Volunteer Management Activity – Part 1 webinar held April 2018

Transcript for Volunteer Management Activity - Part 1 webinar

Welcome to this training session on the Data Exchange for the Volunteer Management Activity.

My name is Rose Pearson and I am with the Data Exchange training team, and I will be taking you through this session today. The presentation should take about 90 minutes and so we will get to it but firstly before we begin we are meeting today on many traditional lands around the country and I want to acknowledge the traditional owners of those lands and pay our respects to elders past and present.

So let’s take a look at what we’re going to be discussing in this information session today. Firstly, we’ll be providing a broad overview of the Data Exchange we will cover its policy background, the reporting periods and methods of uploading data. We will also look at the two different datasets that are available for the Data Exchange known as the priority requirement and also the partnership approach. So we’ll be exploring what they mean and the information that is required in them as well and also be demonstrating that through the portal for you too.

Now all of you should have a copy of the presentation that we are delivering today as well as information from Appendix B of the Protocols. I have only included the VMA program as the handout for you to look at and keep in mind that this document is updated regularly so we recommend that you go in and check it regularly for any changes. We provide notification of when this document is updated or any other news relating to the Data Exchange, so I would also recommend that you subscribe to receive regular updates on the Data Exchange website and I can show you where to do this later on as well.

Firstly, what is the Data Exchange and why is VMA using it? The Data Exchange is a performance program reporting tool, it is an easy-to-use IT system that accommodates the sectors varying business processes regardless of the provider size type or delivery focus. The Data Exchange was a project that began in October 2013. Extensive consultation with policy areas and service providers informed the design decisions to create a single streamlined system focused on client outcomes.

The principles for this project was to reduce the data entry requirements for service providers and also capture outcomes that clients are achieving due to access to services, and to improve service delivery and program policy. The name Data Exchange reflects a two-way partnership of information sharing between funding agencies and organisations, which enable both, define smarter and more efficient ways of improving service delivery and understand the overall outcomes achieved for individuals, families and communities.

The Department considers there is tremendous value in including the Volunteer Management Program, VMP or VMA, data as part of this new approach to reporting. So the ability to look at client pathways on the de-identified basis through the Data Exchange Statistical Linkage Key is a unique opportunity to better understand how the provision of soft services such as volunteer management opens doors to other programs offered by the Department. The Data Exchange will enable this type of analysis across programs and at a national level without the need for specialist evaluations or research.

There is a shift in focus from outputs to more meaningful information about outcomes and this allows an understanding of the collective impact of programs and what combinations of services deliver the best results for clients, it also looks at activities, which involve large groups, there is aggregate reporting still available to accommodate this.

Since being released in 2014 the Data Exchange has grown and is used by number of programs, from Families and Communities, which was our first set of programs through to the Home Interaction Program for Parents and Youngsters which is known as HIPPY, which recently joined us in 2017. We have NDIA and VMA joining us in 2018 along with the New South Wales State government Families and Communities pilot as well. So overall, this equates to over 60 programs and over 2400 organisations with over 13,000 users.

The Data Exchange has two six-month reporting periods per annum the first spans from 1st January to 30th June and the second spans from 1st July to 31st December. Organisations can enter their data for reporting period at any point in time within that reporting period. Now some choose to enter their data every day, once a week, once a month, or even every 2 to 3 months. The Department does encourage organisations to enter data regularly as reports are refreshed each night, and can assist in monitoring targets. The data that you enter will be available to you 24 hours was after upload. Organisations also have a 30-day closing period at the end of each reporting period to check and finalise their data, so for example the first reporting there are there is the 30th of July and the 30th of January each year.

The Data Exchange allows you to submit data in three different ways. Now you can see these on the screen; so we have system-to-system transfer, XML bulk upload, or by using the free web-based portal. XML and system-to-system are applicable for organisations that wish to use their own client management systems to meet their reporting requirements. Organisations considering this approach should refer to the appropriate technical specifications, which can be found on the Data Exchange website under the IT Access tab.

For organisations who either do not have a compatible software system or do not wish to enhance their software, these are able to report via the free web-based portal which is provided by the Department. Now, user support task cards and e-learning modules are available on the Data Exchange website under the Training resources tab to help users navigate the portal and enter their data effectively.

No option is preferred by the Department, you should choose the method that best suits your business. The Department is meeting with Victor provider about uploading data from the system to the Data Exchange and notification about the outcome of these discussions will be advised.

As you can see on the screen, there are three different types of user roles within the Data Exchange the first one there is the Organisation Administrator. Now that allows a user to read and create records and manage user access within the organisation across all programs and outlets, so it is the highest level of access.

Providers using bulk XML upload will require an Organisation administrator. Also, I would like you to note that a Data Exchange Organisation Administrator is different to the AUSkey Organisation administrator.

It is recommended that each organisation have more than one Organisation Administrator, just in case people going on leave or leaving the organisation that there is a backup plan.

The following system roles can be created and managed by the Data Exchange Organisation administrator in the web-based portal therefore provides organisations with flexibility and allows you to be self-sufficient in creating and removing Editors and View only uses.

The next user role that we have there on the screen is the Organisation Editor and it allows a user to read and create records for the outlet program that they have been attached to by the Organisation Administrator. The View only allows a user to view records outlet and programs that they have been provided access to by the Organisation Administrator.

Now what I would like to do is pause the screen here for a moment because I am just going to demonstrate some of the functions for the Organisation Administrator and what they will need to do because they will need to go into the web-based portal to set up their organisation and the outlets, etc. I will get that on the screen for you shortly.

What you have here is the Data Exchange Dashboard and depending on what access you have is dependent on what you'll see on the screen. For everyone who is an Organisation Administrator this is the view that you will see. If you are an Editor or a View only user up your see everything on the screen except for the My Organisation section. That's the section that we will go to now because as the Organisation Administrator for the Data Exchange for your organisation as I mentioned you will need to go in here to set up your organisation and users.

So what we’re going to do first of all to the Manage organisation area so I will select the hyper link and the Manage Organisation screen displays. Now what you will see is you have under Organisation details you have some information here of Preferred organisation name, Partnership Approach, your ABN, Source ID and Source organisation name. If we were to go in and update that information at all we just need to select Edit organisation details.

You'll notice that there are two's fields in this particular section that have the asterix. Now any field that you see within the web-based portal that has a red asterix next to it, means that is a mandatory field and must be completed before you can save any information on the page.

