athena software PENELOPE CASE MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE deployment guide

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deployment

guide

athena software

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table of contents/ links to sections

1. Introduction 2. Deployment Steps

Welcome to Penelope Installation

Business Readiness Activities Kickoff Meeting

Finalize Project Plan Configuration and Training

Data Migration and Custom Report Writing (if any) Verification and Preparation

End User Training Go Live

Support

3. Risk Management

Identify key stakeholders Business Analysis

Access/ Security Permissions Reporting Requirements Setting a Project Timeline

Number of Attendees for Training Transition Planning

Data Migration Living in Two Worlds Workstation Requirements End User Training

4. Change Management

Understanding the Reasons for Change Investing in Successful Change

The Psychology of Change

5. Installation of Penelope

Roles/ Responsibilities

Penelope Installed via Software as a Service (“Cloud”) Penelope Installed on Your Server

6. Business Readiness Activities

Business Analysis and Process Mapping Identify Key Roles and Processes

Documentation and Requirements Gathering Current State Process Mapping

Analysis and Future Planning Future State Process Mapping

7. Data Migration

8. Reporting Requirements

Reporting on General Statistics Reporting on Client Outcomes Reporting on Performance Metrics

9. Training Roles/ Responsibilities System Configuration Workflows Document Building Billing Reports Moodle

End User Training

SAMPLE TRAINING AGENDA System Config I

System Config II System Config III Billing I

Billing II

Document Building

Workflows and Basic Processes Reports 10. Go Live / Launch Roles/ Responsibilities Go Live Ongoing Support Priority Classification Critical Support Requests High Priority Support Requests Medium Priority Support Requests Low Priority Support Requests Scope of Support Services

Optional Technical Support Packages How to Access Technical Support

11. Additional Detailed Information

Client Service Lifecycle Overview Glossary of Key Terms

Individual Information Overview Case Structure Overview Penelope Inputs

General Agency Information Staff Information

Programs / Services

Third Party Service Providers Additional Setup Items Billing-Related Information Professional Services

Tele-Training and Consultation On Site Training and Consultation

Business Analysis and Process Mapping Workshops Document/ Assessment / Form Creation

System Configuration Data Migration

Custom Data Export or Reporting to Third Party Tools (e.g. Excel) Custom Database Views

Basic Project Management Premium Project Management Custom Learning/Help Resources

Out of Scope Technical Assistance and Consultation Sample Deployment Packages

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Chapter 1

introduction

Overview of deployment process and essential

components.

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This document outlines the steps to a successful deployment of Penelope at your organization. In its iBook format, it can be used as a great toolkit - you can add notes, share with colleagues and jump from section to section as needed. The bits at the end (detailed information) can be helpful for getting a more general

orientation of Penelope’s key concepts and terms.

Whether your organization is large or small, it is important for you to fully engage in the deployment process through appropriate preparation, appropriate time

commitment and ongoing review and analysis of the deployment’s “health”.

Regardless of your organization location, type, size or complexity, the success of the deployment will be measured in terms of the degree to which adoption of Penelope has:

achieved your documented pre-deployment business goals achieved the deployment “areas” documented as “in-scope” been deployed in accordance with your project plan

has enabled successful business continuity

has been adopted by staff effectively and efficiently

Section 1

OVERVIEW

1. Outline of deployment components to consider

overview

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been achieved within the pre-deployment budgetary parameters set by your organization

The components of this guide comprise each of the core

deployment considerations or factors that you must engage with in order to maximize your prospects for success.

Make no mistake about it, transitioning to a new case

management application that will become the new beating heart of your organization is a massively transformative process that demands an appropriate level of commitment and planning on your part. This document should help you prepare for this

transformation, so please take the time to read and understand it. This document’s main components are:

1) Deployment Steps 2) Business Readiness 3) Installation 4) Risk Management 5) Change Management 6) Project Plan 7) Training 8) Launch/ Go Live

9) Key Terms and Concepts / More Detailed Information

In the interests of keeping this guide fairly streamlined, we’ve designed it to be interactive in the sense that there are numerous embedded links to other more detailed

information available online. Please take advantage of these links to explore any topic more fully.

