Understanding Agency, Program, and Site Structure in iCarol Introduction One of the biggest challenges for 211s can be keeping track of a complex database of referral information. Referrals need to be comprehensive and accurate, but their details are constantly changing and their mapping can be complicated. Yet, referrals need to be utterly easy to search and browse. AIRS taxonomy, while thorough and profoundly useful, is only actually usable when it’s aligned with the right software for your organization’s needs. It’s obviously an imperative that your resource specialists and phone volunteers be able to train on the taxonomy quickly and learn how to locate the information they need while on a call. This white paper will break down how iCarol facilitates 211s using AIRS taxonomy and help you decide whether to take advantage of our optional hierarchical resource organization tool: Agency, Program, and Site Structure. iCarol’s Resources Feature iCarol’s Resources component allows you to create and store information about service providers in your area so that you can refer your clients to them for further assistance. The Resources tool has a wide range of settings and capabilities, which makes it extremely versatile and easy to use for help lines with modest requirements and only a few hundred resource records as well as for complex help lines with tens of thousands of records and very deep functional requirements. We’ll use this white paper to get into how different types of records are related, what our software can (and cannot) store and do, and our recommendations for best use. 1 What is Agency, Program, and Site Structure? iCarol allows resources to be Agency
represented by up to four different record types: 1. Agencies Site
Program
2. Programs ProgramAtSite
3. Sites 4. ProgramAtSites As you can see in the diagram, Agency is the top-­‐level record, and it can have multiple Programs and multiple Sites, which are joined together by ProgramAtSite records. Case in point Consider the (fictitious) Elmdale Salvation Army. It operates a thrift store, clothing donation drop-­‐off, utility payment assistance program, and food pantry. It has three locations—the Belmont Mall, Main Street, and University Campus—but not all of these locations offer all of the services. This makes for a complex, and yet fairly typical, resource-­‐storing scenario. The Elmdale Salvation Army resource manager manages this resource scenario in iCarol by creating four Program records (one for each of the four types of programs it offers) and three Site records (one for each location). Then, within each Program record, she indicates which sites offer which programs. This creates a fourth record type, the ProgramAtSite record, which links the records together accurately and appropriately. We’ll get into the technical aspects of this scheme in a little bit, but for now, it’s important to note the efficiency of this type of record organization. If, for instance, the phone number for the utility payment assistance line record changes, the resource manager does not have to fish for multiple records within the database to make sure they are all updated. Instead, she simply updates the single Program record, and the change is immediately seen when viewing the resource from any location. The other advantage to this system is that clients who are looking for information about utility assistance at one location can automatically see all locations where it is offered, because the records are linked. Who should consider using Agency, Program, and Site Structure? For many of our clients, hierarchical structure is not necessary because they can store all of the information they use in a single Resource record (the Agency record). Their phone workers can see everything at a glance and make referrals to clients at that level. But for 211s who need a higher level of organization and segmentation of data in their 2 resource records, a more complex structure is necessary. For instance, such help lines likely have service providers that offer multiple different programs at multiple different sites, and they need to be able see the relationship of these programs and sites to each other while still keeping them corralled under their parent agency. By converting to a hierarchical level of record organization, reporting suddenly gets more robust. iCarol can provide data across an agency—metrics such as “How many referrals did I make to all programs at this agency?” When weighing whether or not to use Agency, Program, and Site Structure in iCarol, you need to decide if the added complexity it brings will be worth it to your organization or if the more simplified “all-­‐in-­‐one” approach will suffice. How iCarol stores information Before we get into the differences between record types, it’s useful to know that behind the scenes, iCarol’s database uses the exact same table to store all records, with simple fields that indicate what type of record type each is and how it is related to the other record types. This means that virtually all of the capabilities in iCarol that are available to one record type are available to all record types. This simplicity provides amplified flexibility, and it also allows for tools to limit record use and categorization in just the right way for your agency’s operation. The Hierarchy of Record Organization in iCarol Agencies At the very top level of iCarol’s organization scheme is the Agency record, which stores information about your overall organization, such as: • Name • Description • Legal status (non-­‐profit, commercial, faith-­‐based, etc.) • Date of incorporation If you are using the Agency, Program and Site structure, we recommend that you do not put any service delivery information at the Agency level. Instead, put it at the Program level. We also recommend that you not allow referrals to be made at the Agency level. Instead, keep it focused on Programs. 