What you'll notice here too is that the Preferred organisation name is different from the Source organisation name and that is fine this is just showing that you can put in here what your organisation is known in the community without affecting your legal name.

The next field here is a Partnership Approach agreement field so if your organisation has opted into the partnership approach this is where you will need to go in to make that selection as well as advising or funding arrangement manager as well. You would just select the radio button there to Yes and you will then save that, and that will now update on the Manage organisation screen, and you'll be able to start entering that information in.

Now you not only have to do that at an organisation level, but you will need to change the partnership approach agreement to Yes for the programs that you're also going to be collecting that partnership approach information. It is a two-step process. More information on updating the partnership approach information can be found in the Create and Manage outlets task card which is on the Data Exchange website under the Training resources tab.

Now if we do scroll down this page, if we just continue, this is where you would also go to create your outlets and we can see some examples here. Keeping in mind that this is a training database so we have just got fictional names of outlets and users etc. All you would need to do if you going to create an outlet is select the Outlet button you would entering the outlet name and the address and you can see all those fields are mandatory. Once you've entered those details in you would then select Save.

Now I’m not going to do that for this demonstration, but just to show you then so for example we have the Local High School and that's the information that that's been created. It is very important to keep in mind that you shouldn't be setting up your outlets naming them after program activities. Your outlet should have a unique address, meaning that they should not have more than one outlet at the one address. Again, more information on setting up outlets can be found in that task card of Create and Manage outlets.

The next step would then be to go and connect your program activities to those outlets and your program activities will be automatically updated and loaded onto the Data Exchange web-based portal because they come from your grant agreement.

Then you would need to go in and actually attach those what we might do is going to the outlet called Local High School, and here you can see what we would do is go into the Add activity button. From the drop down list we would select a particular program that we want to attach to this outlet, we won't be doing this in this example but just showing you how it's done and then we would select Save.

We will go back to Homepage. There are different ways of doing that, on the right hand side here, under the ‘I want to’, go to Homepage or at the top left hand side there is the Home hyperlink that will take us back there. We are now back at the Homepage of the portal.

Now the next thing we have to do is actually going to Manage users would like to go in and create a user. So we can search for users if we need to update any information or we can go to Add a user for any new users in our organisation. So we might just put a username in here, we add in the phone number, and make sure that it's 10 digits long. Now the email address must be the email that has been provided with the AUSkey access, they must match up, okay, if at any time that these change, if they are different then there won't be access available. If at any time they change your need to provide new details as well.

We just going to make this up here and then this is where we would select what type of user we would like Edith to be in this example. So again, remember that View only access means that they can only view the information for the program activities and the outlets that you attach them too compared to Editor access which means that Edith will be able to not only create or view information but she will also be able to create clients and sessions and cases. So we might select Editor, okay and it tells us that we have successfully added Edith Jones as a user. We now need to assign outlets and program activities to her so that she can start entering in information, and we would do that by selecting the Manage outlets button and connecting her there and also the Manage program activity button.

You might find it in time that Edith might want to wait may need to become the Data Exchange Organisation Administrator. If that is the case then all that's required Edith is for her to complete a User access request form and that is found on the Data Exchange website under IT Access. She would just need to complete that form and ticking a box that says that her use of role has changed and it will come through to the Helpdesk and we can organise change in user access for her.

So what will do now is we will go back to the Homepage and were going to look at the next thing that Organisation Administrators can do and that is if your organisation is uploading data using the bulk XML system they then they can they would need to go in here to do that. First of all go to the Reference data hyperlink because this is the different coding that is required that needs to be downloaded by you and then are sending on to your IT vendor or specialist with the schema files, reference data files also got the outlets and program activities and organisation activity data. Download those here and we would say to you to go into here regularly every 2 to 3 months, do the download and send them to your IT vendor or specialist just to ensure that the coding is correct.

To upload your files, so you might be doing the upload every week, what you would do then here is go in and actually find your file by selecting Upload file. You would browse to find your file on your system you could then in adding comments here saying that this is the upload for the week beginning at whatever week it is and then this button here Submit will become green and you will be able to submit that file. As mentioned, before we do recommend regular uploads that way you can go in and check your data quality regularly and you can also then view that information the next day that you have done the upload so it ensures that your information and data is up-to-date.

Now the next section here is the Manage action items, and what you'll find in here is if you are a lead organisation and you have some delivery partners you're able to request access to view their reports and a little notification bell will sit here and it’s called a Handshake agreement. So you'll be able to access their information you will not be able see any client data it is actually just the report information. More information on how to create a handshake is in the Handshake task card found under the training tab of the Data Exchange.

Okay I am going back to the Homepage and what I will do now just going to pause the screen for a moment and we will go back to the presentation.

That’s the information on the user roles and also a little bit of a rundown of what the Organisation Administrator will need to do to set up their organisation, the outlets, the users and also the programs.

Getting started. Now this is something that we have put together for organisations if the Data Exchange is new to you in reporting. First, we do recommend that you access the training materials through the Data Exchange website. There is a range of materials here are as we mentioned task cards, e-learning models we also have recorded webinars that you can go to and view at your leisure. As well, you will need to apply for an AUSkey. Now obtaining an AUSkey does take some time so we would recommend that you do this as soon as possible if you haven't already done so. AUSkeys do come in forms as an Administrator's AUSkey as well as a standard AUSkey. Now Administrator AUSkey would normally be your chief financial officer or someone in that level within that organisation and as we mentioned before, they will then actually go in and create the Standard AUSkeys there for their staff within the organisation.

Now an organisation can have more than one AUSkey administrator, and we would recommend that as well. More information about AUSkeys we would recommend that you go to the Australian Business Register or ABR website. They have a fantastic Registration guide that you can go to. Just type this into your search engine AUSkey ABR and you will be able to get that information.

The next step for an organisation would be to decide on the upload method. So you can choose which method works best for you because we have got that flexibility of either using the system-to- system, bulk XML upload or if you don't have a client management system you can use the free web-based portal.

Now just some information about the Data Exchange that it isn't a client management system so you not able to record client notes or client contact telephone numbers on there. That will be something that needs to be recorded in your own organisation in either a different system.