Lastly, please let us know how you liked it and any

suggestions you have for improving this document or the deployment process- - email us at [email protected] - we’d love to hear from you!

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Chapter 2

deployment

steps

This section provides a general overview of the steps

that occur in a typical deployment process.

There is variability with every deployment and for larger

deployments custom packages can be designed to suit

your needs.

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WELCOME TO PENELOPE

Once the license agreement and payment have been finalized, you will receive an e-mail welcoming you to Penelope. The content of this e-mail will vary based on the specifics of your deployment but it will always include a link to your web based deployment charter. Typically, your sales representative will begin filling out the charter for you based on information they have already gathered. You will

complete the deployment charter based on your agency needs. Once you submit the charter, an Athena Deployment Project Manager will be notified. If you are not sure of the answers to all questions on your deployment charter, then just do your best for now and flag these items for discussion during the first phone call with your Deployment Project Manager.

To see a blank copy of the Penelope Deployment Charter, click here.

Section 1

deployment steps

OVERVIEW

1. Welcome to Penelope 2. Installation

3. Business Readiness Activities 4. Kickoﬀ Meeting

5. Finalize Project Plan

6. Configuration and Training

7. Data Migration and Custom Report Writing (if any)

8. Verification and Preparation 9. End User Training

10. Go Live 11. Support

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INSTALLATION OF PENELOPE

The next step is to install Penelope. Depending on what you decided earlier on in the process, your Penelope database is either cloud-based (installed and hosted by us on one of our secure servers) or installed and hosted on your own server.

For more information on the installation process, click here to jump to the installation section of this guide.

Section 2

penelope installation

6 OVERVIEW 1. Welcome to Penelope 2. Installation

3. Business Readiness Activities 4. Kickoﬀ Meeting

10. Go Live 11. Support

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BUSINESS READINESS ACTIVITIES

There are a variety of business readiness activities which you should complete in order to ensure a successful deployment of Penelope. Business readiness

activities include items such as internal business analysis and process mapping, identifying report/stats requirements, and data migration planning. Although it is identified here as ‘step three’ it is never too early to begin this step.

For more information on recommended business readiness activities, click here.

Section 3

business readiness activities

OVERVIEW

1. Welcome to Penelope 2. Installation

10. Go Live 11. Support

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KICKOFF MEETING

During the kickoﬀ meeting, your Deployment Project Manager will try to gain an understanding of your business needs. Together you will go through the

deployment charter and discuss your answers, as well as additional information about your organizations services and procedures that will impact your

deployment and use of Penelope. Be prepared to discuss data migration, reporting requirements, and results of your own business analysis. This is a great

opportunity to share your current frustrations and future goals and to discuss if you would like to purchase any Professional Services to facilitate your deployment.

For more information on professional services available from Athena, please click here.

Section 4

kickoff meeting

3. Business Readiness Activities 4. Kickoﬀ Meeting

10. Go Live 11. Support

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FINALIZE PROJECT PLAN

Based on information gathered during the kickoﬀ meeting, your Deployment Project Manager will create a training agenda tailored to your specific needs. At this point you should be ready to book the training sessions and set milestone dates, and be able to clearly identify responsible parties at your organization who will help to reach these targets. In order to create a realistic project plan, make sure you have considered how much resourcing and availability you and the other stakeholders are able to allocate to working on the deployment.

Click here for an example project plan for a large agency (4 month rollout). Note that this is just a sample rather in depth plan - we always tailor plans specifically to your agency’s requirements and the timelines and resources can be shifted accordingly.

Section 5

finalize project plan

OVERVIEW

1. Welcome to Penelope 2. Installation

10. Go Live 11. Support

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CONFIGURATION AND TRAINING

Once you have done thorough analysis and planning and have created a project plan, you will be ready to learn how to configure and use Penelope. This is

typically the longest stage of the implementation. It involves multiple training sessions on everything from initial configuration to end user procedures and you will need time to complete homework after each session.

