ALICE Software Manual for Wisconsin

Transcription

1 ALICE Software Manual for Wisconsin Updated January 14, 214 About this manual This manual is intended to be a guide for Wisconsin domestic violence and sexual assault programs that need to report to state funders. It covers what you need to know in order to collect and report data accurately to DCF, SAVS and VOCA funders. It is not meant to be a complete guide. There are many other options and features of Alice that will not be mentioned here that you may find useful. This manual may be updated periodically. If you are on the Wisconsin Alice users list you will be notified. This manual has been created by Wisconsin Coalition Against Domestic Violence and is not a product of the software manufacturer, nor has it been reviewed or endorsed by the manufacturer. WCADV makes no claims to the accuracy of this manual. Discrepancies between instructions in this document and the Alice Help information contained within the software may be errors in either the manual or in Alice Help, or due to changes in the software that have been implemented after publication of this manual. Please contact the WCADV Technology Coordinator (Vicki Berenson, [email protected], phone ) or the software vendor (Mark Shapiro, [email protected], phone ) if you have questions or comments. Helpful tips: Click on an entry in the Contents to jump to that section. Press Ctrl + Home on your keyboard to return to the beginning. Printing: Be forewarned that there may be frequent updates to this manual which can change the page numbering and Contents. You may want to limit printing to just certain sections. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [1] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

2 Contents About this manual... 1 Basic configuration... 6 Installation... 6 Upgrades... 6 Backup strategy... 7 Alice Help... 8 WCADV Help... 8 How Alice Data is Organized... 8 Client Intakes... 9 Find and Load... 9 Client Activities... 9 Case Notes... 1 Other Forms... 1 Non-client items... 1 If there isn t a place to enter something... 1 Customizing for your agency Best Practices Users Staff Names Agency Options Miscellaneous What should be entered into Alice? Customizing for Funders Edit menu vs. Utility menu What kinds of things need to be customized? Customizing for Funders Step-by-Step Make some fields mandatory Create custom fields Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [2] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

3 3. Modify drop-down lists Configure Funders Configure your Services/Activities Associate Service Names with service types Associate Event Categories with Service Types View your Service Names associations Where do reports get their information? Entering Client Information Overview About these instructions Screens... 2 Types of Fields... 2 Saving Incomplete Records About Client Types and Intakes Enter a Hotline Record Turnaways (in person) Enter an Outreach (Intake) Client Enter an Adult Shelter Client Enter a Child Shelter Client Find and Load an Existing Client New intake for an existing client who has returned Children becoming adults while receiving services... 3 Load a client to a different screen... 3 Departures Enter a Departure record Why enter Departure records? When to Depart a client Enter Services (Activities) Enter services for an individual client Enter services for several clients at once Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [3] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

4 Volunteers Events Configure Events Enter Events Event Reports Reports Wisconsin Funder Report Requirements Wisconsin DCF Domestic Violence Report Error checking Wisconsin SAVS report VOCA report - Wisconsin HUD annual performance report Other useful reports Client Lists Reports for checking data Activity reports Query reports Create your own reports Save and Export reports Filtering reports Clusters Funder Staff Dates Other features Print blank forms Print client information My Clients Case notes Preferences Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [4] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

5 Reminders Calendars Referral sources Waiting list Abuser form Troubleshooting I can t see or change a date for a report I want to run Dependents not counted on funder reports I can t find my client I have lots of clients with the same name on Find tab My reports show more clients than I have My reports show more services than they should Users often forget to include information that is necessary for reports How do I know if I am deleting or disabling an option? Appendices Alice software installation options... 1 Alice installation worksheet... 4 Alice Customizing for Funders Checklist... 1 Technical Support Provider Confidentiality Agreement... 1 How Service Types link to reports... 1 Editing Service Names, Types and Characteristics... 1 Customizing Service Categories and Service Names... 1 How to make children s activities count on the DCF Report... 1 Sample DCF Report... 1 Sample SAVS Report... 1 Sample VOCA Report... 1 Hotline Callers what counts where... 1 Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [5] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

6 Basic configuration Installation Alice can be installed in many ways depending on your program s needs and computer network configuration. It s important to keep track of how you ve installed Alice to make it easier for you or for a technician to install upgrades. See Appendices Alice software installation options and Alice installation worksheet for more details on installation and a place to record this information for ease with future upgrades. Here is the information you should have available for upgrades: - Location of Alice installation/files - Location of the Alice shared folder - An administrator login and password to the server or computer where Alice is installed - A list of computers that are accessing Alice over the internet (whether in the office or at another location) Upgrades Upgrades come out 3 times a year. Upgrades fix reported issues and often include new features that users have requested. Be sure you install the most recent upgrade. You will receive an Alice upgrade notice by 3 times a year assuming you have paid your annual renewal fee. It provides links and instructions to download and install the upgrade. If you are not receiving these messages please contact Mark Shapiro at or [email protected] and provide your current Alice administrator s contact information. To install your upgrade you need to know the Alice configuration at your agency. Use the Alice installation worksheet to help you keep a record and to make step-by-step notes so you don t have to figure it out every time. If you pay tech support you might want to watch them do it and take notes so you can do it yourself in the future. The vendor (Mark Shapiro, [email protected], phone ) is also available to walk you through the upgrade process if you are having problems (a service included in your Alice support fee). *Pay careful attention to detailed instructions in the upgrade letter just in case there is something unusual with a particular upgrade. The basic steps are: 1. Download the upgrade to the computer where the Alice program is installed. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [6] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

7 2. Temporarily stop the Alice server (from the icon or the list of Services in Administrative tools). 3. Install the upgrade (from the download) 4. Update the Alice shared folder (this may happen automatically depending on your setup). This is important. If you don t do this, shortcuts to Alice computers in your agency will not point to the new version and people will get an error message when trying to run Alice. 5. Restart the Alice server. Remote users: If you have other locations (outreach offices, or individual computers in your office that are connected through the internet but not an office network) you will need to make sure they replace their Alice files with the most recent versions of these 4 files from the Alice shared folder. The first one is the actual program and the others are different versions of the help files. Alice.exe Alice.chm Alice.pdf Alice_Help.exe Remote users will also need 2 other files if this is the first time you are providing remote access, (or if you are asking them to replace all of their Alice remote files at once): american.adm - doesn t generally change proxy.ini - a separate edited version that contains the following line (substitute your server s external IP address for the x s): ServerAddress=xxx.xx.xxx.xxx You can these files in a compressed (.zip) folder. Backup strategy Unless you have changed the settings in Utility > Database Back-up Options, Alice makes a backup of its tables in the Alice\Back subfolder at 3AM every night. This will help if any files or tables become corrupt. But it won t help if the computer goes down and you can t retrieve the tables. Be sure that you regularly make a copy of the files in the Alice\Tables folder in at least one other place: a flash drive, backup hard drive, rewritable CD/DVD, or another computer. If your server already has a backup system, make sure it includes the Alice\Tables folder. Although Alice data cannot be read by anyone without a user login, it is best to keep any devices that have backup copies of the Alice data in a secure place so that your data remains confidential. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [7] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

8 Alice Help Help > Alice Help or ebook Help or PDF Help The definitive answers to how Alice works can be found in the Alice Help files. You will find much more detailed information than in this manual. If you find discrepancies between this manual and what it says in Alice Help, please contact WCADV. Alice Help files are updated along with each upgrade. If Alice Help doesn t work for you, try one of the others they all contain the same information. If you don t find what you are looking for in the Contents, try the Index. You may have to type in a few different keywords or scroll through the list to find what you are looking for in the title of the help pages. The Search tab looks for the words you type in any of the text in help, so you will get more results to wade through. Each custom report has its own help page, and describes in detail how the data is pulled for that report. Information on canned Alice reports can be found under each report type. Help for Wisconsin reports can be found in the index under: VOCA Report Wisconsin Wisconsin DCF domestic violence annual report Wisconsin SAVS report (Wisconsin sexual assault report (WCASA) not used yet) The help documents are the last word on how data entered in Alice makes it to each report. This manual is partly intended to clarify the information in Alice help. WCADV Help WCADV website: MEMBERS > Alice software help There are several recorded training webinars on the WCADV website that can help you learn and understand how to upgrade Alice and use it for Wisconsin funder reporting. If you don t have a member login to the WCADV website please contact the WCADV office at How Alice Data is Organized This is a very brief description and doesn t include everything about Alice. The most important thing to understand in Alice is that intakes are separate from services. You can enter an intake but the client won t be counted on Wisconsin funder reports unless you also enter some kind of services including nights of shelter. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [8] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

9 Client Intakes Adult Shelter, Child Shelter, Outreach/Intake or Hotline (tabs) This is where you can enter all the basic information about a client. You don t enter anything you ve done with/for the client here. You can transfer clients from one type of intake to another for example, if a hotline caller comes in for counseling, or if a client leaves shelter but comes in to attend a group. Most of the client s intake information will transfer so you don t have to retype. Intakes are for a client for a set period of time. Information on an intake can be edited if it changes during that time. If the client leaves and returns later for more services, you can create a new intake for that client with different information, and the old intake will be preserved. NOTE: Services you record are connected to an intake not the client so the Activity screen will only show services that were entered for the intake you have loaded. About ID #s Each client should have a unique ID#, whether you have automatically created it or are using your own system. This ID# connects all of the intakes and other activities and records you may have to the client, which is necessary to report unduplicate client counts. (You can find clients with the same name but different ID#s with the Audit button on the Find screen; if they are the same person change the ID# on one of the intakes to make them count as one client. Find and Load Find (tab) In order to add information to a client s record you must first find the client s intake or hotline record, then load it to one of the data screens. Besides the screens you see tabs for across the top, there are other screens that can be found in the Data Type drop-down box on the Find screen. Client Activities Activity (tab) Activities are all of the services a client receives, including shelter nights. Each service has a date and may also have other information with it, such as funder, staff or notes. You can view all of the services for a client intake by loading it to the Activity tab. If a client has multiple intakes you will need to load each one to see the services during each period of time. Services can be entered for one client at a time on the Activity screen or for several clients at once using the Roster screen. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [9] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

10 Case Notes Load client to Data Type: Case Notes Case notes can be entered for a client, and optionally visible only by the creator or a department, or made unalterable. Various agency-wide options can be set for case notes, including the option to delete them all when a client exits (departure record is created). If you use case notes, consider that they may be subject to subpoena. Don t record anything in Alice that you wouldn t keep in a client s paper file. Other Forms Other Forms such as Legal, HMIS Data, Sexual Assault, etc. are available from bottom of the Find screen or with the airplane icon at the top right of most screens. There are many other screens, including: Sexual Assault (incident details) HMIS Data (for HUD reporting) Legal Outcomes Lots more Load a client to one of these screens to see what you can record. Be sure to follow best practices: don t record anything in Alice that you wouldn t keep in a paper file, or that you wouldn t want to submit in the event of a subpoena. Non-client items The File and Community menu have places to track things that aren t associated with specific clients such as volunteers and events, and features like mailboxes and messaging. Under Tools you can set your own preferences and defaults, print blank forms or take a screenshot to copy to a document or . If there isn t a place to enter something Here are some ways to track things there is not already a place for, in order of how easy it is to get them out on reports: Add options to existing drop-down or multiple choice lists (Utility menu) Add a data tracking item for client information not part of an intake, activity or outcome (Edit menu) Add custom fields (Edit menu) Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [1] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