Now just a note as well that you can actually decide to use the free web-based portal to begin with and then change to a different upload method or vice versa. What you do need to take note of though is that if you are going from the web-based portal to say bulk XML upload you do need to make sure that your client ID numbers do actually start after the last one from the one that you got in the portal. If you have say for example 001 as your client ID in the web-based portal and then your bulk XML upload decides to use the 001 or start at the 001, it will actually wipe out all the records that you would have in the portal.

If you need further information or if your IT vendor needs further information contact our Helpdesk because our team there is only too happy to assist. We do have also as we mentioned the technical specifications on the website. Contacting Helpdesk as well is a really great first step too with your upload methods as well such as system-to-system or bulk XML upload because we can provide you access to a staging environment, where your IT vendor can test the upload to make sure that it is correct.

We then have the completion of the User access request form so that the Organisation Administrator will need to do that for the Organisation Administrator. The Organisation Administrator with the need to go and set up the outlets and users as we have just already described, and then you could go and start entering the data.

We would encourage you to start entering data now and continue to do so regardless of your upload method, so the more data that you enter the more you going to see in your reports and a reminder that it takes 24 hours to upload but you'll be able to see that really quickly the next day.

So as we mentioned this is what the training the actual web-based portal looks like. We did have a look at the My Organisation section there and we stepped through some of the fields. What some of the other bits of information that go through now with you very briefly is if we look here on the left-hand side we have to Find client and also case. So any clients and cases that you've actually recorded within your organisation only you'll be able to locate there. On the right-hand side, you have Add client, case and session buttons so that's again when you would go in and add your clients, cases or sessions. For everyone there you can go to the Access MyDEX reports, using the Go button and you'll be able to access the reports that are available for your organisation.

Now when you select that button there are two different types of reports we have Standard reports are which includes your Organisation overview and also the Organisation data quality report that is available for all organisations.

We then have reports are under the partnership approach and they were only be available and accessible to organisations that have actually are actually participating in the partnership approach but more on reports in Part 2 of the webinar series for VMA.

There is also the notifications bell appeal the top right hand side again that will display with information if there is either the handshake agreement or some information there regarding a Data Exchange update.

That is the first section there about what is the Data Exchange and what it looks like. The next section that we going to look at is the priority requirements.

So when we think about the framework of the Data Exchange on your screen some of you may have seen this before, but there's four different elements that make up the framework and we going to have a look at those very briefly now.

On the left-hand side you have the priority requirements. Now the priority requirements are a mandatory element of the Data Exchange, they are the basic datasets that organisations must report and their captured under the concepts of clients, cases and session. Now this basic dataset is included in the Standard report which is available to all users of the Data Exchange.

You’ll also notice the client survey, now it has been paused at the moment because we are working through the feedback and evaluating the pilot that was recently held. In a nutshell the client survey aims to collect client outcome and service experience feedback directly from clients. Once implemented it will be mandatory for service providers to offer their clients a survey and ask if they would like to participate, but it’s not going to be mandatory for the client to participate. As we mentioned, it is paused at the moment, we are having a look at all the feedback and evaluation that we received and deciding on the next step forward. Again, if you can subscribe to our website you'll find out more information as it comes to hand. KPIs 1 to 3 in your grant agreement are drawn from the output information entered for the priority requirements.

On the right-hand side we have the voluntary elements of the Data Exchange for VMA. This includes the extended dataset caught the partnership approach and focused on outcomes measurements and the capture of client pathways data. Organisations that opt in to participate in the partnership approach have available to the additional data and insights into the client by a suite of partnership approach reports. Now this information is drawn from other government population sets such as the ABS and SEIFA and these reports also include further client demographic, information service delivery and outcomes data. KPIs for five of your grant agreement drawn from outcome in summation entered for the voluntary partnership approach.

Let’s take a look at the priority requirements data and you'll see this in action when we do the demonstration of how to add a client very shortly. So the first of the two datasets is the priority requirements and as we mentioned earlier this information are is mandatory and all organisations must complete this when they're adding a client.

Now in the Data Exchange a client is defined as an individual who receives a service as part of a funded activity that is expected to lead to a measurable outcome. So we understand that with your program you'll be seeing clients face-to-face or in group settings. So the information collected and recorded are first name, last name, date of birth, now an estimated year of birth can also be selected for clients that either for personal reasons, religious or cultural reasons, do not provide or do not know what the date of birth is.

We also capture gender, so the selection is there a male, female intersex and indeterminate, which don't fit the typical binary notions of male or female bodies, or Not stated or inadequately described. We then have residential address information at a minimum of suburb, state and postcode and we have cultural and linguistic diversity information or CALD which is captured through two questions main language spoken at home and country of birth. We also have Indigenous information so whether the client advises having Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander background and disability information so whether the client identifies as having a disability, condition or impairment.

Now with a disability information, if the client does self-identify as having a disability condition or impairment, they don't need a medical certificate to actually prove that. All these fields are as the client self-identifies.

The first and last name, date of birth and gender information automatically generates a statistical linkage key or an SLK. Now this is 14 characters algorithm, which is made up of numbers and letters this de-identifies the client data that enables it to be matched over time and program. This information does not include information that identifies a client or information that could be used to identify a client in any way.

Now much of the information you see on screen is captured at the client record level and definitions of what these include can be found in the Protocols document on the Data Exchange website under the Policy guidance tab.

We know that some of the work involved in the VMA program is working with large groups of volunteers and not with service individual. Where it is impractical and impossible to collect and record client information the aggregate number of unidentified group clients can be recorded. Now this would demonstrate how many persons attended a session but it does not include any further data such as Indigenous status, age groups, disability status or culturally and linguistically diverse or background information.

So your reports will have the output count of how many people attended the group or community event, but no background information that we just discussed. Again further information can be found in Appendix B handout under the ‘Should unidentified group clients be recorded’ heading. If you find that the number of group client is higher than what is expected or specified in Appendix B please speak to your funding arrangement manager about this.

Okay, so what we’re going to do first of all is we going to create a client record in the web-based portal just to show you how easy it is and how intuitive the system is.

I am going to just again pause my screen so that we can get to that training database and again as I said it's a training database, all the information there is fictional so we will just make up a client here.

Okay so we're back to the portal and so we are going to add a client, and so we will go to the Add a Client button. You'll notice first of all that you have Add a client - Client details screen, so just some information and something that you will see regularly throughout the portal screens is up here you have a taskbar. As we progress through the different sheets or the different elements of creating a client, this taskbar will change colour and you will see that as we go along. We also have some fields again that have a red asterix next to them and this indicates that it's a mandatory field and must be completed before you can progress to the next sheet.