To learn more about this stage, please click here to jump to the training section of the guide

Section 6

configuration and training

10 OVERVIEW

1. Welcome to Penelope 2. Installation

10. Go Live 11. Support

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DATA MIGRATION AND CUSTOM REPORT WRITING

Depending on your needs, you may choose to migrate existing data into Penelope or you may require custom reports. If this is the case you should have already identified this as part of your business readiness activities. This work is often done concurrently with training and configuration.

Click for more information on assistance from Athena for data migration and custom reporting

Section 7

data migration and custom report writing

OVERVIEW

1. Welcome to Penelope 2. Installation

10. Go Live 11. Support

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VERIFICATION AND PREPARATION

Once you have completed configuration of Penelope, it is a good idea to do a

walk-through of all of the processes for which your staﬀ will use Penelope. This will allow you to confirm that you have setup Penelope correctly and help to eliminate setbacks at go-live. We also recommend that you create custom learning

resources to assist your staff with this transition and to support new staff that may join your team in the future. Please click here to jump to the Professional Services section if you are interested in hiring Athena staff to create custom learning

resources for your organization. For larger deployments, you may also wish create a sandbox/test environment for your staﬀ to learn and play in Penelope.

For more information regarding a Penelope sandbox, click here to jump to the Installation section of the guide.

Section 8

verification and preparation

12 OVERVIEW

1. Welcome to Penelope 2. Installation

10. Go Live 11. Support

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END USER TRAINING

Once you are confident your procedures and learning resources are ready, it will be time to train your staff. It is best to split up your staff by role or by how they will use Penelope so that they learn only what is relevant to them. For example, you could conduct a training session for your clinical staff on how to put a new client into service and record session notes while in a management training session you may cover how to run reports and understand the results. You can also purchase additional training hours from our Professional Services if you would like an Athena trainer to conduct the End User training.

To learn more about this stage, please click here to jump to the training section of the guide

To learn more about our professional services, click here

Section 9

end user training

OVERVIEW

1. Welcome to Penelope 2. Installation

10. Go Live 11. Support

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GO LIVE

Congratulations! Its time to oﬃcially launch Penelope and see how all of your hard work has payed oﬀ. Your Deployment Project Manager will be in touch with you shortly after your launch and provide you with information regarding ongoing support.

To learn more about what happens once you go live, click here to jump to the Go Live section of the guide.

Section 10

go live!

3. Business Readiness Activities 4. Kickoﬀ Meeting

10. Go Live 11. Support

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SUPPORT

After a successful “Go-Live” the Athena Deployment Manager will begin to include the Athena Support Team in any correspondence with the agency project lead. After the initial touch point session, the Athena Support team will take full

responsibility in providing ongoing support to the agency.

The agency should provide an individual to act as a point of contact to Athena Software (if diﬀerent from the agency project lead). This individual acts as the communication interface between the agency Penelope end users and the Athena Support Team. Any issues that require Athena Support Team involvement should be channeled through this individual.

To learn more about Support Options, How to Access Support and other Support related items, click here

Section 11

OVERVIEW

1. Welcome to Penelope 2. Installation

10. Go Live 11. Support

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Chapter 3

risk

management

The risk management section outlines

recommendations to minimize risks and to ensure a

successful deployment of Penelope.

It is recommended that the project manager and other

responsible parties for setting up Penelope at your

agency review this section.

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IDENTIFY KEY STAKEHOLDERS

It is important to identify all of your key stakeholders prior to/early on in the deployment process. Stakeholders coming on board later in the project often results in confusion about project direction and changes late in the project, which can be costly and/or impact the project timeline. Ensure you include stakeholders who are content experts and have strong knowledge of your business practices.

BUSINESS ANALYSIS

Conducting a thorough business analysis is critical to ensuring a successful implementation. Ensure you have a good understanding of the end-to-end procedures and workflows that are followed in your organization from incoming referrals through to client discharge. Being confident in this knowledge will ensure you are setting up Penelope for use in the best possible way for your organization and reduce the likelihood of discovering necessary changes post-launch. This is also a great opportunity to identify procedural gaps and improve workflows that you have found to be ineﬃcient or cumbersome. For more information regarding business process mapping, click here.