11 Customizing for your agency There are many options you can set. Each program will have to decide what is best for their agency. Best Practices Taking the time to do these will make it much easier to enter data and generate reports: Adapt your intake forms and hotline call sheets or checklists to match what you need to enter in Alice. Make fields mandatory that you know will need to be filled in for clients to count on reports. Disable fields and forms you aren t using. Test reports periodically for short periods of time to make sure your data matches what you know. Users Utility > Edit User Name Table, click on your agency. You must log in as the Alice Administrator or have Wizard permission to enter or edit users. Users are people who enter data. You can have one or more users enter data for the whole agency, or you can have each staff member enter their own. Users are different from Staff. If you will want to track activities or generate reports based on who provided the service, you will need to enter staff and/or volunteers in a different place, and then select them when you enter intakes, hotline calls and activities. Each user has a set of permissions. See User Authorization Levels in Alice help for details on each one. In the User Names & Authority window select the Edit button at the bottom left, then click on a user to see or change permissions. The Alice Administrator is set by Infocus and can access everything for all agencies that have been installed. Infocus keeps a record of the administrator login. Additional agencies must be added by Infocus. Wizard authority allows access to pretty much everything, but only for their agency (if you have multiple agencies). Full authority allows access to the Edit menu but not the Utility menu. Look at the menus to see what items can be modified in each one. Basic authority is good for staff who enter data but don t need to be able to customize any of the options or lists. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [11] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

12 Other levels further restrict what users can do, and may be useful for volunteers or staff who don t need access to client data. Note the checkboxes for Additional Authority. Select other buttons and click on a user to: Deactivate the user (but preserve the data that they have entered) Restrict access to certain forms Designate access to specific agencies if you have more than one agency. Staff Names Edit > Staff > Staff Names Enter staff/volunteer names if you be tracking activities or generating reports based on who provided the service. You will need to select staff names for intakes, hotline calls and activities. You can delete staff when they are no longer with your agency so they no longer show up on the drop-down list. If their names have been entered on any forms, their names will be disabled but they will still appear where they have been entered and on reports. You can also set a default funder to automatically fill the funder field when entering an Activity and selecting a staff person. Agency Options Utility > Manage Agencies, click on your agency. You will find several pages of options which you ll need to look through to see if any are applicable to your agency. Most can probably remain as is. Take care with how you change them: think about the potential for subpoena, as well as the frustration level for advocates entering or using data. Here are some of the choices: Lock records from access by other users or departments Prevent locking records Prevent changes in records Hide medical, mental health and substance abuse data on exit Disable forms including mental health, injury diagram, and abuser information Disable Save incomplete record button Delete case notes and client calendar entries on exit If you use case notes, see Case notes in Alice help for more details. Miscellaneous Utility > Utility Tasks >Set First Calendar Year Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [12] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

13 Make sure your First Calendar Year is set to the first year you entered data in Alice. This will make the dates available when you run reports. What should be entered into Alice? There are so many kinds of information you can keep track of in Alice. The same principles that apply to paper record-keeping apply here. Consider these things: What do you need to report to funders? Any client information you enter is as vulnerable to subpoena as something in a paper file. While you can set Alice to hide medical/mental health/substance abuse data and delete case notes and client calendar entries on exit, all of that information will be there until you enter a departure record. Some things might be nice to know, but just because there is a place to record it, does its usefulness balance the potential intrusion on a client s privacy? Is the information useful enough to balance the potential burden on staff to collect and record it? Customizing for Funders You must make certain changes to Alice so that DCF, VOCA and SAVS reports can pull data correctly. Spending the time to organize the services you provide will make it easier for staff to enter data correctly. You may also decide to disable some fields or forms or make certain fields mandatory to further assist with data-entry. See Best Practices. Alice includes customized reports for Wisconsin DCF, SAVS and VOCA funders. In order for these reports to be accurate there are several things you will need to do in advance. You will also need to make sure users know how to enter their data correctly. (Alice has hundreds of built-in reports that can give you just about any information you want, but you would have to combine the results of several reports to get what you need for each funder report, and do some work to unduplicate client counts). You must be the Alice Administrator or have Wizard permission to customize. Edit menu vs. Utility menu Anything you change on the Utility menu affects ALL agencies (if you have more than one), and changes on the Edit menu affect only the selected agency. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [13] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

14 What kinds of things need to be customized? Add/edit choices in some drop-down lists (Utility menu) Create custom fields (Edit menu) Associate Service Names and Event Categories with Service Types (Edit menu) Add funder - VOCA only (Edit menu) Make some fields mandatory optional but advisable (Edit menu) Customizing for Funders Step-by-Step 1. Make some fields mandatory Edit > Enable/Disable/Make Mandatory Data-Entry Fields Make the ID# field mandatory for Adult-Shelter, Child-Shelter, Outreach/Intake and Hotline forms. You need it for all of your funder reports. (Edit menu) Make the Abuse status field mandatory for Adult-Shelter, Child-Shelter, Outreach/Intake and hotline forms if you have VOCA funding. 2. Create custom fields Edit > Custom Fields NOTES: Spell custom fields exactly as below for them to appear on funder reports. If you already have one that is misspelled but means the same thing you can change it. (If you have more than one custom field that mean the same thing and you delete one of them, you will lose the data that you have entered. You may want to create a configurable report first to list the data before you delete it. See Configurable reports). For each custom field, make it mandatory if it applies to a lot of your clients, or if it is required for a funder report. Balance this with the fact that you will then HAVE to enter something (even if the answer is no or unknown ) To disable or make mandatory a custom field, use the checkbox that appears when you create or edit a field. DCF Add to Adult-Shelter, Child-Shelter, Outreach/Intake and Hotline custom forms. You can add the field to one, and then copy to the others. DCF Report? (for all clients reporting DV) Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [14] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

15 Add to Adult-Shelter, Child-Shelter, and Outreach/Intake custom forms. You can add the field to one, and then copy to the others. Southeast Asian SAVS Add to Adult-Shelter, Child-Shelter, Outreach/Intake and Hotline custom forms. SAVS Report? (for all clients reporting SA) Presented with DV, getting SA services (for dual agencies: Domestic violence with sexual assault. Hotline callers will count here only if activities that count on the SAVS report are entered for the caller) 3. Modify drop-down lists Utility > Edit Drop-Down List Items * WARNING: Don t change the text in existing choices unless it means the same thing as the original. In some cases the text has to stay as is in order to correctly show up on some of the funder reports. DCF Add these options to Primary language on the adult shelter, child shelter, outreach/intake and hotline forms: Hmong Russian American Sign Language Note: Other does NOT include English. You may wish to rename it Other not English just to be sure data is entered correctly. Add these options to the Background list on the adult shelter, child shelter and outreach/intake forms: Youth IPV Limited English Proficiency (if it is not already there) VOCA Add options to the Victim Type list on the adult shelter, child shelter outreach/intake and hotline forms. You may use different (or more) options as long as you can use the results of the VOCA report to fit them into the categories below. (The VOCA report will list the client count for anything you enter in the Victim Type field). Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [15] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

16 NOTE: You may edit an existing option but if it already has data entered, make sure your new wording means the same thing as the old one. Child Abuse/Sexual Child Abuse/Physical Domestic Violence Adult Sexual Assault Adult/Molested as Child Other Violent Crime Elder Abuse Drunk Driving Survivor of Homicide Victim Assault Robbery Other Violent Crime Property Crime Other/Unknown 4. Configure Funders Edit > Services and Funders > Program Funders Edit > Services and Funders > Default Funder for Staff, Service Names, or Clients VOCA Add VOCA to your Program Funders list. Edit > Services and Funders > Program Funders Optional: Make the Funder field mandatory for activities and hotline calls. If you do this be sure to add a funder named Other if you want to be able to save records without entering a specific funder. Optional: To make VOCA data-entry a little easier, you can make VOCA the default funder for any Service Name, Staff Name, or active client. You would want to do this for any of these that are always VOCA-funded. VOCA will automatically fill in as the funder when the staff is selected on an intake form or when entering an activity. You can choose VOCA as the default funder if MOST of your entries will be VOCA funded, but then you will have to remember to delete VOCA from the funder field if it isn t. This may work better than remembering to enter VOCA as the funder if it is not set as the default; whatever works best for you. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [16] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

17 DCF & SAVS There is no need to enter a funder for DCF or SAVS. DCF wants data for all clients with DV issues regardless of funder. SAVS wants data on all clients with SA issues regardless of funder (with a separate count for those who present with DV but have also SA issues). HUD/HMIS Before you install the fall 212 upgrade you will need to create a funder for HMIS records, even if you don t get HUD funding. Other will work fine, but you will be asked to choose a default funder for HMIS records when you do the upgrade. 5. Configure your Services/Activities DCF, VOCA and SAVS Decide what services you will use. Activity screen Select each Service Category and look at the Service Names in the drop-down lists. Do these make sense for your agency? Do you need to add any services that you provide? Do you need to change the wording of a service name to match what your agency calls it? Do you need to be able to report more specific services than the ones listed? Edit, delete or add services Edit > Services and Funders > Service Names Choose a service category and edit, delete or add new names in each category to match your list. If you delete a name that has data, it will be disabled, so your existing data will still show up on reports. Be careful about renaming an existing service if it has been used: make sure you don t change the meaning of it. (You can edit/add/remove Service Categories. However, if your categories don t reflect the type of client, you may lose the ability to use a new feature that came out with the April 212 upgrade. This allows you to limit what categories are shown on the Activity/Roster tabs depending on the type of client that is loaded). See APPENDIX X Customizing Service Categories and Names for details on how to do this. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [17] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

18 6. Associate Service Names with service types Edit > Services and Funders > Service Names *This is the essential step where you tell Alice how Service Names are funneled to funder reports!!! Any Service Name that doesn t have an associated Service Type will NOT count on Wisconsin funder reports. Select each Service Category to edit the Service Names in it. Click on each service name to edit it: - Check the box next to the appropriate Service Types based on the instructions for each report. Some of the options may seem like the right ones but only service types listed in the Alice help for each report will cause the service to be counted on that report. You can choose more than one service type for each Service Name, but only one for each report. - Check the correct characteristic for bed nights, group activity and telephone contact on the right. - Click Change when you are done with each Service Name. Do this for disabled Service Names, too, if you have any data in them that you need to include in your reports: Click the Show Inactive Only button to view and click disabled Service Names. See Editing Service Names, Types and Characteristics in the Appendix for details on how to do this. See How Service Types link to reports and Alice Customizing for Funders checklist in the Appendix for a guide to DCF, SAVS and VOCA funder report categories and which service types to use. 7. Associate Event Categories with Service Types Edit > Events, Letters and Materials > Event Categories DCF and SAVS Your events will be counted in different places on reports depending on the Event Categories you have created, and the Service Types you have assigned to each Event Category. Create or delete event categories you d like to have. These will be counted differently on each funder report, so create categories that you will be able to assign to the appropriate service types. Edit each category and check the box next to the appropriate Service Type. You may choose one from the DCF list and one from the SAVS list for each of your Event categories. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [18] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

19 DCF - community education - community education-youth - hospital/health care training - professional training - community awareness (does not report audience; good for media events) SAVS - Sexual assault community outreach - Sexual assault prevention education View your Service Names associations Edit > Services and Funders > Service Names Click on any Service Name and click the Service Names by Service Type button at the bottom left of the screen. Click Service Names by Characteristic at the bottom right for a list of services by characteristic. You can print these lists. Where do reports get their information? Help > Alice Help or ebook Help or PDF Help The Alice Help file for each report explains how data that you enter is channeled to each item in the report. Look in the index for Wisconsin DCF Report, Wisconsin SAVS Report, or VOCA Report-Wisconsin. Although this information is complete, some of it is quite subtle. This manual takes you through a step-by-step process for customizing and entering data for funder reports. Look at the Customizing for Funders and Entering client information sections for detailed instructions on customizing and entering data. Also see Alice Customizing for Funders checklist in the Appendix of this manual: Entering Client Information Overview About these instructions This section focuses on what needs to be entered in order to generate reports for Wisconsin funders. Many fields may not be mentioned use them if they are helpful; ignore them if they are not. Refer to your agency s data collection guidelines for what should and should not be recorded. Items needed for specific funders are marked DCF, SAVS or VOCA. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [19] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