What we’ll do a we will go in and create our client. So first of all you can see here that we have a Client ID field so I can actually either leave this field blank and the system auto populate a client ID for me, or I can enter into my own client ID number if I have one already established within my organisation. It’s very important that you do not enter in any personal information of the client that can identify this client in anyway, so either a first or last name or a customer reference number, a CRN number or anything like that because field will become visible in the Data Exchange. So I’m going to leave this as blank so the system will auto populate that and I’ll highlight that to you once this field has been completed.

We are going to add in our client and so this is as the client self-identifies. We enter the name of the client. Now the client can actually use a pseudonym if they like if it is a pseudonym name I will tick this box here, what I would recommend that you state to the client as well, is that next time they access our services or anyone else the services that they use that same pseudonym name.

If you find that a client has only one name, so say for example this client just went by the name of Gillian, they did not know of a last name or do not have a last name, then you would just use Gillian in both the given and family field

The next section that we have here is the date of birth. I can enter the date of birth using the calendar function which moment but you'll notice that there is a box for Estimated date of birth.   As I mentioned earlier that a client for whatever reason may not wish to provide their actual date of birth for cultural, religious or personal reasons or they may not know what their date of birth is. What you can enter in here is an estimated year of birth. So if the client is around 30 years old then you could go in and put in the year of the 1988 there, as their estimated date of birth. Then the records will actually then display 01/01/1988. In this case, Gillian does know her date of birth and she is providing that to us so I am going to type it in there.

Ok we come to our Gender selection so again as we mentioned it is how the client self-identifies. So we will make our selection there. Now Tags, this is a great feature that can be used within organisations. You can set up your own tags here and you'll be able to put in some sort of information if you want to do some searches via tags or anything like that you can actually enter that in. So I could put in my tag here Febclient, and then I select Add, or if I want to I can put in here that the client has a wheelchair. Then I can do a search if I want to later on with all clients that are Febclient’s or that are wheelchair bound or something like that.

You'll notice here down the bottom of the page there are two consent questions. Now we realise that within organisations you’ll already be actually obtaining consent from your clients to collect their information. These next fields here relate to the Data Exchange, so the first one here is that you're collecting this information and that's going to be stored on the Data Exchange. The client can actually decline or not provide that consent and all you would need to do is uncheck this tick box here. What you would take need to take note of the client ID that is actually provided because it will strip all that information out of not only are our system here but also your system.

Then you have the question here for Consent for future contact for survey research evaluation. This is highlighting if the client is open to be participating in a survey or research that might be conducted by a university or research organisation. Now the Department will never contact a client directly because we don't have their information, their name or details are anything like, but we may have a group come to us saying they're wanting to do some sort of research on this particular group of clients accessing programs in the community. We could look at this and think okay, well there’s some organisations that may be able to assist you and we would provide them  your information for them to follow up with you in regards to that. It’s not saying that the client will be contacted but that they're open to that possibility of that experience, and again more information on client consents are in the Protocols document.

We’re happy with the information that is provided in there so we going to select the Next button. Now what you'll notice is that the taskbar has now gone to the first what we call the roundabout, so we’re up to the next bit of adding a client which is residential address. At a minimum we said it is a suburb, state, or postcode. You can enter in the clients are address, the street number or name if you like but that is not actually necessary for us. So what we might do is we are going to put in the client’s Suburb, State and Postcode and we’re going to select Next. What you'll see is that taskbar moving across now and were up to the Demographic details.

So we’ve come to Country of birth. I can either select the drop-down list here or I can just type in a few letters like in AU and select whichever is relevant for the client as they have self-identified and then also the same for Main language spoken at home I just typed in EN and it has brought up English.

The next question is the client of Aboriginal or Torres Strait origin and so we would make the selection based on how the client self-identifies here. It's really important that you do ask the question of these particular fields that are coming up where they have got a ‘Not stated’ option in them because you could be missing out on valuable background information on a client if you're not actually asking the question. In this instance, we make the selection as the client has self-identified.

We then have next section here about Does the client have one or more of the following impairment conditions or disability? Again it's how the client self-identifies. If they do say that they do have one of these conditions, disabilities or impairments that a medical certificate is not required. Okay so we will make that selection there.

We will actually go back and show you how to update this record. So the next one here is the review questions for the Review section.  I am going through and I'm just checking the information on my pages here and I have just noticed under Demographic details that I have ‘Not stated / inadequately described’ but I know that the client has provided me with information. So what can do now is select the Back button, it will take me to that field and I can actually then make sure and update my choice. I will then to go next and are happy with that information that it is all correct that I've taken from the client. I am going to select Submit. There’s a few things to note now on this page. So the task has been completed because it's gone right down to the last roundabout. I’ve got the client has successfully been added and I've got now the personal details information for this client here.

Now you will notice the Client ID, it has automatically provided me with a client number here for the client, and I’m going through that information there. The other thing that you will notice is that there is a what we call the partnership approach banner. So we might go into Extended demographic details. If I was an organisation that had opted into the partnership approach or it could be that I'm thinking about opting into the partnership approach I can go in now and select or input information collected on this client.

Now you'll notice that with the Extended demographic details fields none of these fields have got a red asterix, so none of them are mandatory, so you would select, as an organisation, which one would suit you better, or which one is most appropriate for the program that you're delivering. So if you're delivering a Settlement Services program it could be Visa type, Ancestry, Month of first arrival in Australia. If you are delivering some sort of financial program, it could be income information etc. So you would select which one would be appropriate so for VMA it could be anything that you think is appropriate. I think I might do Household composition and I might even do that they are not homeless and there could be other ones that might be more appropriate.

So I am going to Save that information. Ok we then come to a Client profile screen, so I'm going to go back to the Homepage now because I've completed adding my client. I’m just going to pause the screen for a moment and we will go back to the presentation.

Ok so we’re back here now to the presentation that was how to create a client record. So as you can it see took me a little bit of time because I was stepping through explaining all the different features to you, but when you go through and do it, it doesn't take much time at all. It's very intuitive and if there is an error on the page, it will tell you what that error is, because it won’t allow you save those pages. Again it is very easy to use, very intuitive and task cards again are available under the Training resources tab on how you can create those clients.

