When working with a client for the first time, you will conduct an intake and create a new Case Record for your program in CoDa. Before conducting a new intake, always check to see if the client exists in the database already!
Every program has different expectations of what information to collect and each program's intake record will look different. If fields appear on your intake which you are not sure if you need to collect or not, ask your supervisor or co-worker.
When you conduct an intake for a client who has not worked with Compass before, CoDa automatically creates a new Household record for that client’s family.
We need to know how many people are in each family and we need to know their relationships to one another. Once you've completed the intake for your main client, you will need to add all other family members to the household directly from the Household Record.
For every family member, we need at least a first name, last name, and birthdate. We ask that you include any other readily available information.
When you save a document for uploading to your client’s record, please name it using this guideline: Firstname Lastname Document Name, for example “Nancy Ramone Birth Certificate”.
No matter which Compass program you work for, you can attach and access electronic copies of client documents within the database. Some documents are normally needed for all members of the family. Such documents related to a specific individual should always be attached to that person’s Client record, in the Notes & Attachments section.
New Housing Trackers should be created at program entry, any time the client notifies you of housing changes, and, for most programs, at program exit. Please speak with your manager or someone from the Impact + Learning Team if you are unsure when to create case records for your program.
Create a new income tracker at intake, every quarter, and at exit. Capture different types of income and benefits with our "Income and Non-Case Benefits" object. Each new Income Tracker represents gross monthly income at a given time for the entire household.
Create a new FAM at intake and quarterly thereafter. The FAM assesses criteria such as Employment, Adult Education and Training, Access to Transportation, Child Wellbeing, etc on a scale of 1-5. If you do not have enough information to evaluate the household in a certain area, leave the field blank. You can find our full FAM training here.
Update your client’s Action Plan at least once per quarter, ideally more frequently. You have access to the Action Plan on the service entry page and in the Goals section of the client’s case record. Use the Action Steps to go more into detail about the goals of your client.
Create a Service Entry every time that you do anything related to your client. Service entries are the database version of case notes. Every time you have a client interaction, or work with another provider on a client related issues, you should create a service entry document the experience.
Frequency and Dosage
Compass tracks client engagement data so that we can analyze if our programs are meeting with clients often enough and long enough to achieve the desired outcomes. The two main metrics are Frequency and Dosage. Frequency tells us how often we meet with clients and Dosage tells us how long we meet with clients. Based on conversations with program directors, Compass created internal program frequency and dosage targets based on that we believe are adequate to make an impact for clients. Your CoDa dashboard provides an up-to-date comparison of your recent case management entries with your program’s frequency and dosage goals.
Your dashboard is your friend. Use your dashboard to see what you need to do to reach your targets.
Questions? Problems?
- The CoDa Knowledge Base, accessible online here has comprehensive guides about CoDa data entry and is a great resource for refreshing your memory about intake and service entry procedures.
- If you need to report duplicate records, get a confusing error message, or are unable to complete an accurate entry for some other reason, send a message to the CoDa Help Desk here!