategic Planning -- keeps us focused on what we’re trying to accomplish long term.

12. Mission Critical: System Administrator • How Admins can make or break a system • Ways we’ve tried to overcome those traps: • Effective admins can quickly describe how to correct an issue. Build confident end users. • Training: • Principle: Targeting and focusing training on key end users • If different people have well defined roles, you know how to effectively train them and support them. • Reasonable steps in the right direction: • Don’t try to accomplish everything at once – list out the work you want to accomplish, then prioritize. • Iterative approach to development and change – Prioritize core requirements (what do we need for compliance), then add in “nice to haves”. • Continuous engagement: • Weekly office hours with CoC Admins – build confidence w/quick responses. • Regular emails to all end users. • Recorded trainings.

13. Mission Critical: System Administrator • How Admins can make or break a system • Ways we’ve tried to overcome those traps: • Centralizing tickets/issues – triaging and assigning support tasks • Setup Data Analysis – Double checking with documentation • Flexibility and compromise – meet end users where they’re at. Make things useful • Playing to Team’s strengths - Developer; Training/Support Desk; Communicator/Translator

14. Mission Critical: System Administrator • Results • Decrease in tickets submitted. • Change in categories – fewer on navigation and issues, more on functionality and new form requests. • No longer worried about compliant data collection (just worried about getting through all of the configuration requests). • CoC’s are implementing their own CE Systems. • Now other state agencies are coming to DCA for data requests. • From compliance to configuration – Non-fed data collection; Info release checks to prevent duplicate services. • Georgia User conference – CoC Admins are engaged and present. • Increased metrics for monitoring engagement and usage. • Meet fewer times (was meeting 3 times a week now only once a week).

15. Mission Critical: System Administrator • Growth Opportunities and Solutions in Progress • Getting more buy in and cooperation within CoC’s • Inter-CoC communication • Getting people to submit tickets (making sure things are documented), provide feedback • Strategic Planning

16. Mission Critical: System Administrator • Tools, Examples, and Processes • Training Videos - YouTube • Online Project Setup Forms - Cognito Forms • New User Assessment - Cognito Forms • Paper Intake Forms - PDF • Online Communication - Slack • Monthly News Letter - Email • Bulletin Board - Within HMIS • General HMIS Email Account – Handles system issues outside of HMIS • Ticketing system – Require users to use, keeps historical records

17. Mission Critical: System Administrator YouTube Channel

18. Mission Critical: System Administrator Online Project/Grant Setup Form

19. Mission Critical: System Administrator Online User Setup Form

20. Mission Critical: System Administrator Printable Intake Forms

21. Mission Critical: System Administrator Slack

22. Mission Critical: System Administrator • Tools, Examples, and Processes • Office Hours Call – Reviewing tickets with CoC Admins • Backlog Call – Prioritizing the “To Do” list • Issue Ticket Monitoring • Usage statistics - # Issue Tickets, # Active Users, Etc.

23. Mission Critical: System Administrator Issue Ticket Analysis Results

24. Mission Critical: System Administrator Questions & Answers