The next section that were going to look is a case. We have got our clients but we now need to attach them to a case to be able to record this information. Once a client record has been created they must be associated to the programs and activities they are participating in now that it is captured using the concept of cases and session. A case is the first step in recording service delivery information within the Data Exchange.

 A case captures one or more instances of services which are known as sessions that is expected to lead to a distinct outcome. A case record is only created once for each unique case and when used appropriately can be used over multiple reporting periods.

Depending on the nature of the service, a case could be linked to an individual couple of family or an unrelated group of individuals. For example if you're working with a client face-to-face and they are looking for volunteering opportunities you could name your case Volunteering opportunity May or April 2018 as the example that we’ve on the screen shows. If you're working with organisations you could also have a case entitled Employee advice and the month as well. So it really does depend on what you would like to capture your cases under in your organisation.

Now what you will notice as well is that the case names did not include any client names as identification and again this would undermine the privacy principles of the Data Exchange. If you do need to identify a case for a particular client then it would be a particular coding that you would use within your organisation of say A1234 that you know then within your organisation paperwork that that relates to a particular client.

Now a good question that some people ask is can I create a case that covers to program activities or to outlets? If a client receives services under a number of different funded activities each of these is treated as a separate case. So cases cannot cross between program activities or cover more than one program activity nor they can they have more than one outlet and you'll see that when I go in and create the cases very shortly. Guidance on how you would like how you might like to set up your cases for the specific program activities can be found in Appendix B of the Protocols document.

So what we going to do is we will create a case so I will pause to go back to our training database. Ok so here we are, to create a case you guessed it. We go to add a case. The add a case - Case details screen will display and it looks very similar to the Add a client - Client details screen that we were just working off.

Again, we have some asterix here that indicate that it is mandatory fields that must be completed and I will step you through all this information for you. Again, we have a Case ID as we mentioned we wouldn't put in a family or individual name in here. We could code it if it does relate to particular family, group or individual or we would name the case that is appropriate to the program or the activity that we delivering. For this one here I am going to use the Volunteering opportunity in April.

This is where I then go and select my Outlet and you'll notice that I can only select one outlet for this case. For this example this case is being delivered out of the Sydney outlet or the administrative staff or the people that are delivering the best particular program are travelling from the Sydney outlet. I will then go and select my Program activity and here we can see that Volunteer Management Activity is here so that's what I would select, and so in the live system, your systems back in your office, they would only actually display the outlets that you’ll have approved and the program activities that you have approved to deliver.

Now you'll notice this next section is the total number of other unidentified clients associated with cases. So what you will do here, it is pre-set to zero, but if you're expecting, and some of the VMA activities are to larger groups, you won't actually have any details and it will be impractical or impossible for you to collect those client records on people so you will have other unidentified clients.

So you would go in and enter the amount of people you would expect would be attending these particular sessions. So in this particular case that we have, we do know the people, but I will actually create two examples for you, one with just individuals but also one with group clients so that you can see how that's done.

We then go in and select next. We then now attach our clients that are going to be attached to this case. So we know that we have got Gillian here and we will just go and select some other names, I can do a search for these clients. The beauty of this and I might actually deselect that to show you, is that if I type in say GI and go Search, any name that has GI in it will actually be able to be searched on. I can also if I clear this, I can also search on the Tags that I've done so if I've got wheelchair. Any client’s that has got wheelchair as a Tag is retrieved in that search.

I know the clients that I have here, they are the top three that I've entered. Now I can also tick Select all and it will select all the clients on this page only. If I have more clients on the other pages I would need to go to those page numbers and make that selection. In this case, I know just these top three that I’ve got there. The next step is to Attach selected clients and I’m going to select that button. Ok and I will then go Next. So it will show me at the Review screen here for that Case ID I have got Volunteering opportunity April for Sydney and I’ve got these three clients attached to this particular case right now. I will then go Submit. The screen is telling me the process has been completed. The case Volunteering opportunity April has successfully been added, however you’ll notice this next note: A session must be added for clients to be counted in reports. ok so we’ll touch on that in a moment.

If I go down to the case details information, I’ve got the Case ID, the Outlet, Program activity that it falls under, the clients that are attached to the case and the “What can you do now?” I can go in and add a session from this page if I want to.

I also have information here for the partnership approach, if we just select that so that you can see. It is for the Add Referral source and reasons and I will select the button to open that screen up. Again what I can do is select my client and if I’m participating in the partnership approach I can then put some further information as to where she is being referred from. It could be either within the organisation or could be from family or friends, and then select the Reason that she is seeking assistance. So we might put in here it is because she wants to volunteer so we will select Community participation and networks as the primary reason. I can also put in here a secondary reason as well or I can just click it off if I don't want to put that in there. So again you're seeing how easy it is add in partnership approach information as well.

Alright so we've created the case with attached the clients to the case, now I am going to go back to the Homepage and what I’ll do is I'll actually create a case where it's got unidentified clients. So will go to Add case and we will do the Case ID and we might call this Volunteering Info session. Again as being delivered out of Sydney, remembering that this is a training database. I am selecting in the program activity. Now for this information session I can expect that it any one time that I might have about 200 people turn up or let’s make that 50 people turn up, so I’m going to put 50 in here.

Go Next. Now because these are going to be people that I don't have any records for I’m not going to attach any clients in here. I’m going to go Next and I'm going to Submit. So it’s telling me that is all been successful. I’ve got my information, I don't have any clients attached because it's going to go to be group clients and unidentified clients but I can add a session from this point.

Now in saying this I have created cases where there is just individual clients, and created case where there is just unidentified clients, but you can also have clients where it’s a mix, where it’s a mix of unidentified and also individual clients there as well. So we will go back to the Homepage and I’m just going pause because will go back to the presentation.

Okay so we created a client, we’ve created two cases. The next thing that we need to do is look at now session. Sessions are what drive the reports, so you must have a session reported in the relevant reporting period, for it to display information in your reports, and the session is an individual instance or episode of service which is stored within a case and a case can include more than one session. I will demonstrate how that occurs, a session includes the date the session occurred, the clients that attended, and the different service types that are associated with that particular session.

When we think about service types service types differ from program to program and the portal will only allow you to enter a service type is relevant to the program that's been assigned at that case level and again we have guidance on service types found in Appendix B of that handout that you’ve got there. Now for the VMA program different service types are Intake and assessment, Information advice referral, Community capacity building, Facilitate employment pathways, and Employer engagement.