20 Screens Blue items on the screen are mandatory. You will not be able to save your record without entering something in each of these fields unless you use the Save incomplete record feature. Tab and Shift-Tab moves between fields if you don t want to use the mouse and prefer to keep your hands on the keyboard. Dark outline around a button means it is the default button. Press the Enter key to activate whichever button is the default. Numbered buttons at the bottom will bring up more screens. Press 1 to return to the main screen. Custom button will display custom fields that your agency has created. Pencil audit button tells you when the record was last modified and by whom. Add button must be clicked in order to save a new entry. You may get popup warnings telling you that you have to fill in all mandatory fields before you can save. Change button replaces the Add button after a record has been saved. Click to save any changes you ve made since you added the record. Transfer button is used to avoid re-entering all the information when someone moves between hotline, shelter and outreach/intake forms. You can change or add information on the new form. Clear button removes all the information on the screen so you can start a new entry. It will erase any unsaved information you have on your screen, but will not delete saved records. Arrows scroll between all the records that came up in the Find tab. SI button saves an incomplete record. Use the Audit button on the Find screen to list and load records that need to have more information entered. Types of Fields Multiple Choice (such as Call Type ) allows you to select more than one option. Drop-down boxes (such as Victim Type ) allow you to choose only one item from the list. Button choices with a text box below (such as on page 2) will show different choices in the checkboxes below. A + sign will show up next to a button if anything has been entered. Custom fields click the Custom button to find them. - Required for some funder reports. (DCF, SAVS) - All custom fields for a given form are found on the Custom screen for that form. - Add your own custom fields only if you can t find a way to record that information in an existing place. If there is more than one place to enter the same information it may confuse users and you may not see your results in the reports where you expect them. Often you will find that adding an option to an existing field such as Background will do what you want, and may make it easier to find in built-in Alice reports. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [2] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

21 Saving Incomplete Records The small SI icon on intake or hotline screens can be used to save a record that needs to have more information entered later. You will still need to enter First and Last Name, Intake Date, Birth Date or Age, and Gender. When you search for a client on the Find screen, incomplete will show up below the results box when their name is highlighted. Choose the Audit button on the Find screen to pull up all incomplete records. About Client Types and Intakes Note: The shelter version of Alice uses the term Outreach which means the same as Intake in the nonresidential version (Alice NR). Alice defines several types of clients. Hotline: Callers who are not receiving in-person services. Outreach (Intake) clients who are served at your agency but do not reside in shelter. Adult Shelter adult clients who reside in shelter. Child Shelter children who reside in shelter with their parent/guardian. A client can only be one of these at a time but may move from one to another. Using the Transfer button helps copy much of their information to a new intake as a different type of client. Follow these 2 steps to be sure your clients will count on most reports. Each funder also requires other information to be entered in order for clients to count on their report. 1. Enter the client information per funder instructions on the Adult-Shelter, Child Shelter, Outreach or Intake form. 2. Enter at least one ACTIVITY (Service) for a client. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [21] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

22 Enter a Hotline Record Hotline screen PAGE 1 Operator (optional) use this if you want to be able to run hotline reports based on the person who took the call. Choices come from the list of staff and volunteers entered in Edit > Staff > Staff Names. This is independent of who has logged in to enter data. Hint: If you enter your own data, go to Tools > My Preferences to choose yourself as the default operator; then just click the < button on the hotline form to enter your name quickly. ID# - Required by DCF, VOCA and SAVS. Click the # to enter an ID automatically, or enter your own if your program has an existing system. First Name, Last Name or Anonymous Caller: Check the Anonymous Caller box and you will not have to enter First and Last Name. State: For Michigan agencies, DCF counts hotline calls with WI entered here. Date & Time: Enter the start and end time to automatically calculate the number of minutes. You can t enter minutes directly. Call Type: Some reports include only certain call types so be sure you know what you need to enter here: SAVS hotline calls only include call types "Crisis Call", "Counseling", or "Information/Referral Call" NOT Advocacy. VOCA only counts call types "Information/Referral Call" (or "Information and Referral) as telephone contacts NOT Advocacy. DCF includes all hotline calls as long as the custom field DCF Report?= Yes. Victim Type: VOCA requires something in this field in order to count on the report. Items on this list must correspond somehow to the list provided by Wisconsin VOCA. PAGE 2 Funder: Select VOCA for any hotline calls that are funded by VOCA. Why Refused DCF requires we re full for this caller to be counted in the Unmet needs section of the DCF report. SAVS requires any value to be entered in this field. CUSTOM Custom: DCF Report? DCF wants you to enter yes for ALL clients with domestic violence issues regardless of who is funding the services. Custom: SAVS Report? SAVS wants you to enter yes for ALL clients with sexual assault issues regardless of who is funding the services or whether they also have DV issues. For dual agencies, if appropriate, enter Presented with DV, getting SA services. Click the Add button to save a new record, or Change to save changes to an existing record. Other Buttons Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [22] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

23 Names button (optional): Enter the caller s children if you want to. This does not create a separate intake or hotline record for children. Names will not show up on any reports although the hotline Demographic statistics and query report will total the information entered about the dependents. History button: Shows all previous departure records for clients with this ID#. Alert List: (optional) View or enter names of clients you don t want to see again, or with whom you need to use caution. You can enter a reason for the alert as well. If you are entering a new client, you can bring up the alert list to see if their name is on it. If you use the ID#, the yellow box will pop up if you later search for a client who is on this list. Admit button: (optional) You can add a caller to a list of people who are expected to come in, but you will still need to enter an intake (or transfer their hotline call information to an intake) when they arrive. Click the Admit button any time to view a list of expected clients. Abuser button: If you want to save abuser information, do it here. Read the Abuser/Perpetrator Information form in Alice help for details about how this works. Transfer button: Move a hotline caller to an intake without having to re-enter all of the existing information. Be sure to click Add to save the intake. Lock button: Use if you have set up Departments, to prevent access to a client s hotline record to users who are not assigned to a particular department. NOTE: For the DCF and VOCA reports, Alice does not count hotline callers as clients even if you enter a service on the Activity or Roster screen. You must create an intake and enter DCF/VOCA services there in order for client demographics and services to be counted on those reports. SAVS does count hotline caller services in the Service Statistics portion of the report if the service is associated with a SAVS service type, but assigning services to hotline callers is discouraged, as this section is meant to count in-person clients. Turnaways (in person) Community > Turnaways (in person) DCF: Program Type = DV Shelter + Reason = We re full to count as an unmet need on the DCF report (added to callers with Why Refused = we re full for hotline calls). SAVS: Victim Type = Sexual Assault to count on the SAVS report (added to callers with any value in Why Refused on the hotline form). Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [23] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

24 Enter an Outreach (Intake) Client Outreach (Intake) screen Outreach clients in Alice are defined as any face-to-face clients not currently residing in shelter, including those in transitional housing. You depart Outreach clients when they stop receiving services, just as you would depart them from shelter when they leave. If you have a hotline call record for a client who comes in for services, you can find it and use the Transfer button to avoid re-entering all of the existing information before you edit and save the intake. You can also transfer a shelter client to Outreach who leaves shelter and is still receiving other services. Be sure you enter a Departure record for the shelter intake. (*= required) PAGE 1 Advocate (optional) use this if you want to be able to run hotline reports based on the person who took the call. Choices come from the list of staff and volunteers entered in Edit > Staff > Staff Names. This is independent of who has logged in to enter data. Hint: If you log in and enter all of your own data, go to Tools > My Preferences to choose yourself as the default operator; then just click the < button on the hotline form to enter your name quickly. *ID# - Required by DCF, SAVS and VOCA. Click the # to enter an ID automatically, or enter your own if your program has an existing system. (Click the M button to find existing client records with the same ID#) *First Name and Last Name. Alias (optional) if this client is known by other names you can enter them here, or find hotline or intake records that have been saved for this client under another name. The button only works after you ve saved the record. Address info (mostly optional) Michigan agencies must enter State = WI in for Wisconsin clients to count on the DCF Report. Service Site and Program (optional) If your agency needs separate reports for clients served at different sites (for example, outreach offices) or for particular programs, your administrator has likely created choices for you to choose from. *Intake date *Race & Hispanic These choices are determined by federal race reporting requirements and can t be modified. (Southeast Asian ethnicity is recorded in a custom field that is used in the DCF Report). *Client Type: adult or child. On the DCF Report, clients and their demographics will be reported as adults or children based on their age as of the most recent activity recorded. You may change this from child to adult if a child turns 18 while a client, in order to. Batterer: yes or no use for batterer intervention programs. When selected, a spouse/partner button pops up to enter optional information. Significant Other: yes or no (optional) Be sure to distinguish between significant other and secondary victim (e.g. secondary victim for a partner who is traumatized). Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [24] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

25 *Birthdate or age at intake: Entering a birth date will calculate age in other forms. Press the T button to show the age as of the current date. *Gender Victim Type: VOCA requires something in this field in order to count on the report. The options are drawn from the list provided by Wisconsin VOCA. Abuse Status: VOCA requires victim-primary or victim-secondary Phone numbers (optional) you can enter several and mark which one is safe to call. PAGE 2 (note the client s name near the top in purple on subsequent pages) Primary Language (for DCF report enter if not English) Background: Limited English proficiency for DCF, enter if not English. Background: Youth IPV Enter for DCF if applicable. Disability DCF will count if anything (except none) is entered here under Demographic Data Disability. Custom Custom: DCF Report? = Yes for any client who has a DV issue. (If you have DCF funding, make it mandatory to be sure staff don t forget.) Custom: SAVS Report? = Yes for all clients with sexual assault issues, if you have SAVS funding. Custom: Presented with DV, getting SA services = Yes, if you are a dual service agency with SAVS funding, for any client who has primary DV issues and secondary SA issues. Select this in addition to SAVS Report = Yes. Custom: Southeast Asian (if applicable) for DCF report. Click the Add button to save a new record, or Change to save changes to an existing record. Other fields may be useful to your program but are not required for Wisconsin funder reports. NOTE: You must enter at least one service for a client on the Activity or Roster screen, in order for them to be counted on any of your Wisconsin funder reports. These include nights of shelter. Services need to be associated with the correct service type in order to be counted in the correct place on each report, and in order to count on a funder report, a client must have at least one service that is associated with a service type used for that report. See Associate Service Names with service types. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [25] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