Section 1

OVERVIEW

1. Identify key stakeholders 2. Business Analysis

3. Access/ Security Permissions 4. Reporting Requirements

5. Setting a Project Timeline

6. Number of Attendees for Training

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ACCESS/ SECURITY PERMISSIONS

Ensure you have a good understanding of what types of access/ permission each of the roles in your organization should have. For example, should workers be able to access each others’ client records? How about records for clients who see a colleague at another work site? Having a good understanding of what your staﬀ should or should not have access to will make it easier to set up their security access in Penelope and ensure everyone is

seeing only what they need to see.

REPORTING REQUIREMENTS

Identify your report requirements prior to configuring Penelope. What statistics do you need to generate? Who are you providing reports to and what information do they need? This information will help determine the best way to set up Penelope. It is

important that items you want to gather statistics on are captured in Penelope in a way that is easy to report on. For example, it is much easier to draw statistical data based on an answer to a drop down question with predefined text than to try to extract meaningful data from a free form text field.

For more information on gathering report requirements, click here.

SETTING A PROJECT TIMELINE

Identifying a target launch date and milestone dates will help to keep your deployment on track. A structured approach with deadlines will help you to maintain focus on the implementation of Penelope rather than let it sit to the side while you get

consumed with your regular work duties. Setting aside the time now to work on the implementation of Penelope will help you gain eﬃciency in the long term. Your Athena Deployment Project

Manager will discuss your needs with you and help you to come up with a project plan. Want to launch Penelope as soon as possible ? Take a look at your time and resources and figure out what ‘as soon as possible’ realistically means and make that your target.

NUMBER OF ATTENDEES FOR TRAINING

Try to have a minimum of two stakeholders at each training session and also to maintain a small training group size. If only one person attends a session and then becomes unavailable to work on the implementation for any reason, it causes major setbacks in the project timeline and can be costly if you need to purchase additional training hours. Also, larger groups are less

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able to focus on the core training material. Narrow down the list of stakeholders that need to attend each session by reviewing what material will be covered and identifying which stakeholders this will be most relevant to. *These recommendations apply to training the deployment project team members and not to End User training where a larger training group may be anticipated.

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DATA MIGRATION

If you would like to migrate data into Penelope, it is important to identify exactly how much data you would like to transfer over and ensure that this data is in a migration-ready format. It is important to think about this early on in order to

identify associated costs and ensure the work involved will be completed in time. If you have limited resources, think carefully about what data you really need to

move forward. Can you leave out information related to closed records or past appointments? For more information on data migration, click here.

LIVING IN TWO WORLDS

If you do not migrate all of your data into Penelope prior to launch, you will be temporarily living in two worlds, so to speak. While logging new information in Penelope, you may be going back to paper records to read old progress notes or looking at your old calendar to see appointments which were booked prior to launching Penelope. Whatever transition plan you move forward with, ensure that everyone has a clear understanding of how to access information and conduct their job properly during this time.

Section 2

OVERVIEW

1. Data Migration

2. Living in Two Worlds

3. Workstation Requirements 4. End User Training

transition planning

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WORKSTATION REQUIREMENTS

Ensure everyone who will be using Penelope has a work station which meets the technical requirements. You may want to have everyone log in to Penelope prior to the launch date to ensure that there won’t be any hiccups on Go-Live day.

Click here for workstation requirements (scroll down)

END USER TRAINING

Ensure that everyone who will be actively using Penelope has received training and has an understanding of Penelope prior to your launch date. When conducting End User training, it is

recommended that you split up your staﬀ by role or by how they will use Penelope. This way you only cover what they need to know and don’t overwhelm staﬀ with additional information that is not applicable to their role. It is also recommended that you

create custom training materials to assist your staﬀ while they are new to the software and to support new staﬀ that joins your team in the future. Click here to see an example of custom learning resources.

An Athena staﬀ member would be happy to assist with End User training and/or creation of custom learning resources. *additional fees apply

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Chapter 4

change

management

Change is a big portion of implementing Penelope. It is

important to make sure that this is managed

appropriately and any risks arising are dealt with in a

timely manner. Any kind of change in any organization

requires appropriate management to succeed.