We are going to now create a session. So again, I’ll just pause and we’ll go back to training database. On the screen, we have a web-based portal Dashboard and this is where we start. We are going to now add a session. What we can do is first of all I want to find my case so let’s go to the Find button case button. I can search for my case if I would like using the Outlet, Program Activity or when it was created fields. I can even search for the cases created by me. So that is really good functionality. But I know that these are the last two cases that I actually created here. So let’s go to the Volunteering opportunity April case.

Now what I'm going to do is select the add session button. You can only record a session within the relevant reporting period. You can only record a session that has either happened at the current date, so today's date, or a date past as long as it is within the reporting period. I cannot create a session for tomorrow's date or the day after or next week because it hasn't actually occurred yet. So it must have already occurred either as today's date or the days before.

Now what you'll notice here is that we have first of all Session ID, I am going to leave blank but you can enter information in there if you like. The Session date and we can see there is an astrix there so I am going to use the calendar function for this one. This session occurred on a Tuesday. Actually, I might because this is for April am going to amend that date so just get rid of that one there, and I'm going to use the back arrow, so it occurred was on 2 April. The Service type was  Intake an assessment as we had people coming and looking at volunteering opportunities there in April. I don't have any unidentified clients here so it can remain zero.

Also I can select if there were any interpreters present if I want to, but that is not necessary and is not a mandatory item so I’m just going to leave that as blank. Then I am going to go Next.

This is where I attach the clients that attended this session for Intake and assessment of the Volunteering opportunity. So what we have here is that all three of these clients actually attended this particular session you will note the next buttons that I've got is I can attach them as Clients or I can attach them as Support people. Now what you might find is you may have people attending a session and they might be a support person or somebody who comes along to actually assist this particular person attending the session. With support people they would need to be registered in the Data Exchange, but they are then selected as a different client type. So I go to Attach selected clients, an I’m going to go Next.

I'm now onto the Review page and you can see for this Case ID of Volunteering opportunity April for this date and the service type was Intake and assessment. You can see the clients that attended and you can see the participation type is as Client. If they were a support person they would be have Support there. If I've made a mistake, I can go Back or if this record has already been created and I’ve now just realised that, I can Cancel as well. But everything is correct so I am going to select Submit.

I come to my Add a session Finish screen. I’ve got the task being completed with the roundabout there at finish. The session has been successfully been added, which is fantastic, if I go through here, I can see this information here, this is telling me about the session, who attended, what date and what the service type was.

I then also have Referrals to other services or other SCORE assessment information and this is in the partnership approach. So I can either add information now, I am going to add some SCORE information later in this training session so I won’t actually do that now. I’m going to go back to the Homepage, and I’m going to bring up that case I’ve just added a session to. So I go to Find a case, it’s the Volunteering opportunity April, and with that record I’ve got, I can now scroll down the page and I can see the Sessions associated with the case, and so I’ve got a Session ID here as 0001. Now you’ll find that these numbers for all the sessions are numbered in this way, so can if I want to go in and select that hyperlink, I can Edit the session details, and I can edit that there, and I can make that Intake and assessment if I want to, it’s not necessary but it depends on what you would like to do within your own organisation, now want to do is go to the Homepage. Find a client, go back to my case, and I will just show you how that information has changed, and you will see that Session ID has been updated.

What I can also do now is add other sessions for this case, for Volunteer management activity if I want and all I need to do is go to Copy session, or add another session here, and that will then provide me with another session for that particular case.

I might go back to the Homepage, and we’ll have a look at recording unidentified clients only. Ok so we’ll have a look at that other case we created. It was called Volunteering info session, so we select that, and here you’ll notice that there are no clients attached to that case. I can if I want to if that changes at all, and I know that the clients going to be there I can attach them to that. But in this case I am going to actually add a session.

I'm going to put this session occurred on the weekend so it was Saturday session because it was an information session open to the public. The service type was Information advice referral and now I have 50 as what I thought would be the maximum. I know the head count that I did was about 35 people in attendance at that particular information session that I held at a particular local high school or community hall or something like that. I will then go Next, there is no one here that I know that attended because I haven't actually collected any client information, and I am now going to review that information and I'm going to Submit, and there’s that information there.

If I go back to the Homepage. I'm going to find that case just so that you can see the layout of the session. I’m going to go into Volunteering info session scroll down the page. There you will see the Sessions associated with the case and that it there. So again, the next session that say may occur in June, I can go Copy session or I can go Add a session. So there is a task guide on how to add group cases and sessions and clients and that is within the task card suite as well on the website. So lets’ just finish off by going to the Homepage and I’ll pause because we will now go back to the presentation.

Let’s have a bit of a recap and I know it’s a lot of information but hopefully you'll see that it is very easy to add the information into the web-based portal, just following certain steps and all those steps again are outlined within the task cards are available. What we have here we have our Case ID, remember a case is a like a container that holds information on clients and sessions. We’ve got Volunteering opportunity April 2018 as the example. It comes under the Volunteering Management Activity and for this one here we have our outlet which is a little bit different to the Sydney one. We have our clients that are associated to the case listed there. We then have our session so we got a first session that's held the date with got what that service type was or the reason for that session to be held and we got the clients listed here that actually attended that session.

We then have another session, so session two, we then have got the date that that occurred, the reason why that session was held that was an Information advice referral and we’ve got the clients that attended the session. So you'll notice that the clients are different as one different Mark attended instead of Pho. We then have the third session, the date that it's occurred, the reason the session was held and the clients that attended that particular session there. So that's just how it all fits together for you.

Okay so that is in regards to the priority requirements data and cases, clients and sessions. What we are now going to look at the partnership approach information. Organisations can opt into the partnership approach or the extended dataset within the Data Exchange. Now in exchange for opting into the partnership approach and providing additional outcomes focused data, organisations gain access to the Community profiles and other reports that are available, and you'll see those reports in part two of this particular webinar series for VMA. Organisations that opt in to the partnership approach enter the priority requirements data plus an extended dataset of what you can see on the screen.

So we have down here at the bottom the Extended client demographic details for information that we did show quite briefly when we created the client ranging from Homeless / Household information right through to Visa type and Ancestry, and you would only select which ones you feel are relevant for your organisation and the program that your delivering.

