• Prerequisites

    None

  • Course Duration

    6 weeks

  • Access Period

    1 year

About Term 1

Planning & Analysis

Term 1 of the HIFIS 4 Implementation Masterclass is all about getting your ducks in a row before you even start thinking about configuring HIFIS.

Arguably, this phase of the project is the most important phase because you're really looking at the project as a whole and trying to understand what your needs are and what problems you're trying to solve by adopting HIFIS. In other words, you're doing a needs assessment and getting the right people in the room. Some communities skip some of important planning steps and want to jump right in to design and development, but then have problems later when they don't know who is in charge of making decisions, or don't have legal sign-off by the time they want to launch their new software.

If you're familiar with the concept of the System Development Life Cycle, we're going to be covering the first two phases - Planning & Analysis - in this course. If you're not familiar with the concept, take a look at the diagram above. At a really high level, it shows you what your path will be to HIFIS 4 implementation.

Target Audience

At the start of this course, we assume that you:

  • Have high-level approval to proceed with HIFIS 4 implementation. By this, we mean the executive decision has been made that as a community, it’s happening.

  • Have resources assigned to the project. In other words, there are staff like you whose job includes implementing HIFIS. If there haven’t been resources assigned to the project (i.e. it’s just you and you’re doing it part time on the edge of your desk), you’ll probably have a hard time making the project happen. Be sure to get internal buy-in before you start this course!

  • Have begun talking to some of your Partner Agencies (i.e. the shelters and other providers in your community) but don’t necessarily have solid commitments from anyone about using HIFIS

  • Do not have a server set up to host HIFIS (if you do, you’re ahead of the game)

  • Do not have your legal agreements in place (i.e. data sharing agreements and consent) (again, if you do, that’s a bonus)

  • Are at least 6 months from your planned launch date

  • Have a general idea what HIFIS 4 is!

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, you will:

  • Have identified your core HIFIS 4 Implementation project team

  • Have identified your partner agencies who will act as stakeholders in this project

  • Have an avenue to get meaningful feedback from your partner agencies

  • Have begun to get your legal documents in order, including data sharing agreements and consent forms

  • Understand how to begin setting up your service providers and clusters

  • Understand how client files are accessed within HIFIS 4

  • Decide on what personal information you’ll be collecting in your community

Course Curriculum

Student Reviews

Instructor

HIFIS 4 Guru

Ali Ryder

Ali is Canada's - nay, the world's - leading expert on HIFIS 4. She is the owner, operator, and sole proprietor of ACRE Consulting, formed in 2016 to help communities understand and better make use of HIFIS 4. She's worked with dozens of communities on their HIFIS 4 projects, as well as partnering with the Canadian Alliance to End Homelessness and Built for Zero Canada, Employment and Social Development Canada, and sits on the national HIFIS 4 Working Group.

FAQ

  • What's the schedule for this course?

    This course is primarily self-directed, so there's very little in terms of special scheduling needed. You don't need to block of specific dates and times.

  • What sort of time commitment is required for this course?

    We recommend that you dedicate some time each week to learning the course materials and completing the assignments, to stay on top of things. When you do this is up to you.

    Generally speaking, we don't expect you to spend more than 1-2 hours per week learning the course material. However, you will typically have assignments to do every week which often involve meeting with various partners, or reviewing or creating policies, or assessing your program requirements. These assignments can vary in difficulty and time required to complete, depending on where you're already at as a community. These assignments could take several hours and multiple meetings to complete! Keep in mind though that these are tasks that you would need to do anyway in order to launch HIFIS 4, so taking this course is not adding a lot of work to your workload, just organizing it for you.

  • Are there live sessions for this course?

    That depends on the package you purchase when you sign up for this course.

    If you select the Self-Directed Study option, there is one 1-hour orientation at the start of the course.

    If you selected the Personalized Feedback or One-On-One Coaching option, there are two additional live seminars; one in week 3 and one in week 5.

  • Can I plan meetings in advance?

    Great idea. Working through the HIFIS 4 Implementation Masterclass is a group activity, and people's schedules don't always align. Here's what you need to know:

    Week 1: Plan to meet with your HIFIS 4 Project Team for a launch meeting. Identify and meet with your IT support person and your legal support person.

    Week 2: Create your HIFIS 4 Advisory Group if you don't have one already, and convene a meeting and introduce the project. You'll also need to collect some information from your partner agencies about what services and programs they offer.

    Week 3: Plan a HIFIS 4 Project Team meeting.

    Week 4: Meet with your legal support to work on your consent form, and discuss consent options in HIFIS.

    Week 5: Meet with your HIFIS 4 Project Team (including legal support) to dive into accessing client files in HIFIS, then meet with your HIFIS 4 Advisory Group and consult with them.

    Week 6: Meet with your HIFIS 4 Project Team (including legal support) to talk about what pieces of personal information can be/can't be/must be collected and then meet with your HIFIS 4 Advisory Group and consult with them.