26 Enter an Adult Shelter Client Adult Shelter screen If you have a hotline call record, you can find it and use the Transfer button to avoid re-entering existing information. (*=must be filled to be able to save a complete record) PAGE 1 Advocate (optional) use this if you want to be able to run hotline reports based on the person who took the call. Choices come from the list of staff and volunteers entered in Edit > Staff > Staff Names. This is independent of who has logged in to enter data. Hint: If you enter your own data, go to Tools > My Preferences to choose yourself as the default operator; then just click the < button on the hotline form to enter your name quickly. *ID# - Required by DCF, SAVS and VOCA. Click the # to enter an ID automatically, or enter your own if your program has an existing system. (Click the M button to find existing client records with the same ID#) *First Name and Last Name Alias (optional) if this client is known by other names you can enter them here, or find hotline or intake records that have been saved for this client under another name. The button only works after you ve saved the record. Address info (mostly optional) Michigan agencies must enter State = WI for Wisconsin clients to count on the DCF Report. Service Site and Program (optional) If your agency needs separate reports for clients served at different sites (for example, outreach offices) or for particular programs, your administrator has likely created choices for you to choose from. *Intake date *Race & Hispanic These choices are determined by federal race reporting requirements and can t be modified. (Southeast Asian ethnicity is recorded in a custom field that is used in the DCF Report). *Time if you don t change this from 12am (midnight) you ll get a prompt asking you if you are sure it is correct (11:59 is yesterday). *Birthdate or age at intake: Entering a birth date will calculate age in other forms. Press the T button to show the age as of the current date. *Gender Victim Type: VOCA requires something in this field in order to count on the report. The options are drawn from the list provided by Wisconsin VOCA. Abuse Status: VOCA requires victim-primary or victim-secondary Phone numbers (optional) you can enter several and mark which one is safe to call. PAGE 2 (note the client s name near the top in purple on subsequent pages) Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [26] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

27 Primary Language (for DCF report enter if not English) Background: Limited English proficiency for DCF, enter if not English. Background: Youth IPV Enter for DCF if applicable. Disability DCF will count if anything is entered here under Demographic Data Disability. Custom Custom: DCF Report? = Yes for any client who has a DV issue. (If you have DCF funding, make it mandatory to be sure staff don t forget.) Custom: SAVS Report? = Yes for all clients with sexual assault issues, if you have SAVS funding. Custom: Presented with DV, getting SA services = Yes, in addition to SAVS Report = Yes, for any client who has primary DV issues and secondary SA issues, if you are a dual service agency with SAVS funding. Custom: Southeast Asian (if applicable) for DCF report. Click the Add button to save a new record, or Change to save changes to an existing record. Other fields may be useful to your program but are not required for Wisconsin funder reports. NOTE: You must enter at least one service for a client on the Activity or Roster screen, in order for them to be counted on any of your Wisconsin funder reports. These include nights of shelter. Services need to be associated with the correct service type in order to be counted in the correct place on each report, and in order to count on a funder report, a client must have at least one service that is associated with a service type used for that report. See Associate Service Names with service types. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [27] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

28 Enter a Child Shelter Client Adult Shelter screen; Transfer button; Child Shelter screen Enter a child by STARTING WITH THE ADULT SHELTER tab. If you don t, you won t be able to save the record because the Mother/Adult field is mandatory and you can t fill it in directly. Children are given separate IDs from parent so reports know they are different people. Find the parent and load to the Adult Shelter Intake screen. Click Transfer, choose Child Shelter and Done. Choose what information to copy to the child s intake. You can edit it before saving if needed. Fill out the rest of the form as you did for the adult shelter. ID# - Required by DCF, SAVS and VOCA. Click the # to enter an ID automatically, or enter your own if your program has an existing system. (Click the M button to find existing client records with the same ID#) Address info (mostly optional) Michigan agencies must enter State = WI in for Wisconsin clients to count on the DCF Report. Disability DCF will count if anything is entered here under Demographic Data Disability. Click the Add button to save. PAGE 2 Primary Language (for DCF report enter if not English) Background: Limited English proficiency ( for DCF, enter if not English). Background: Youth IPV Enter for DCF if applicable. Disability DCF will count if anything is entered here under Demographic Data Disability. Custom Custom: DCF Report? = Yes for any client who has a DV issue. (If you have DCF funding, make it mandatory to be sure staff don t forget.) Custom: SAVS Report? = Yes for all clients with sexual assault issues, if you have SAVS funding. Custom: Presented with DV, getting SA services = Yes, in addition to SAVS Report = Yes, for any client who has primary DV issues and secondary SA issues, if you are a dual service agency with SAVS funding. Custom: Southeast Asian (if applicable) for DCF report. Additional Children: Use the Copy button to add another child of the same parent. Enter the information as you did for the first child. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [28] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

29 Click Add when you are done. Other fields may be useful to your program but are not required for Wisconsin funder reports. NOTE: You must enter at least one activity for a child, including nights of shelter, for them to be counted on any of your Wisconsin funder reports. Also, each activity needs to be associated with the correct service type in order to be counted in the correct place on the report. Find and Load an Existing Client Find screen (tab) Choose the type of client you are looking for at the right (or select All Clients ) Enter one or more letters of the last name Click the Search button at bottom - Note that you can see whether a client is active by looking for a departure date at the right. - You may find more than one record for a client with the same ID#; this means they left the agency, later came back for more services and a new intake was created. Click through the list to find the current record (generally the one without a Depart date). Select the client. Note that you may have several intakes for the same client, with the same ID#. Be sure to choose an active intake (no departure date, as shown at the right when you click on a name) unless you are looking for older information. Choose a screen from the Data Type drop-down box next to the Search button: - These include screens in addition to the ones on the tabs. Look in the Alice help to find out more about each screen. - If you are searching All Clients you will need to click on a name to load it to the Find tab first, before loading to another screen. Click Load. Custom Search You can do a more specific search with the Custom Search button, including finding hotline calls or intakes by month and year. Once you ve found the correct client, highlight them and click To Find, choose a Data Type, then click Load. Duplicate Clients If you have the same client (not just the same name) with a different ID# you should change the ID# for one of them so all the client s information is counted as one client. You can look for clients with the same name but different ID #s using the Audit button. New intake for an existing client who has returned Find and Load the client to an intake form. Click Intake Date and enter the new intake date. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [29] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

30 When the dialog box comes up, click New to create a new intake for the client. NOTE: If you click Change all you will be doing is modifying the existing intake date, and you will lose the record of the initial intake. Copy the custom field info to the new intake if you wish (DCF Report? etc.). You can change it later if you wish. Edit any displayed information that has changed since the last intake. Click Add to save the new intake. Children becoming adults while receiving services You may have child clients who turn 18 while you are working with them. Here is how they are counted on the DCF Report: Clients and their demographics will be reported as adults or children based on their age as of the most recent activity recorded. Shelter stays will be counted as both children and adults depending on their age at each stay. Supportive counseling and advocacy services as well as activities for children and youth will be included in the appropriate section of the report based on the service you have chosen when entering activities, regardless of their age. For example, if a 17 year old continues to participate in a children s group after she turns 18, those group contacts will still count under children and youth. If a child who has been in shelter departs and comes back to shelter as an adult, create an adult shelter intake but enter the same ID# as the child shelter intake to indicate that it is the same person. If a child shelter client returns for non-shelter services as an adult you can find their child shelter intake and click Transfer to an Outreach client, then change the client type to adult. For an outreach/intake child client who departs and returns as an adult, load their intake record, enter a new intake date and select new, then change the Client Type to adult. Load a client to a different screen This is different than moving a client to another client type. Load a client to any screen. Click the quick-menu button (looks like an airplane), near the top right. Select the screen you want from the list. Your client will appear on the screen you ve chosen. - You ll see the client s name in purple at the top left. - Remember to click Add or Change to save information to the new screen. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [3] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

31 Departures Enter a Departure record Find > Load to Departure or Roster > To Depart or Depart > Audit button Depart clients when they leave shelter or stop receiving services. This can be an excellent way for your program to track and report outcomes. NOTE: This is not a way to count nights of shelter. You must enter each shelter stay as a service on the Activity or Roster screen. Find and Load a client to the Departure screen - The name of the loaded client will be shown in purple at the top left. - Enter departure date and type of exit. - Other information is optional, including page 2. - Click Add and say yes. - For shelter clients, if there are children an Exit children window will pop up (or you can use the Exit Children button from a parent s Departure record). Check the Create Depart box for each child, enter the departure date and select what information to copy from adult departure record. Click Add to save the children s departure records. OR find clients with the Audit button on the Depart screen - Look up current clients based on their intake date or their last activity date. You can also narrow your list to a specific advocate, service site or program. Display your results, select a client you wish to depart and click the Depart button. - You can only fill out a departure for 1 person at a time; you ll need to rerun the audit for the next person. - If there is a long list you can print it out and use another method to enter departures. OR use the Roster screen to create the SAME departure record for multiple clients (same date, type of exit, etc.) - Display active clients (for each type of client separately). - Check the Select boxes for the clients you want to depart. - Choose Departures from the Data Type drop-down. - Click Batch. - Enter the information and click Add. NOTE: You can use the To Depart button from this screen as well but it will only allow you to depart one client at a time. If you change your mind about departing a client, you can load them to the Depart screen and use the Delete Departure button. Why enter Departure records? Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [31] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

32 Think of an intake as an open period of service for a client. You record the services the client received during that period with that intake. If they leave and return, you would create a new intake and record the new services with the new intake. You will have a history of clients coming in for services, leaving and returning, and can report the number of intakes in any given time period. It will be clearer which intake to use for a client when entering activities. Departed clients do not appear on the Roster screen. You can get a list of departed clients from Departure reports. When to Depart a client Depart Shelter clients when they leave. Depart Outreach/Intake clients a number of days after receiving no services. Your agency can decide what is reasonable 3 days? 6 days? Longer? It may depend on the client s situation. Enter Services (Activities) Any service you provide to clients may be entered as an activity, including shelter stays, motel/hotel vouchers, counseling, groups, etc. To ensure that your services are counted on funder reports, each service listed must be associated with the correct service type, as noted in the Help section for the report. This needs to be done once for each service; not every time you enter the service (see Associate Service Names with service types). You can enter a service for one client on the Activity screen, or if you have provided the same service to several clients (group, shelter stay, etc.) you can select a group of clients and enter the service for all of them at once on the Roster screen. NOTE: Activities are associated with an intake, so if you have more than one intake for the same client (e.g. a client left and came back at a later date) you will only see the activities that were entered for that intake on the activities screen. Enter services for an individual client Find > load to Activity screen Find and Load a client to the Activity screen - The name of the loaded client will be shown in purple at the top left. - Be sure to load the correct client intake if the client has more than one; make sure they service is between the intake and departure dates if it is not an active intake. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [32] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

33 Clear the activity tab to make sure you will not be changing an existing Activity that is highlighted. (The Change button appears rather than Add if you are on an existing Activity). Select the Service Category and Service Name. Choose a Program Funder if applicable (required for VOCA). Select the Staff person if your agency is tracking services by staff. Enter Service Site if your agency is tracking data for multiple sites. Enter date and number of hours (hours not required for shelter stays). Enter the time if you have enabled it. NOTE: If you are using the Time field (Edit > Disable/Enable/Make Mandatory Data Entry Fields) you will not be able to enter overlapping times for the same staff person or client. Click Add. To enter more activities for the same person, be sure the Add button is visible. If not, click Clear. - Change the information and click Add. Edit an existing activity - Click back & forth between activities to view the details for each one. - Make necessary changes to a highlighted activity and click Change. Other features of the Activity screen: If you have a lot of activities for a client you can narrow down the display using the Find Matching Activities box and the Match button. The Totals button can run an activity report that includes all activities for the client that is loaded, even for other intakes. The Calendar button shows the number of services per day (not hours) for a selected Service Name for this client. Use to make sure you have entered all of a client s activities, or for checking attendance. The Audit button can help you find possible incorrect entries (including clients with intakes but no activities, or activities after a departure date). The No Show button allows you to enter missed appointments. Note panel: For each activity you can open the note panel and type something. You ll see a + in the grid if there is a note. These will be added to the client s case notes. Enter services for several clients at once Roster screen From the Roster screen you can list all active clients, choose several of them, and enter services for all at once. This is especially helpful for entering shelter stays and groups. Find a group of clients: Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [33] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