We then have client needs and circumstances, so the Primary and Secondary reasons for seeking assistance, Referral types so whether they were referred internally or to external or different outside organisation and also the Referral purposes.

We then also have at the top here, the SCORE. SCORE stands for Standard Client Outcomes Reporting and this is where you would record outcomes information. SCORE is not so much a method of collecting client outcomes but a method of recording client outcomes in a consistent way across all the programs that use the Data Exchange. If an organisation wishes to opt in to the partnership approach all you need to do is contact your funding arrangement manager and they will insert the partnership approach clause into your grant agreement. Now what you would then need to do, is the Data Exchange Organisation Administrator would need to go in and update that information under their particular Manage organisation section for the particular organisation and also the programs and change that partnership approach button from No to Yes. We are going to now look at a little bit more information on SCORE and what it means.

You can see there is that SCORE has four components that can be selected you have Circumstances, Goals, Satisfaction, and Community. The first three are used to record SCORE against individual clients. The fourth SCORE of Community is used to record large group events, such as you would have for your volunteering information days or anything else like that. Now each of the SCORE components targets a specific area and has a separate set of domains within them relating to possible client outcomes.

Circumstances is where the funded activity is seeking to measure the change of the impact over a longer term of the clients Mental or physical health, Material well-being, Personal and family safety and situation just to name a few.

Goals looks at the progress of a client in achieving specific goals such as Changed behaviours, Changed confidence to make a decision, Changed skills of lessening the impact of crisis and is measured over a shorter term.

Satisfaction measures the client’s perceptions of the responsiveness and value of the organisation’s ability to meet the client’s needs.

Community measures Changes in group, organisation and Community capacity to address identified needs rather than at individual level. With SCORE as well they can be recorded in various ways, and I’ll go into that in a moment.

For the VMA program the Department realises that while one domain may relate to services being delivered by one organisation another may not. All these domains are included, because SCORE is used by a broad range of programs, remember we said that we had over 60 programs reporting to the Data Exchange, so the broad range of programs run by different funding agencies and they are recorded in the Data Exchange using a Likert scale of 1 to 5, so that it ensures consistency in recording and reporting.  We will show you those particular Likert scales in a moment.

Now an organisation should chose the domain that is relevant to the program and based on the client’s needs and what they are aiming to achieve or improve through contact with that service. Again, Appendix B will provide further information on the different domains that would be relevant for the VMA program. Input has been obtained from the different policy areas for this so it might be an idea for you to review this information to ensure that it is valid. So we really do encourage you to view Appendix B.

Some key points on SCORE. Record at least 50 percent or more on Circumstances and Goals. Record at least 10 percent for Satisfaction and it would only be a post-SCORE only as clients cannot be pre satisfied so that is why it is only a post-SCORE.

You would pick the domains that are relevant for the program your delivering. Clients can actually have multiple domains that they’re actually accessing services for. There is no right or wrong in outcomes that are achieved because it's where they are in that particular point of time that an assessment has been made and the client can have differing outcomes for each domain.

So we’ll just go in a little bit more to actually show you how client outcomes are obtained. What would happen is a client would come and access a service for an organisation. The SCORE  component would be selected. So in this example we have Circumstances, as the reason why this client has actually come to this organisation. We would then select the domain in this example we have got Family functioning and we would then do a rating for that client there.

SCORE outcomes that can be collected in a variety of ways. It could be by the practitioner could be as a joint assessment by the practitioner and the client, it could be directly from the client or even via a clinical evaluation tool because there are some programs that do use different types of evaluation tools to collect outcome information. Regardless of the collection method these would then all be recorded as either pre- or post-SCOREs by organisations who have opted to the partnership approach.

The pre-SCORE would occur normally towards the beginning of the client accessing the services. Then what would happen is either at the end of that client accessing your services or if the service is going to be quite extended, you could do periodic post-SCOREs along the way and it would be collected or recorded under the same particular component of SCORE so Circumstances, under the same domain, such as Family functioning and again you would use that 1 to 5 rating there against the relevant domain. So you have a beginning and an endpoint, and then from that you can see what the outcome achieved has been. The language that we use is either a positive outcome a neutral outcome or a negative outcome. It depends on the particular service the client is accessing where they are at that point in time as well, because recording your outcomes accurately or provide integrity to your data.

Now we are going to pause because I'm going to show you how to record SCORE. So we’ll go back to the training database and I’ll show the screen here. There are some different ways that we can actually record SCORE. We can go to and find the client, so let’s go Find a client and what you can see here is I’m going to actually find Gillian. Now she is the last one that I actually created so she comes at the top, but I could use my little search fields up the top here of Given name, Family name etc. to search her. I’m just going to selector the hyperlink and what I'm going to do is go into the sessions area of Intake and assessment and there she is there.

I am going to find her name and I'm going to view client SCORE. So what I might do is I am just going to pause for a moment just there.

Now what will happen with the system enhancements that are coming up in August, it is going to be a lot easier to actually record a SCORE for a client. Let me just go in and I will find this for you apologise for this.

Publishers note: Please be aware that this recording has a silent pause from 1:23:46 minutes to 1:25:16 minutes.

Thanks for your patience, the training database has just crashed so I won’t be moment I will just get this organised for you.

Publishers note: Please be aware that this recording has a silent pause from 1:25:16 minutes to 1:26:10

Thanks for your patience everyone, we have just got it back up and running so we will start that process again. So will just start that process again, so we've got Find a client. We’ll go to Gillian's name, we will go to the sessions that she has attended, and what we will do, notice this icon Client SCOREs. that's a medallion want when you when you see that that is always refers to a client's outcomes or their SCOREs. We select that and we come to the Client SCORE page. We then go in Add a client SCORE and we have the information for Gillian here so we can now go and record that SCORE.

We are going to go to the Assessment phase. This is the beginning of the service that she has attended with this organisation, so it's a pre-SCORE, and we are going to do the Assessment type under Circumstances. Now what we select then is the Show domains button. This hyperlink will give you definitions of what the different client Circumstances SCOREs mean and you'll notice this is the Likert scale of the 1 to 5 rating that we were talking about. So here you have you 1 to 5 from Negative impact to Adequate and stable over the medium term and then on the left-hand side we have the Client circumstances or the domains. The reasons why the client has come to you, so for Gillian her example here was that she wanted to improve her Community participation and networks. At the moment she is not doing well and she wants to improve this, so she feels that time she is at a two. She has done a self-assessment here on her intake form because she'd like to do more in the volunteering space and community participation space. So we have there the two for her and we are then going to save.