3 All other record types (Programs, Sites, ProgramAtSites) must belong to exactly one parent Agency. In hierarchy lexicon, Programs and Sites are considered peers, as opposed to being in a parent/child relationship. Programs At the next level, the Program record contains information about one service, or several closely-­‐related services that are normally offered together and thus can be considered a single Program. The Program record focuses on service delivery information, like: • Name and description of the Program • Eligibility requirements • Documentation requirements • Application process • Assignment into custom or standard categorization schemes, like the AIRS Taxonomy • Coverage areas served • Website address • Contact information (phone numbers, email address) Since Program records are focused on service delivery, it is these records that phone workers most often search. After all, services are what the client is looking for, so this is the level at which we recommend referrals be made. Sites Site records represent service delivery locations, places at which the client can receive services. Here, you place information like: • Physical address and description • Mailing address • Hours of operation • Public transportation access • Disabilities access It’s important not to put service delivery information into Sites records. This information belongs in Programs. This is one of the few ways in which we limit field availability: there are no service delivery fields in Site records, and you cannot make referrals to a Site record. ProgramAtSites The ProgramAtSite record connects exactly one Program record to exactly one Site record. Many of our clients simply use this feature to links programs and sites together. 4 But the ProgramAtSite record can also do something very special: it can differentiate nuances of a program between sites. In our Elmdale Salvation Army example, let’s say that the main phone number for the utility assistance program is 415-­‐555-­‐1234. But the Belmont Mall location has a different number for utility assistance: 650-­‐444-­‐1234. That difference can be stored in the ProgramAtSite record (“Utility assistance offered at Belmont Mall”). When a user views the Program record at the Main Street and University Campus sites, she will see the main number. But if she is viewing the Program record at the Belmont Mall site, she’ll see that specific phone number. This simple example can be extended to any field. iCarol elegantly knows exactly which information to show based on which Program and Site combination is brought up. You can even store things like custom or standard categories and coverage areas at this ProgramAtSite level. Because of the subtlety involved in using ProgramAtSite records in this way, this feature is not enabled by default, and most of our clients prefer to keep it turned off. Please contact our support team if you would like it turned on for you. Using Record Types Let’s take a closer look at how 211s can use each record type, from the simplest scenario to the more complex. Agencies only At the simplest level, you can put all information into Agency records and make referrals to them. You neither see nor use the other record types. For many help lines, this scenario works just fine. Agencies with Programs (but no Sites) For help lines who want to take advantage of using Program records, but don’t have any use for Site records, another option is to put all location information right into Program records. If a Program is offered at multiple different locations, such agencies may choose to simply duplicate the Program record, changing only the location information in each record. In this case, we recommend that you insert a location reference into the Program name in order to distinguish multiple records and search more easily. The downside of this simplified technique is that if program information needs to be changed at any point, the resource manager must manually change it in each Program record. This creates a higher margin of human error, but allows the organization to streamline the inputting of data up front. 5 Agencies with Programs and Sites Adding the use of Site records into the mix gets us closer to the approach laid out at the beginning of this white paper. When a Program is offered at multiple Sites, the resource manager simply links the appropriate records together. Now when information changes at a Site, she only has to update one record and it immediately applies to all Sites. Agencies with Programs, Sites, and ProgramAtSites The most complex and capable approach an organization can choose is to take full advantage of all record types within iCarol’s available hierarchy. This means using the ProgramAtSite records in order to reflect specific differences in Program records from Site to Site. Turning fields on/off in different record types Lest all this flexibility get confusing in actual practice, iCarol lets resource managers turn fields on or off at any of these record types, both for viewing and editing a record, at any time. This helps ensure that you enter your resources in a consistent way. For example, you can choose to disable the ability to put location information into Program records: 6 Resource managers can control which fields show in which record types Searching iCarol’s built-­‐in record search functionality syncs with the chosen record hierarchy and allows user to target certain record types, as in this screenshot: The search feature will retain a user’s preferences from search to search to make finding resources as quick and intuitive as possible. Conclusion iCarol recognizes that, for 211s and other types of call-­‐based organizations, keeping resources organized and searchable is perhaps the most pivotal part of the process. We also know that our clients’ needs vary greatly. Clients with single locations and simple data needs don’t require a hierarchical library of data. But our clients who need their resources to be mappable across multiple locations—and easy to edit and search—rely on Agency, Program, and Site Structure functionality to keep their data effortlessly organized and always available. Contact iCarol today to speak with a software expert who can help determine which level or data hierarchy is right for your organization. We can walk you through the process of installing, setting up, and using our Agency, Program, and Site Structure feature. 7