34 - At the bottom left of the screen, enter the date as of which the clients you are looking for were active. (Choose an earlier date if you are trying to find clients who have departed before the current date.) - Choose Active Clients. (The other options require that you enter something in the appropriate boxes to the right, or enter a predefined roster subset.) - Choose Adult Shelter, Child Shelter, Outreach/Intake. - Click the Display button. (Highlight any client and click Show Children if you want to see a list of that client s children.) - In some cases you may enter activities for a hotline client who never comes in; enter the date of the call to find the client. Note that services for hotline clients are not counted on all funder reports. - Check the box next to the clients for whom you are adding this service (or click the All button) at the right. Add a service to all clients at once (e.g. shelter stay, groups) - Enter date and number of hours. - Enter the time if you have enabled it. NOTE: If you are using the Time field (Edit > Disable/Enable/Make Mandatory Data Entry Fields) you will not be able to enter overlapping times for the same staff person or client. - Select the Service Category and Service Name. - Choose a Funder if applicable (required for VOCA). - Select the Staff person if you are tracking services provided by staff. - Enter Service Site if you are tracking data for multiple sites. Click the Batch button to enter the service for all selected clients. Click the Clear button to clear the list and enter a new service. Other features of the Roster screen: View a client s intake record - Highlight a client and click the To Intake button. - Once you have the client s intake record up, you can do all the things you would normally do on the intake screen. Enter the same departure records for multiple clients - Display and select the clients to depart. - Choose Departures from the Data Type drop-down. - Click Batch. - Enter the information and click Add. Enter unique departure records for multiple clients - Display and select the clients to depart. - Click the To Depart button to depart one of the selected clients at a time. Note the client s name in purple at the top left of each departure screen. Volunteers Community > Volunteers Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [34] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

35 If you are using Alice to track volunteers, you will need to enter each volunteer AND volunteer activities. Volunteers work much like clients: you find a volunteer, load to a screen, enter and save the information. Move the volunteer from one screen to another with the quick menu button (looks like an airplane). To enter a volunteer, go to the Profile 1 tab on the Volunteers form. *Be sure to enter the Date Applied AND the Date Accepted to have this volunteer available for entering services (it can be the same day). If a volunteer works directly with clients and you are tracking activities by staff, click the Add Volunteer to Staff List button to make them available in the Staff, Operator and Advocate drop-down lists. Find and load a volunteer to the Activity tab of the Volunteers screen to enter volunteer activities, or use the Roster tab (on the Volunteer screen) the same way you would for clients. Volunteer activities entered from the Volunteer screen use the same Service Categories and Service Names as those in client activities, but the activities you enter are not associated with a client. So you will probably want to create a new Service Category (Utility > Edit Service Categories) and Service Names in that category (Edit > Services and Funders > Service Names) for non-client activities that you will enter for volunteers. Volunteers are counted on the DCF Report if there is at least one volunteer activity record saved. The number of hours includes services on the volunteer activity tab and client activities if the staff person has been marked as a volunteer (or volunteer marked as staff). Events Configure: Edit > Events, Letters and Materials > Event Categories Enter: Community > Events and Meetings > Events Configure Events Events can be recorded in Alice for the DCF and SAVS reports. The first thing to do is create Event Categories that make sense for your agency. Event Categories will be associated with service types to funnel the data correctly to the DCF and SAVS reports, so make sure your categories will work for this. You don t need a category for every event, but if you do a lot of one type of event and want to report information just for that type of event, it should have its own category. Here are the categories that are asked on the two reports along with the service types that will make an event category count correctly on these reports: Adults/General Population Education (DCF) Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [35] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

36 community education, hospital/health care training or professional training Youth Oriented Education (DCF) community education-youth Public Awareness (DCF) community awareness Community Outreach (SAVS) sexual assault community outreach Prevention Education (SAVS) sexual assault prevention education Create Event Categories by going to Edit > Events, Letters and Materials > Event Categories. Click New to create a new category and check the appropriate service type(s). Click Edit Item to change the wording or service types for an existing Event Category. You can have one category count on both reports. For example you might have an Event Category called DV and SA awareness event and check the service types community awareness (for DCF) and sexual assault community outreach (for SAVS). You can have categories that count only on one report, for example High school sexual assault prevention classes would only be associated with the sexual assault prevention education service type and would only count on the SAVS report. You may wish to make many of the fields on the Events form optional unless you want to record other information. The only ones you need for funder reports are Title, Category, Date and total Attendance. Enter Events To enter an event, go to Community > Events and Meetings > Events. Click on the Event Details tab and enter the Title, Category, Date and total Attendance. For public awareness events (especially media events) you will need to enter something, but you can just estimate because the attendance for public awareness events doesn t appear on the reports. (It doesn t look like you can make the Attendance field optional). To view or edit an existing event, use the Search tab on the Event screen. Event Reports Reports tab> Events and Meetings report type Existing event reports are limited to totals and statistics. But you can easily create a custom event report: Go to Edit > Report Tools > Configurable Reports. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [36] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

37 Click New. Select Report Type = Events. Choose the fields you want in your report, perhaps Title, Date, Attendance, Event Category and Staff. Make Create Query = yes if you will want to filter your report by other information when you run it. Name your report and click Add. To run your custom report: Go to the Reports tab and choose Configurable as the Report Type. Highlight the report you created. Enter the date range. Click Create. If you have selected Create Query you will have to choose a field to filter by. If you don t want to filter more, you might want to enter Event Category is not NULL to get everything, or maybe Event Category is NULL to find events you entered without a category. Click Select to generate the report. Reports Reports screen Alice has hundreds of built-in reports that can give you just about any information you want. You would have to combine the results of several reports to get what you need for each funder report, so Wisconsin funders have had custom reports designed that will compile the data that they require. In order for these reports to be accurate there are several things you will need to do in advance. See the Customizing for Funders section. You will also need to make sure users know how to enter their data correctly so that it appears on funder reports. See the Entering Client Information section. It is a good idea to test reports regularly for shorter periods of time to make sure your numbers match what you know. That can help you troubleshoot whether you have missed something when customizing, or if your data-entry procedure needs to be tweaked. For all reports you can select one agency, or if you are using Alice for more than one agency you can select them all or choose a predefined cluster of agencies. Most programs in Wisconsin will have only one agency. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [37] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

38 Wisconsin Funder Report Requirements For details on how information is pulled for custom Wisconsin funder reports, look in the Alice help index for: - Wisconsin DCF domestic violence annual report - Wisconsin SAVS report - VOCA Report - Wisconsin or these documents in this manual s Appendix: How service types link to reports Alice Customizing for Funders Checklist Wisconsin DCF Domestic Violence Report Reports screen, Report type: State, expand Wisconsin The annual DCF Domestic Violence Report (October September) includes shelter and outreach clients whose intake records have DCF Report? field marked yes, among other requirements. Look in the Alice Help index under Wisconsin DCF Domestic violence annual report for additional details on how the numbers are pulled, or see the Appendices at the end of this manual. These instructions explain how to generating a report from data you have entered in Alice. You will not be asked to submit your report electronically from Alice to DCF. From the Reports screen, choose the Report type State at the bottom of the screen, and click the + next to Wisconsin. Highlight Wisconsin DCF domestic violence report. Enter the dates October of last year through September of this year. Click Create. Choose to create the report from data entered in Alice (do not enter totals manually; you will not be submitting the report from Alice*). Click the arrows on the top bar to view all of the pages. Click the printer icon at the top left to print the report to your printer or to a PDF creator if you have one installed. (If you would like the report in Excel format you can check the print to file box, choose Excel file as the type of file, enter a filename and click the icon to browse to a folder). *NOTE: When you close the report you will be asked if you want to send the report to the Wisconsin report server. We are no longer using this reporting tool so just say No. It won t work anyway if you say yes. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [38] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

39 Error checking You have entered an intake for a client who is not counted: You need to enter at least one activity for this client. The activity must be associated with one of the service types for this report. If the client is a shelter client, you need to enter at least one shelter stay or other activity that has shelter/hotel/home bednight checked as a characteristic on the right of its Service Names screen. You need to mark DCF Report = yes on the Custom screen. Clients are counted more than once: The DCF Report unduplicates clients based on ID#. If you have more than one intake for a client with different ID #s you will need to edit the intakes so that they all have the same ID#. You can see the ID# on the Find screen next to the client s name, and as you click to highlight a client s name you will see more information to the right to help you distinguish between clients. Child activities are counted twice: If you have a service that is associated with the service type group counseling/advocacy child or individual counseling/advocacy child AND FVPSA child activities, the activity will be counted in both A9 and A1. Uncheck one or the other on the Service Name screen (To get there: Edit > Services and Funders > Service Names; select the service category and click on the service name. Click Change when you are done). FVPSA child activities should be used for other children s activities that are not counseling or advocacy. There are s or very low numbers where there should be many services or activities: Each service must be associated with a service type that instructs Alice to include it in this report. Go to Edit > Services and Funders > Service Names to see how you ve associated Service Names with service types. Click on any service name, then click the Service Names by Service Type button at the bottom left. Print this list and compare it with your list of services from the Service Names screen. Make sure you have mapped service that is to count on this report to the correct service type. (Be sure to look at the Service Names for each Service Category you can print them out). Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [39] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

40 Click on any of the incorrectly marked Service Names and check the correct service type boxes as noted in the Alice help or in this You can choose more than one service type for each service as long as you select on ly one for each report). For group activities, be sure you mark This service is a group activity at the right. Events must have an Event Category that is associated with the appropriate service type. Go to Edit > Events, Letters and Materials > Event Categories, select an event and click Edit. From there you can click the service type, or generate a list showing how you ve mapped them using the Event Categories by Service Type button. Nights of shelter count is too low or too high: Check to be sure that any shelter stay service you enter is associated with a bednight characteristic (not transitional housing) and that there are no services marked as bednights that shouldn t be. Go to Edit > Services and Funders > Service Names, click on any service name. Then click the Service Names by Characteristic button at the bottom right to see what has been marked as a shelter bednight, hotel/motel bednight and home/residence bednight. Compare with all of your service names to see what needs to be corrected, then click each of the incorrectly marked service names and check or uncheck the bednight characteristics as appropriate. Every night of shelter for a client needs to be entered as an activity. Here are some ways to find missing shelter stays: - Run a Client service detail report from the Activities report type. Select the service category & name, and the client type. Make sure you check Show dates for Service Names and Include Service Names for bednights. You ll get a list of clients and all the bednight activities between the dates you entered. - On the activity screen, click the Audit button and select Clients with intakes/calls but no activities. Enter the client type, start and end dates. This will only show clients who have no activities entered, not clients with some nights entered. - Run a Shelter admissions and departures report from the Adult Shelter Intakes report type. This will not give you an accurate count of shelter nights but the list may help you look up clients and find missing nights. - If you haven t been recording shelter stays as activities, you can run a Shelter admissions and departures report from the Adult Shelter Intakes report type. This will list clients, their intake/departure dates and number of children to help you identify what you need to enter. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [4] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