So what you'll find here is that at Community participation networks there is a two. Now what we going to do is we just going to pretend, we going to fast forward and we going to say that Gillian has attended other sessions here. So she may have attended obviously more than, well she could have attended this one session, so say she’s attended more sessions and she has finished her time with us and we going to do a post-SCOREs. So were just going to pretend that this is a different date as the session date here and also a different service type.

So were going to just Add a client SCORE and this time it's going to be a post-SCORE because she is could come to the end of her time with us attending our services. Now that could be that that could have been a six-week program that she is attended, or if she was continuing on a longer program we could be doing periodic SCOREs along the way or it could even be the same day. For some programs and maybe even for VMA programs, it could occur in the same day that you do a pre and post for the client, a before and after of the services they have received.

So again we going to select Circumstances again because remember we want to get that measurable outcome, we want to actually see what's been achieved by her accessing your services. We select Show domains and we now go back to Community participation and networks but after the sessions that she has attended, she is actually feeling at this is pretty good and really well and feeling really good about my community participation and networks and improving that. She has completed a self-assessment and has rated herself as a four, and again remembering that those particular assessments can be recorded either by the client themselves by the practitioner or by a joint assessment such as a practitioner and client coming together and deciding on the particular ratings or through a clinical evaluation tool.

So we are going to now select Save and we can see that's the pre-SCORE and we can see now that is the rating for the post-SCORE. Her shift has been by measure of two of for her outcome that she has actually achieved. Again, more guidance on how to create SCORE is in the task cards but we do have some system enhancements coming up that are going to make it a lot easier for you as an organisation to actually record SCORE information. What you will find and if you want to find out more about this is have a look at the System enhancements webinar. There system enhancements will occur in August, but you will find that in the Find area here you will have a Find a SCORE and under the add tabs, the add buttons you will have Add a SCORE. So its going to be really easy for you to actually add SCORE outcomes for your clients. So we will pause again and we will now go back to the presentation.

The benefits of outcomes. When we think about actually recording outcomes you’ll get a better understanding of what works and what doesn't within your program and what you're delivering. You’ll have the ability to monitor the impact of any initiatives that you may have put in place and gauge how these are affecting what your clients are achieving.

A great resource that can be used for evaluations within your organisation and the programs that you're delivering, the outlets or where these programs are being delivered from, and the person delivering the services. So it can provide evidence to support what your organisation is doing on the ground. It also provides evidence that your clients are achieving their intended outcomes.

If you haven’t opted in to the partnership approach as yet please consider that. You can see just how easy it was to record SCORE. Obviously we know the feedback that we have got from organisations is that a lot of the work is actually in deciding how they're going to collect those outcomes from the clients and again there is some guidance there in Appendix B of what sort of outcomes are most appropriate for the program that you're delivering for the VMA program.

We also do have some guidance on SCORE and outcomes recording again under the Data Exchange website under Policy guidance and we are working on more tools to be able to help organisations to actually start recording outcomes.

If you have any questions your first point of contact for assistance would be your funding arrangement manager. They will be able to assist you in providing guidance on issues regarding data entry issues, grant variations etc. You then have your IT vendor or specialist, so they'll be able to provide you with information for any issues that you may have with your upload. If you're using bulk XML or system to system again we do stress for them to contact our Helpdesk so they can get access to the staging environment, where they can test their coding programs before they upload live data.

Remember too, that we have technical specifications available on our website under IT access that you can direct them to or to download or forward that information to them as well.

We do have the wonderful and friendly staff there at the Data Exchange Helpdesk. They can provide you with further information and also the information for your IT vendor, as we mentioned and we have the Data Exchange website. We have the training material there and you can also subscribe to receive updates.

I am going to just quickly take you to the website and give you a quick tour of that because we didn't look at that when we had a look at the portal. All you need to do in your search engine if you haven't done this before is to type in DSS space DEX, and that will bring up the portal for you, it's one of the first of the search retrievals.

This is the Homepage where you would go to log in, this login button to either entering your data or for your Organisation Administrator to create and manage the outlets, create users, etc. or for any of you to run your reports. Remember too that your reporting permissions are the same as your user permissions. So if you only can access to one program and one outlet then that's all you'll see in your report, but more information on part in Part two of the webinar series.

The next button here is for Webinar library on the right-hand side that provides you with access to any recorded webinars that we’ve had in there and other one that I would refer you to is the System enhancements one.

Find training. If we have any training coming up that might be in your local area or by webinars, then you can click on this button, here and that will provide the information for you. We have the Subscribe button. This is where we would really encourage you to subscribe to our website so that you can receive regular updates with what's happening in the Data Exchange space.

If we go to the top of the buttons here got obviously about Policy, guidance will find the Protocols information as well as information on SCORE and client outcomes. IT access, where you've got the technical specifications for system-to-system and bulk uploads. There is also a great document in there about on frequently asked questions and why there may be certain errors in uploads as well.

Training resources for task cards, e-learning modules and self-service reports. Task cards on how to use the report functionality is in there as well and that is under the Support material heading of this tab, Helpdesk information and again Login details.

If we just scroll down the page, at times, we send out notifications and they will display on this left-hand side under the green Notification heading. We have our Latest updates, you can see here these are the latest ones that we've got and will have some more coming up here shortly I’m sure.

We have our Top 5 helpful resources. If you can't remember where the User access request form is or the Protocols we have our top five here, but you can also use the search bar here. You can type in some information. I might type in ‘user’ and we have here then add a new user are the task card, Novation process, Log in the portal etc. So it will provide you with information in the User access request form. You can do a search that way.

If there is any information that once you look through this that you feel you that you love or that you think hey this could be improved on or would be really good idea. You can contact us or provide us with feedback, because we are very happy to hear from you, because we are providing tools to you so please let us know if there is some way that we can do anything provide you with more information.

We’ll go back to the presentation just to finish off, and again if you got any further questions please contact us at the helpdesk there’s the phone number that are available Monday to Friday 8:30am to 5:pm, there Australian Eastern Standard Time or you can email the Helpdesk using that email address as shown.

Thank you very much for joining us today I hope you enjoyed it it's been great having you on board with us and we will look forward to having you join us next time. Thank you.