KinderWait 2.7.4 Close to Release

We are currently undergoing QA on release 2.7.4, which has a number of small enhancements and some fixes. We are preparing release notes now and will make those available to the agencies as soon as they are done.

Productive State-Wide CEL Meeting

I just got back from attending a state-wide CEL meeting. This was very productive, since not only did it give all the CEL administrators a chance to meet with the CDE and CDD staff and management, it also allowed the system vendors to have user-group sessions with their clients.

I got a lot of good feedback and requests which I will summarize and report on separately. It was good to see everyone at the meeting.

KinderWait 2.7.3 Published

By now all agencies should have received their upgrades to version 2.7.3, which includes all CSPP changes. If your agency is still not deployed, please contact Support and we can expedite the upgrade. There are a number of small enhancements wrapped up in this release. Release notes are also available from Support upon request.

Version 2.7.3 Released

QA is complete. We have released KinderWait version 2.7.3. Our support team is now contacting agencies to schedule installation. The support team also has the release notes as well as the eligibility rules documents for distribution.

Long Greeting Message in v7.2.3

Ahh, finally a meaningfully long message:

It goes on and on. You should no longer be limited by how much you can put in. Also, don’t forget the post about how to insert links directly into the message, making it easier for your users to navigate to other sites, products or email.

Testing KinderWait v2.7.3

Version 2.7.3, which includes the updates to support the state’s new CSPP program, is built and is undergoing testing now. We should be fine with a release before July 1, 2009, when the CSPP program becomes active.

The Archive-to-Active Conundrum

KinderWait’s archive features are well integrated and are designed to make life easier for agencies. We are finding, however, that a lot of users do not quite know how the mechanism works and things get confusing. So let me discuss this a bit more:

How archiving is meant to work:

After records are not updated for a given amount of time, usually 6 or 12 months, a record gets moved to Archived status automatically by the system and an appropriate status change is logged. The system does this by monitoring all changes to a record (excluding only status changes or notes) and updating the “last modified date” every time a record gets changed. Nightrun then finds all “last modified dates” in all records  that are older than the timer, which incidentally the system administrator can set, and it moves all  those records to Archived status. So far so good.

When an archived record is “touched” by any agent, where touched means updated in any way (other than status and notes) the “last modified date” is updated and the record is brought back the next night. The idea is that if a client comes back after a long time and the record is now in Archived status, it comes back automatically without the agent having to do anything.

Agencies are contacting clients before the timer is set to expire and those clients that respond by sending back the updated information, or marking at least that nothing has changed, get updated, which changes the “last modified date” and the records remain active.

If the timer is set to 12 months, we usually suggest that agencies send the reminder at the 11th month, giving the client a month to respond. Those that respond get updated. Agents only have to “touch” the records of the responsive clients. Those that ignore the reminder, or those that have moved away and who don’t receive the reminder, result in non-responsiveness, and the system automatically moves them to Archive.

This whole scheme is meant to minimize the work of the agency.

What sometimes goes  wrong:

Some agencies make the mistake of waiting until the records go to Archived, then search for them and bring them back if the client responds. That is an ok strategy, but it’s a lot more work. It’s much simpler to just update the responsive records, and let the system do  the rest of the work. Also, the additional thrashing moves from Active to Archived to Active mess up the audit trail.

Some agencies, when they have Archived records that they want to bring back, do the transaction from Archived to Active, but they do not “touch” the record. They just put in a note indicating what happened. The note, however, does not update the “last modified date” and the status transition from Archived to Active does not either. So Nightrun sees  the outdated “last modified date” of  the record and promptly moves it back to Archived the following night.

If the agent catches this they contact Controltec Support and ask for help, thinking the system is messing with their records.

What the agents need to do is touch the record so they update the ”last modified date” when they move a record back from Archived to Active, and this would prevent it. Of course, that action alone would be enough to move the record back, so it would be  pointless.

What we are changing:

In version 2.7.3, we are changing the method of moving records from Archived to Active. While we are doing it, we’re also updating the “last modified date” so the record will not go back to Archived that night. This will not interfere with the normal way of how things should work, but if an agent absolutely wants to move clients back manually, it will at least keep them there.

Important note:

Make sure you think about the “child application date.” If a record comes back from Archived, for whatever reason, you need to decide if the “child application date” should be moved forward or not. The system does not automatically do anything with that date.

Put a Link In your Greeting Message

Most of the CEL Administrators use the Greeting Message to make announcements. However, it’s not easy to put actual link there, so users can click on the links right in the message. You have to actually write HTML code to do that. Well, here is the sample you can use. Let’s say you want a link to the Controltec web site from your Greeting Message.

Insert the following line in your message where you want the link to appear:

For good information go visit <a href=’http://www.controltec.com’ target=’_blank’> www.controltec.com </a> every day.

Now you should see this when you log in:

Good luck.

Preview of Items in Version 2.7.3

We are finalizing the deliverables for KW release 2.7.3 which will be out before July 1, 2009. Here is the unofficial preview:

1. Implement the new CSPP progam per the specs by CDE.

2. Update the last-update-date when a child is moved from Archive to Active. Currently, if the user does this manually (the system does it automatically when the user updates the records) and forgets to update the record, the record gets moved back to Archive. This will prevent this. It’s not changing anything, but it will be consistent with the intent of the user.

3. List the income types in alphabetial order (currently seemingly random).

4. Correct a bug in the Search/Mail family size filter.

5. Make the way the state upload file is generated more intuitive. This is much faster now, so we will be able to initiate the request and have the user wait for the job to complete right on the screen.

6. Prevent family application date to be in the future.

7. Add the “quarter date” and “printed date” to the State Error Report.

8. Remove the false positive error for the Partially Enrolled Marker in the State Error Report when the family is Archived or Terminated.

9. Remove the false positive error for the Exceptional Needs requirement for children turning 13 in the reported quarter.

10. It was not possible to delete public users. This is fixed.

11. Correct a problem with the Unlock Utility.

12. We are still trying to resolve the issue with Income and Eligibility related to the PKFLP program. We broadcast for feedback, but what we got back was not conclusive. We may need another call to work this out.

As you an see, this is mostly a fix release for a lot of very minor things that were reported recently. The impetus is the CSPP program, which needs to be in place by July 1. This is what is driving this.

CSPP Program and the CEL

Very shortly now, the State of California will come out with the regulations and guidelines about the new CSPP program.

In KinderWait, we will simply add a new set of eligibility rules. CEL adminstrators will be able to create their own programs and attach them to the new eligibility rules.

The CSPP programs will be active effective July 1, 2009. We will have release v 2.7.3 ready with the new rules before then.