41 To enter missing nights of shelter for a single client see Enter services for an individual client. Enter one night of shelter, then keep changing the date and clicking Add until you have them all in. To enter missing nights of shelter for a group of clients using the Roster screen, see Enter services for several clients at once. Counting children and their activities Children in shelter need to have a child shelter intake and all shelter stays entered in activities in order to be counted as clients. Children who turn 18 while a client: - Clients and their demographics will be reported as adults or children based on their age as of the most recent activity recorded. - Shelter stays will be counted as both children and adults depending on their age at each stay. - Supportive counseling and advocacy services as well as activities for children and youth will be included in the appropriate section of the report based on the service you have chosen when entering activities, regardless of their age. For example, if a 17 year old continues to participate in a children s group after she turns 18, those group contacts will still count under children and youth. - If you enter a client s age rather than a birthdate, their current age for the report is estimated based on the intake and activities you ve entered for that client. Run built-in Alice reports for error checking Explore the list of Alice reports for reports that can help you find missing information or errors. Try a query report to narrow down the results. Wisconsin SAVS report Reports screen, Report type: State, expand Wisconsin The SAVS report runs from January December and includes clients with SAVS Report = yes, among other requirements. Look in the Alice Help index under Wisconsin SAVS report for additional details on how the numbers are pulled or see the documents in the Appendix at the end of this manual. From the Reports screen, choose the Report type State at the bottom of the screen, and click the + next to Wisconsin. Highlight Wisconsin SAVS report. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [41] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

42 Enter the Year (the only option you have) Click Create. Click the printer icon at the top left to print the report to your printer or to a PDF creator if you have one installed. (If you would like the report in Excel format you can check the print to file box, choose Excel file as the type of file, enter a filename and click the box to browse to a folder). VOCA report - Wisconsin Reports screen, Report type: Federal The VOCA report runs from October 1 September 3 and includes clients where VOCA has been entered as the funder for hotline calls or activities, among other requirements. Look in the Alice Help index under VOCA report Wisconsin for additional details on how the numbers are pulled, or see the documents in the Appendix of this manual. From the Reports screen, choose the Report type Federal at the bottom of the screen. Highlight VOCA report. Enter the year of the report in the Starting Year. (Whatever else you enter will be ignored). Click Create. Select Wisconsin and click Done. Verify that your report covers the correct period and click Yes. Select VOCA as your funder and click Done. You have other options before generating the report but you will probably not want to narrow down your results any more than this. HUD annual performance report Reports screen, Report type: Federal The HUD APR report includes client information that has been entered in the HMIS Form. There are other requirements for clients and information to be counted on this report. Look in the Alice Help index under HUD APR report for details. This report has not been tested by WCADV. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [42] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

43 Other useful reports Look in Alice Help under each Report Type to see a description of each report. There are many more reports besides the ones listed here. Client Lists Departed client list and query (Departures) Abuser/perpetrator list and query (Abusers/Perpetrators) Client list and query (Adult Shelter Intakes): Active adult shelter clients Shelter admissions and departures (Adult Shelter Intakes): List of clients with shelter intake and departure dates and number of children, between selected dates. Client list and query (Child Shelter Intakes): Active child clients (with adult s name) Referrals by client (Referrals): clients with number of referrals Sexual assault client list and query (Sexual Assault): clients for whom the sexual assault screen has been filled out, with county Client list and query (Staff Activities): clients with activities from selected staff Reports for checking data Demographic statistics and query (Adult Shelter Intakes, Child Shelter Intakes, Outreach Intakes/Intake): Totals for information entered into intakes, not limited to data reported to Wisconsin funders. Click the query report checkbox on the report options screen to further narrow your results. Custom field statistics and query (most report types): Totals and averages for data entered into custom fields that you have created. Activity reports Client list and query (Activities): clients who have or don t have the selected services recorded. Client service detail (Activities): clients, date and name of each service recorded. Query reports Check the query report box for any of the reports that offer it to further filter your results by any available fields or values (e.g. age > 2, gender = male). To save a query, click the Query manager tab at the top of the query window, click Save query and give it a name. Next time you run this report you can load the query with the saved fields and values. Create your own reports Edit > Report Tools > Configurable Reports Configurable reports are a powerful tool to create reports that don t exist, such as an Event list or a list of intakes with custom field values. You select from the fields that are shown, click Create Query if you wish to be able to filter your report when you run it. Click Clients in Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [43] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

44 Activities if you wish to select activities entered or not entered for clients when you run the report. Configurable reports can be copied, modified and exported to other formats. Once you have defined a configurable report it will appear in Reports under the Configurable report type. Configurable reports export nicely to an Excel spreadsheet. In fact, if your report has too many fields to fit on a piece of paper, Alice won t even create a report but will lead you to export it to a spreadsheet. Otherwise create the report, click the printer icon, check print to file and choose Type: Excel file. Name the report, choose a location and save it. You can make the columns wider in the spreadsheet if you need to. Save and Export reports Click the printer icon at the top left of any report to see options for saving reports. Click the Print to File checkbox to save your report in a number of formats choose from the Type dropdown including PDF, Excel or RTF (will open in Word or other word processor). Click the icon to choose a location to save your report, enter a file name and click OK. Then go to the location where you saved it to open the file. Filtering reports Many reports allow you to further filter by age range, staff, or other fields. In addition you can filter by groups or clusters of staff, clients, funders, services, volunteers, city or county. Groups/clusters need to be predefined before you can select them. Clusters If you routinely need reports filtered by the same group of staff, clients, funders, programs or locations, you can predefine clusters which you can then choose as you run many of the reports. Look in Edit > Report Tools (City Clusters, County Clusters, Service Clusters or Service Site Clusters), Edit > Roster subsets (clients), Edit > Services and Funders, Edit > Staff or Edit > Volunteers for the clusters you can create. Client clusters can be useful to enter services repeatedly to the same group of clients, for example if you have an ongoing group with the same people who regularly attend. First create a subset (Edit>Roster). Assign clients by loading them from the Find screen to the Data Type Roster Subsets and adding them to a subset. To bring up your group on the Roster screen, select Type: Subset, choose your subset from the drop-down list and then click Display. You will not see inactive clients on the Roster screen even if they are in the subset. Roster subsets can also be created from the My Clients screen. Funder Set up funders in Edit > Services and Funders > Program Funders and then you will see them as options for filtering many reports. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [44] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

45 Staff Add staff to Edit > Staff > Staff Names, enter them in client intakes and activities, and you can select them when you run many reports. Dates You can filter most reports by date. Some have restrictions and generally you will see the dates grayed out or a pop-up message explaining which dates pertain to this report. Other features Print blank forms Tools > Print Blank Forms Use print to file RTF option if you want to be able to edit any of these to use for intakes. Custom fields are not included so you ll need to add them. Print client information File > Print This command works differently on different screens but generally you do get the option to print to file so you can see what it looks like before using a lot of paper. File > Print Expanded Record From intake forms, this includes the client's intake, activities, legal, departure, and children's records as well. My Clients If staff have their own logins, each staff person can maintain a list of their own current clients, keep notes and action dates. You can create a roster subset of these clients from here. Case notes Case notes can be created by loading a client to the case notes screen. There are many options for sharing, hiding or locking types of case notes. Look under Case notes in Alice Help for details. In addition, go to Utility > Manage Agencies and click on your agency to set other options for case notes, including locking or deleting on exit. Preferences Tools > Preferences Each logged in user can set preferences and default values for several fields to make it easier to enter data. Reminders File > Reminders Set reminders and key dates for clients that will pop up when you log in. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [45] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

46 Calendars Community > Calendar This is an agency-wide calendar that can include agency events or events for specific staff (drawn from the user list, not the staff list). Find Load a client to the Data Type Client Calendar for their personal calendar, or to visitation center calendar. Community > Volunteers Load a volunteer to Data Type Calendar Referral sources Community > Referral Sources - Add item to list of referrals Utility > Edit Referral Categories if you don t like the existing categories Load a client to the Referrals data type to enter information. Waiting list Community > Waiting List Add potential clients to a waiting list; transfer them from here to an intake. Abuser form Button on intake or hotline forms Keep track of abuser information. Troubleshooting I can t see or change a date for a report I want to run Some custom reports are programmed to unduplicate clients for a set period of time and thus you cannot change the date range. Try running a canned Alice report and perhaps a query to see if you can get the information you need. Dependents not counted on funder reports If dependents will be receiving services, they must each have their own intake filled out. The # of dependents on the adult s intake and names on the Dependents form is for recordkeeping purposes only and is not used for reporting. It is meant to keep track of dependents who are not receiving services or staying in shelter. I can t find my client - Make sure you have selected the correct client type at the right. - If you suspect a spelling error, try searching just by the first letter of the client s last name, or the first letter of the client s first name. If that doesn t work, try a custom search Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [46] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

47 based on intake date or some other information you know. In the custom search results you can click on a column heading to sort by that column. - Look for your client on the Roster screen if you have not entered a departure record. I have lots of clients with the same name on Find tab - As you highlight each intake, you will see information at the right that can tell you whether it s the same client. You will also see whether there has been a departure record created. - If all of the intakes have the same ID# that s fine. It means that your client left and returned for more services and a new intake was created. - If some clients have a different ID# but you re sure it s the same client, make all of the ID#s the same: load an intake, edit the ID# and save the change. My reports show more clients than I have When you unduplicate clients by ID#, each ID# counts as a different client. You can pull up a list of clients with the same name and different ID#s using the Audit button on the Find screen, then edit the ID#s so that all of the same clients have the same ID#. My reports show more services than they should If you have service names mapped to the wrong service types or characteristics, clients may count in unexpected places. See View your Service Names associations to find out how to run a list of current mappings. You may have inactive services that aren t showing up on dropdown lists but which have existing data that is being included in reports. You will have to activate these services temporarily to see what service types they are associated with. You can change them if don t want them counted on funder reports. Users often forget to include information that is necessary for reports Make fields mandatory that need to be filled. You may need to add other or don t know as options if you do this for a field where you don t always an answer (e.g. funders). Use defaults where available, if the value is always or usually the same at your agency. Edit > Services and Funders > Service Prompts Create a message that will pop up when you try to add a service. Use a checklist; make your intake & service records match what needs to be entered in Alice. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [47] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

48 How do I know if I am deleting or disabling an option? You may have added service names, categories, staff, event categories, departments, etc. to Alice. For most of these items, when you try to delete an option that has data stored with it, you are told they will be disabled or deactivated instead. The data is preserved and will count on reports, and you can reactivate the options at any time. This is not the case for drop-down lists or multiple choice options. If you delete a drop-down list option or multiple choice list option, it is GONE. There are a couple of ways you can handle this: From the edit menu you can hide drop-down list or multiple choice items so that people will no longer see them but the data will still be there and show up on reports. You can run various reports to get the data in a form you want to save, then delete the option. For several report types, statistics and query reports will give you totals, but if you need anything more detailed you will have to dig around. Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [48] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

49 Appendices Alice Manual for Wisconsin Advocates [49] Back to Contents Updated 7/1/212

50 Alice software installation options *For detailed instructions, refer to the Alice Installation.txt file on your installation disk! Single computer, not connected to the internet Easiest option Cannot enter information from any other computer but can still use multiple logins Install Alice, create a shortcut, log in and use. Office computers connected to the internet but not networked One computer must have a static external IP address (from your ISP, monthly fee) for other computers to connect to Alice Other computers will connect to Alice through the internet Alice Alice shortcut Alice shortcut Alice shortcut 1. Install Alice on computer with external IP; create shared folder. 2. Copy Alice files from shared folder to other computers, changing the IP address in the proxi.ini file to the external IP address. Create a shortcuts to the Alice.exe file on each computer. 3. Computers outside the office can also connect to Alice in the same way. Peer to peer network computers are networked, perhaps shared folders, but no domain server. Other computers can connect to Alice through the office network. If Alice computer has a static external IP address, computers outside the office can connect to Alice. 1. Install Alice on the server. 2. Create shared folder. 3. Copy Alice files from shared folder to other computers. Create a shortcut to the Alice.exe file on each computer. 4. Computers outside the office can also connect to Alice if the server has a static external IP address and the IP address in the proxi.ini file on those computers is changed to the external IP address. Alice Alice shortcut Alice shortcut Alice shortcut Alice Installation [1] Updated 7/1/212

