June 2023

Dear HMIS Users,

We hope this newsletter finds you well. As we enter the summer season, we have several updates and important information to share. Some of the highlight's include: streamlining duplicate client accounts, introducing a new HMIS feature, and our new department name!

Together, we can further our positive efforts and foster lasting change for individuals experiencing homelessness by working effectively in HMIS. Stay tuned for further updates and announcements in the coming months.

In partnership, 

Wendy, Tina, Kai, Rae, Glenn, and Ashley

Q: When I searched for my client, I found two accounts for the same person. What do I do?

A: We are always appreciative when users notify us about duplicate client accounts. These errors occur when users do not search carefully and instead make a new account in HMIS for their client. When you notify HMIS by emailing us, we are able merge them so the combined account has the most accurate and up-to-date information.

To avoid creating more of these errors, please check the system carefully before creating a new profile for your client. See the image below for suggestions on a few different ways to search for your client before you decide they are not in HMIS.

Introducing 2 New Job Aids: Case Conference Tool and Creating a New Client Profile!

The Case Conference Tool helps our CoC to coordinate service across different programs and agencies. This allows us all to assist clients with their housing goals more efficiently, helping them to gain housing quicker. We have also created a new job aid about Creating a New Client Profile; read more about that in our Tips and Tricks section below.

New HMIS Feature - Pronouns 

We are pleased to announce a new feature that HMIS has just released: Pronouns. By adding pronouns to your client's accounts, you can make sure that you and future service providers address your clients correctly. While this is obviously very useful for protecting transgender clients from misgendering mistakes, establishing this as a normalized practice reinforces the freedom that all clients have to choose how they are identified. The best practice is to offer this option to all clients, as no one can identify which of their clients are transgender or gender-non-conforming simply by looking at them.

When searching for your clients, their profiles will show up in the search like this:

The options to add pronouns are just under the client's name on their global profile page. There are some basic options and then a "manual entry" option in case your client's preferred pronouns are not listed.

Checking the Client Household Before Program Enrollment

Do you ever run into trouble with clients not being connected to their children in your program enrollment? Or maybe you get "No HoH" errors? There are a lot of different problems that can be solved if you check the client's household before completing your program enrollment.

Before you enroll a household, you must make sure that all of the family members are connected and you have the right Head of Household (HoH) identified. When you choose the program you want to enroll your client in, look for the toggle on the bottom left that will include their family members. Toggle on any that will be enrolled in your program. This will allow you to enroll the clients one after another and make it a group enrollment.

When you enroll the family correctly, you will avoid many different data errors and save yourself a lot of time. Check out the page 23-24 from our Training Manual for more directions.

We are thrilled to announce some Sac Steps Forward organizational news. Our HMIS team has merged with our Analytics team to form the new Data & Analytics Department, which is now headed by our new Department Director, Trent Simmons. Trent is a fantastic leader with extensive experience in both data and social sciences. You can read more about him here.

The Analytics team is responsible for providing overarching data reports for homeless services in Sacramento and Yolo County. This includes, among many other things, creating and maintaining tools like our Community Queue and dashboards. While HMIS and Analytics have worked closely for year, this new merge will allow us a far more robust engagement.

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