51 Alice shortcut Alice Alice shortcut Alice shortcut Alice shortcut Server network computers log in to a central computer that has server software. Other computers can connect to Alice through the office network. If Alice computer has a static external IP address, computers outside the office can connect to Alice. 1. Install Alice on one computer. This computer should have a static IP address (internal IP is fine, and free) 2. Install Alice on computer with static IP address; create shared folder. 3. Copy Alice files from shared folder to other computers. Create a shortcut to the Alice.exe file on each computer. 4. Computers outside the office can also connect to Alice if the server has a static external IP address and the IP address in the proxi.ini file on those computers is changed to the external IP address. NOTES: 1. Do not install Alice on more than one computer. If you do, all of your data will be in separate places and cannot be merged. 2. Communication with the Alice program is encrypted, which means that as information is passed between computers it is scrambled. The actual information is only visible to the sending and receiving computers. 3. An unauthorized user who gains access to one of your computers physically or through the internet by hacking, spyware, or other means - could discover the login & password to Alice and compromise your data. 4. Be SURE your computers have up to date security software including antivirus, spyware protection and a software or hardware firewall. Also be sure that users understand how to safely use computers, especially and the internet. Attachments or clicking links on the web can install spyware on a computer without your knowledge. 5. If you have a wireless network be sure you have changed the default settings on your router. Change the default name of the network, use encryption with a passcode, and turn off the broadcast once you have connected your computers (you can turn it on again temporarily if necessary to connect more computers). Alice Installation [2] Updated 7/1/212

52 GLOSSARY: Network: A system of computers which are connected to each other with cables or wirelessly. LAN: Local area network computers connected to each other within an office, building or set of buildings independently of the internet. WAN: Wide area network computers connected to each other over a large physical distance, usually using internet connections. Peer-to-peer network: all computers are connected to each other, no server Server network: One computer has server software installed and all other computers connect to this computer for file-sharing, internet access and other functions. IP address: A series of numbers that identify a computer on a network or on the internet. An IP address usually looks like: or Dynamic IP address: A unique IP address that is automatically assigned to a computer. It may be different each time the computer is turned on. Static IP address: A unique IP address that is assigned to a computer by an administrator and is always the same for that computer. Internal IP address: The IP address by which a computer is known within a network. External IP address (also known as a Public IP address): A unique IP address that is assigned by an internet service provider (ISP) and can identify a computer on the internet. This type of internet service is more expensive than a dynamic internet connection where the ISP assigns a random IP address each time the computer is turned on. Ethernet: Technology that uses ethernet cables to connect computers. The connector looks similar to a phone cord but is slightly larger, and the cable is thicker. Sometimes cables are built into walls and you only see the jack. Wireless: Computers connect to each other using radio waves. Each computer has a wireless card or adapter that accesses a wireless access point, which can be a separate device or included with a router or modem. Wireless networks can be open or security-enabled, requiring a password. Firewall: A device or program that limits access to your computer from other computers in your local network or from computers on the internet. Encryption: A process of encoding information as it is passed from one computer to another. Spyware: A program that can be secretly installed on a computer, often by clicking an attachment or a web link, allowing a remote user to view your computer activity. Alice Installation [3] Updated 7/1/212

53 Alice installation worksheet Agency Name Alice is installed on this computer (name, location): The Alice shared folder on this computer is: (file path, folder name) My Alice configuration is (choose one): Single computer Office computers connected to the internet but not networked The static IP address of the computer where Alice is installed is: Peer-to-peer network The internal IP address of the computer where Alice is installed is Server network My server s internal IP address is: My server s external IP address is: This is how I stop and restart the Alice service (HopeDBISAMServer): Alice files have been copied to these computers in the office that are not connected to the office network: Alice files (with external static IP in the proxi.ini file) have been copied to these computers outside of the office: NOTES for future upgrades: Person filling out this form: Date: Alice Installation [4] Updated 7/1/212

54 Alice Customizing for Funders Checklist DCF VOCA SAVS Make fields mandatory (Edit menu) Recommended for accurate data entry ID# X X X Hotline Call type X X Primary language Background X X Victim Type Abuse status (Adult-shelter, Child-shelter Outreach/Intake) Funder on hotline form Funder in Activities X X X X County (Adult-shelter, Child-shelter and Outreach/Intake) Create custom fields (exactly as spelled below) (Edit menu) Enter for Adult-shelter, Child-shelter, Outreach/Intake & Hotline DCF Report? Make it mandatory if you have a lot of DV clients. Southeast Asian Make it mandatory if you have a lot of SE Asian clients. SAVS Report? Make it mandatory if you have a lot of SA clients. Presented with DV, getting SA services Make it mandatory if you have a lot of dual clients. Modify Primary Language drop-down list (Utility menu) on adult shelter, child shelter, outreach/intake and hotline forms. Add these options, exactly as spelled below: Hmong Russian American Sign Language Modify Background multiple choice list (Utility menu) on the adult shelter, child shelter, outreach/intake forms. Add these options, exactly as spelled below: Youth IPV Limited English Proficiency (if it is not already there) Check the Turnaways Victim Type options (Utility menu) Make sure sexual assault is an option Add VOCA to your Program Funders list (Edit menu) If mandatory, add Other option X X X X X X X X X Customizing for funders Checklist [1] Updated 7/1/212

55 Modify the Victim Type drop-down list (Utility menu) on the adult shelter, child shelter, outreach/intake forms. Add the options that apply to your agency, or if you already have data entered, rename an existing option that matches the description. Child Abuse/Sexual Child Abuse/Physical Domestic Violence Adult Sexual Assault Adult/Molested as Child Other Violent Crime Elder Abuse Drunk Driving Survivor of Homicide Victim Assault Robbery Other Violent Crime Property Crime Other/Unknown Make sure hotline Call Type multiple choices include: (Utility menu) Crisis Call, Counseling, or Information/Referral Call (SAVS) Information/Referral Call (VOCA) Associate Services with service types - for every service that needs to count on funder reports! DCF: Associate Services with service types (Edit menu) individual counseling/advocacy - adult group counseling/advocacy - adult individual counseling/advocacy - child group counseling/advocacy - child FVPSA child activities VOCA: Associate Services with service types (Edit menu) crisis counseling follow-up therapy group treatment/support shelter/safehouse information and referral criminal justice support/advocacy emergency financial assistance emergency legal advocacy victim compensation personal advocacy or hospital/medical advocacy DCF VOCA SAVS X X X X X Customizing for funders Checklist [2] Updated 7/1/212

56 ` SAVS: Associate Services with service types (Edit menu) advocacy/support services criminal justice support/advocacy emergency legal advocacy hospital/medical advocacy information and referral (in-person) information and referral (telephone) see characteristics support group therapy Associate Services with characteristics (Edit menu) This service is a shelter bednight, hotel/motel bednight or a home/residence bednight This service is a group activity This service is a type of client telephone contact (must be service type: information and referral) Associate Event Categories with service types (Edit menu) community education hospital/health care training professional training community education-youth community awareness sexual assault community outreach sexual assault prevention education Optional - Depends on agency Add Users (Utility Menu > Edit User Name Table) - people who log in to enter data & run reports Enter Staff (Edit menu) - to connect with with clients or activities Make VOCA the default funder (Edit menu) Can do this for any Service Name, Staff Name, or active client that is always or mostly VOCA funded, can be changed during data entry. Do this if you have many VOCA services or clients, to make data-entry easier. If you make Funder mandatory, add a funder called Other to the funders list so that users have an option if it s not VOCA. Agency Preferences (Utility > Manage Agencies) Authority, Case Notes, Prevent changes Handling sensitive data (medical, mental health, substance abuse, case notes) Disable forms & buttons, Abuser form require or disable Restrict volunteer access Lock by department (create in Edit > Agency Departments) Clean up Delete options & fields that you are not using DCF VOCA SAVS X X X X X X Customizing for funders Checklist [3] Updated 7/1/212

57 Technical Support Provider Confidentiality Agreement Agency Name I understand that for safety and for legal reasons, all information pertaining to anyone who seeks or has received the services of Agency Name must be kept confidential. This includes the identity of those who seek services, their names, gender, age, number of children, addresses, types of services received, and place where services were sought or received, and any other information that could identify the individual. I understand that this information is NOT to be shared with anyone including other agencies, treatment providers, law enforcement, government institutions or funders. I will maintain the confidentiality of those people whose information I view in the course of providing technical assistance with client data collection procedures and software. All online technical support shall be provided over an encrypted connection with agency staff present. Agency staff may terminate the ability to control an agency computer or may end the online connection at any time. No data will be saved outside of the agency, including personal details of the Agency Name staff or volunteers. In addition, because of significant security issues, I understand that the agency s location must be kept confidential. I understand that my confidentiality obligation is on-going and it does not end when my visit to or relationship with this agency ends. I agree to abide by the guidelines above. I understand that if an intentional breach of confidentiality occurs I may be subject to civil or criminal liability. This confidentiality agreement was created to ensure the safety and privacy of service recipients, staff and volunteers. If, in the course of my work for Agency Name I see any policies or practices that may inadvertently reveal confidential client or potential client information or the location of the agency, I will notify the Executive Director of the agency immediately. Technical Support Provider Printed Name: Technical Support Provider Signature: Date: Technical Support Confidentiality Agreement [1] Updated 7/1/212

58 How Service Types link to reports Service Types are set in the background - you can t see them when you enter activities or on most reports. But they determine where services will show up on reports. This system allows you to rename or add your own Service Names and still have them count in the right places. You link Service Names to Service Types and Characteristics in Edit > Services and Funders > Service Names. Click on a Service Name to make changes. RULES: You may check the same service type for more than one Service Name. A Service Name may have more than one service type checked. You cannot check 2 service types that are used in the SAME funder report. (Notice that the service types list shows MANY options that may seem correct for your Service Name. Only the service types that are listed for the Wisconsin reports will affect which activities show up on those reports. Other service types are used for various custom reports that states have ordered. You may also use additional service names if you wish to run reports based on selected service types that are different from the ones used in funder reports but be careful the ones you choose don t conflict with requirements for Wisconsin funder reports). Event categories can also be linked to service types. Edit > Events, Letters, Materials and Meetings > Event Categories For help with what kinds of activities should count in a particular section of a report, contact your funder. Note that there are other requirements besides service types for assuring that clients are counted in the Wisconsin reports. You can find details in the Alice help for each report. Service Characteristics Some reports, such as the DCF Report, require that the correct characteristics are attached to Service Names. For example, if you add a Service Name that is a bednight (such as Shelter Stay), you need to be sure it is marked as shelter bednight, hotel/motel bednight, or home/residence bednight in order to count under Nights of Shelter. For FVPSA child activities that are group activities, This service is a group activity must be checked. This is done on the same screen where you check the service type boxes. Get a list of existing service types Click the Service Names by Service Type button at the bottom of any Service Name screen to get a printable list of how your active Service Names are mapped to service types. How service types link to reports [1] Updated 7/1/212

59 Here are some examples of how service types count your activities on various reports: Your Service Name Service Type checkbox Counts here individual counseling/advocacy DCF Report adult Supportive Counseling/ Advocacy - Adults Adult counseling advocacy/support services SAVS Report Personal Advocacy Crisis counseling VOCA Report Crisis Counseling (inperson) Your Service Name Service Type checkbox Counts here individual counseling/advocacy DCF Report adult Supportive Counseling/ Advocacy - Adults Legal advocacy emergency legal advocacy SAVS Report Emergency Legal Advocacy emergency legal advocacy VOCA Report Emergency Legal Advocacy Your Service Name Service Type checkbox Counts here group counseling/advocacy child DCF Report Supportive Counseling/ Advocacy Children and Youth Children s group support group SAVS Report Support Groups group treatment/support VOCA Report Group Treatment/Support Your Event Category Service Type checkbox Counts here Middle School Presentation community education - youth Your Event Category Service Type checkbox Counts here Shelter Night shelter stay and This service is a shelter bednight (or hotel/motel or home/residence bednight DCF Report Community Education and Public Awareness: Youth Oriented Education DCF Report Persons receiving shelter and Nights of shelter How service types link to reports [2] Updated 7/1/212

60 Wisconsin DCF annual report (from Alice help September 212): A1. Residential Shelter Services * Persons Receiving Shelter Services -- Individuals are counted if one or more activities have been recorded where the Service Name has been marked as a shelter bednight, hotel/motel bednight, or a home/residence bednight. A9. Supportive Counseling/Advocacy - Adults Clients are counted if they have at least one activity with a Service Name that has been associated with either of the following Service Types: "individual counseling/advocacy - adult" "group counseling/advocacy - adult" A1. Clients are counted if they have at least one activity with a Service Name that has been associated with either of the following Service Types: "individual counseling/advocacy - child" "group counseling/advocacy - child" A1. Activities for Children and Youth Child Shelter and Outreach client activities are counted in this section if they have a Service Name that is associated with the "FVPSA child activities" Service Type. For group activities, the Service Name must be marked as a type of group activity on the right side of the Service Name form. A11. Community Education and Public Awareness * Adults/General Population Education -- Event records and their Attendance totals are counted where the Event Category has been associated with the "community education", "hospital/health care training", or "professional training" Service Type. (Choose only one per Event Category). * Youth Oriented Education -- Event records and their Attendance totals are counted where the Event Category has been associated with the "community education-youth" Service Type. * Public Awareness -- Event records are counted where the Event Category has been associated with the "community awareness" Service Type. How service types link to reports [3] Updated 7/1/212

61 VOCA Report Wisconsin (from Alice help - September 212): Services * For the services section of the report, the Service Names for client activities must be associated with a Service Type following the list below. Service Types are set on the Edit menu under Services and Funders and then Service Names. Items on the left are categories from the report; items on the right are Service Types. Each category from the report can have one or more Service Names, each of which is connected to one Service Type for this report. Report Item Crisis Counseling (in-person) Follow-up Contact Therapy Group Treatment/Support Shelter/Safehouse Information and Referral (in-person) Criminal Justice Support/Advocacy Emergency Financial Assistance Emergency Legal Advocacy Crime Victim Compensation Assistance Personal Advocacy Service Type crisis counseling follow-up therapy group treatment/support shelter/safehouse information and referral criminal justice support/advocacy emergency financial assistance emergency legal advocacy victim compensation personal advocacy or hospital/medical advocacy How service types link to reports [4] Updated 7/1/212

62 Wisconsin SAVS Report (from Alice help - September 212): * Clients are counted in the various report categories for services if one or more activities have been recorded where the Service Name has been associated with a Service Type as shown in the following table. Items on the left are categories from the report; items on the right are Service Types. Each category from the report can have one or more Service Names, each of which is connected to one Service Type. Report Category Personal Advocacy Criminal Justice Support/Advocacy Emergency Legal Advocacy Medical Advocacy Information/Referral Support Groups Therapy Service Type advocacy/support services criminal justice support/advocacy emergency legal advocacy hospital/medical advocacy information and referral (and the Service Name is not marked as a kind of telephone contact) support group therapy Community Outreach and Prevention Education * Community Outreach events are those where the Event Category has been associated with the "sexual assault community outreach" Service Type. * Prevention Education events are those where the Event Category has been associated with the "sexual assault prevention education" Service Type. How service types link to reports [5] Updated 7/1/212

63 Editing Service Names, Types and Characteristics How to edit Service Names (Edit > Services and Funders > Service Names) Click on a Service Name to edit it. Make sure you have selected the correct Service Category. Why edit a service Name? Rename it to match what your agency calls a similar service. Be sure you don t change the meaning of it. Add a service that isn t currently on the list. Assign a Service Type or Characteristic to make it count or appear on a particular report. Editing Service Names, Types, Characteristics [1] Updated 7/1/212

64 Assign Service Types or Characteristics to a Service Name: Any changes made to this screen will apply to the Advocacy Service Name that is under the Outreach Service Category. Click this button to see/print a list of service Names you ve assigned to each of the above characteristics. View/print a list of assigned Service Types: Click the Service Names By Service Type button at the bottom left of the Edit Service Name screen to get this list, which you can print. This list doesn t include deactivated Service Names. You can show inactive service names and click on each to see what service types it is associated with. Data that has been entered in inactive service names will appear on reports. Editing Service Names, Types, Characteristics [2] Updated 7/1/212

65 This is what you see in Activities: Customizing Service Categories and Service Names Service Category Service Names in the selected category Customizing Service Categories and Service Names You aren t stuck with the Service Categories or Service Names that come with Alice. You can create your own and organize them any way you wish. Or you might want to merge two or more Service Names that mean the same thing. Option 1: Create new Service Categories and Service Names, and delete the old ones. If there is existing data your categories & names will be deactivated instead. Your reports and screens will still show the existing data, but you will no longer have those choices to enter. Option 2: Move existing activities using Utility > Move Activity Records Between Service Names. Then all of your existing data will show up under the new categories with the new service names. The old ones will be gone. If you want a record of the existing activities before you move them to different service names or categories, can run a Client Service Detail report (Report Type=Activities), then print it as an Excel, PDF or text file & save it. (Excel is good if you want to be able to sort the data.) You may have what looks like the same Service Name in more than one Service Category, but each Service Name within a category is unique even if it s spelled the same. Customizing Service Categories and Names [1] Updated 7/1/212

66 Moving Active Service Names to another category (Utility > Move Activity Records Between Service Names) Be careful how you define new Service Categories! There is a way to link categories to Client Types so that only activities in certain categories will appear for each client type (adult shelter, child shelter, outreach, hotline, and soon volunteers). If you want to use this feature, don t get too creative with your Service Categories. To save a record of existing activities before you move them: Go to Reports, select Report Type Activities and choose Client Service Detail. Enter the first date you ever used Alice and today s date. Select all service names. Show dates for Service Names and include bednights, meals and trips. When your report comes up, print and save it to an Excel file so you have a record of all of your activities before you move anything. NOTE: This method only works for ACTIVE service names and categories. If you want to see inactive ones you ll need to reactivate them from the Service Name or Service Category screen. After you ve moved the activities, run the report again to make sure the activities have been moved correctly. Customizing Service Categories and Names [2] Updated 7/1/212

67 How to make children s activities count on the DCF Report 1. The client s intake has to have DCF Report? marked yes. 2. The activity needs to be linked to the FVPSA child activities Service Type. Go to Edit > Services and Funders > Service Names Make sure you are in the Service Category that you use for entering Children s activities (if you haven t changed your Service Categories your child activities will be under Children s Shelter and/or Outreach/Intake.) Click on the service name (for example, Group Counseling) Make children s activities count - DCF [1] Updated 7/1/212

68 Check the box next to FVPSA child activities. IF the activity is a group, check This service is a group activity at the right. Click Change when you are done and close the Service Names screen. Click this button to see ALL of the service names you have associated with service types. Click this button to see all of the service names that have a selected characteristic. Clients and their demographics will be reported as adults or children based on their age as of the most recent activity recorded. Shelter stays will be counted as both children and adults depending on their age at each stay. Supportive counseling and advocacy services as well as activities for children and youth will be included in the appropriate section of the report based on the service you have chosen when entering activities, regardless of their age. For example, if a 17 year old continues to participate in a children s group after she turns 18, those group contacts will still count under children and youth. Make children s activities count - DCF [2] Updated 7/1/212

69 Sample DCF Report Alice Report -- 9/12/212 Wisconsin DCF Domestic Violence Annual Report - Any Wisconsin DV Program A1. Residential Services October 211 through September 212 Women Children Men Youth IPV Persons Receiving Shelter Services Nights of Shelter Unmet Requests for Shelter - - A2. Nonresidential Services Women Children Men Youth IPV Persons Receiving Nonresidential Services A3. Demographic Data - Race and Ethnicity Women Children Men Youth IPV White Black or African American Hispanic/Latina(o) Southeast Asian Other Asian or Pacific Islander American Indian or Alaskan Native Persons Reporting More than One Race Other/Unknown Total A4. Demographic Data - Age Women Children Men Youth IPV and over Unknown A5. Demographic Data - Disability Women Children Men Youth IPV Persons Self-Identified With a Disability Sample DCF Report [1] Updated 7/1/212

70 A6. Demographic Data - Limited English Proficiency Persons with Limited English Proficiency Women Children A7. Demographic Data - Primary Language Spoken Women Children Spanish Hmong Russian American Sign Language Other (Not English) A8. Hotline Calls Total Number of Calls A9. Supportive Counseling and Advocacy - Adults Contacts Individual Group Men Men Youth IPV Youth IPV A1. Supportive Counseling and Advocacy - Children and Youth Contacts Individual Group A1. Activities for Children and Youth Contacts Individual Activities Group Activities A11. Community Education Presentations Participants Adults/General Population Youth Oriented A11. Public Awareness Number of Activities A12. Volunteer Activity Number of Volunteers Number of Volunteer Hours Sample DCF Report [2] Updated 7/1/212

71 Sample SAVS Report Sample SAVS Report [1] Updated 7/1/212

72 Sample VOCA Report Sample VOCA Report [1] Updated 7/1/212

73 Hotline Callers what counts where DCF Report: Hotline call with DCF Report? = Yes adds to the total number of calls in A8. Hotline Calls. The DCF report does NOT count hotline caller services as contacts in A9 or A1 (Supportive Counseling and Advocacy) and does NOT add to the number of clients or demographics when you add a service on the activity screen for a hotline caller. For a caller to count as a client, and for the service to count, you would have to create an intake for the caller (you can transfer the caller to Intake/Outreach or Shelter). Then if you add a DCF service for that intake, the person will count as a client and the service will count as a contact. SAVS Report: Hotline call with SAVS Report? = Yes adds to the total for 24-Hour Crisis Reponse. The SAVS Report DOES add to the Service Statistics when you add a service on the activity screen for a hotline caller. This is discouraged by the funder as the Service Statistics section of the SAVS report is primarily meant for in-person clients. If you want a service to count on the SAVS report and other reports, you need to create an intake for the caller (you can transfer the caller to Intake/ Outreach or Shelter). Add a SAVS service to that intake. VOCA Report: Hotline call with call type = information and referral, Victim Type is not blank, and Funder = VOCA adds to the number of Telephone Contact Information and Referral (calls). Adding a service for a client with an existing intake adds to the number of Telephone Contact Information and Referral (calls) IF the service is associated with the information and referral Service Type and "telephone contact" is checked on the Service Name form (to the right of the service types). The VOCA report does not count hotline caller services. For a caller to count as a client, you would have to create an intake for the caller (you can transfer the caller to Intake/ Outreach or Shelter). Then if you add a VOCA service for that intake the person will count as a client. When to count a hotline caller as a client? Ask your funder! Hotline Callers what counts where [1] Updated 2/1/213