Penelope implementation is no di

ﬀ

erent. Appropriate

change management by the stakeholders coordinated

by the project leads will ensure timely successful

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CHANGE MANAGEMENT

Change is a big portion of implementing Penelope. It is important to make sure that this is managed appropriately and any risks arising are dealt with in a timely manner. Any kind of change in any organization requires appropriate management to succeed.

UNDERSTANDING THE REASON FOR CHANGE

If your organization has decided to purchase Penelope, it means your agency will be undergoing change. This may be a large cultural shift if for example you are moving from paper to Penelope, or may be more of adapting to new routines while retiring your old case management system. Whomever made the decision to

purchase Penelope likely made the decision with a vision and specific goals in mind. It is important to understand this vision and the reasons behind it. Why was Penelope purchased? To improve eﬃciency? To measure outcomes? To report statistics to funders? To improve client experience? Understanding the reason for change is critical to ensuring it goes smoothly and successfully. Keep these goals in mind throughout the implementation process, and identify ways to measure your success in accomplishing these goals.

Section 1

OVERVIEW

1. Understanding the Reasons for Change 2. Investing in Successful Change

3. The Psychology of Change

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INVESTING IN SUCCESSFUL CHANGE

By purchasing Penelope your organization has already made an initial investment in change, but it is important to know that the purchase of a new software is not enough to ensure successful change and realize your future vision. In order to ensure success, your organization must accept that a successful implementation requires the commitment of time and resources and may require other corporate changes. Stakeholders who understand the future vision may need to make diﬃcult decisions regarding the future. Is your corporate culture shifting? Perhaps to realize your long term goals you may need to eliminate outdated roles in your organization, for example you may have a position dedicated entirely to the filing and management of paper records which is becoming obsolete. Perhaps you are planning to host the

software on your own server and/or have very specific reporting requirements for which new technical staﬀ could be hired.

Additionally, ensuring time and resources are allocated to the implementation of the software itself goes a long way in ensuring that Penelope will be configured in a way that meets your

organizational needs and generally creates a smoother transition for staﬀ. When key stakeholders are not engaged and an

appropriate investment to understanding and configuring Penelope is not made it puts your organizational goals at risk. While Penelope can be reconfigured and modified in future, a poor initial implementation will foster negativity and mistrust from which it may be diﬃcult to recover.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF CHANGE

Change is frightening, and typically staﬀ resist change. It is important to be mindful of this and begin making an action plan early on to facilitate the transition. Make a clear communication plan and ensure messaging from your leadership team is

consistent and positive. Ensure your communication plan includes key messages including the reasons for change, how change will impact the organization and the people in it, when change will occur, and the resources available to facilitate the change. Allow a safe means for staff to express concerns, voice their opinions and provide feedback without fearing negative repercussions. Open discussion and feeling like they are being heard will help staff accept change even if you are not able to address all of their concerns immediately. Once you get an idea of how resistant your staff is to change come up with a change management strategy tailored to your agency needs. What types of training styles do your staff best respond to? How much time is reasonable to allow your staff to adjust? Is your agency more likely to adapt with a slow transition where you build and add more functions into Penelope over time, perhaps rolling out use of the software by different teams and programs over time? Or are you more suited to longer preparation time with one organization wide shift in processes? Identify the levels of your organization and roles within them which must accept the change to ensure success. Invite members of each of these groupings to be part of

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the discussion early on and to assist you in developing your change management strategy and implementation plans. These individuals can then foster a positive attitude towards change throughout your organization and assure colleagues that their input is valued and heard.

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Chapter 5

installation

process

The installation section walks you through what you can

expect to occur during the installation of Penelope. Your

installation experience will di

ﬀ

er depending on who

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INSTALLATION OF PENELOPE

The installation section walks you through what you can expect to occur during the installation of Penelope. Your installation experience will diﬀer depending on who hosts and installs Penelope.

Stakeholders and their responsibilities at this stage include: Agency Project Lead

Communication Interface between Agency Signing Authority and Athena Project Manager

Change login password on initial log in Agency Signing Authority

Provide approval for Penelope Installation Athena Deployment Manager

Pre-installation - Gather necessary information from Agency Project Lead to facilitate installation

Section 1

installation of penelope

OVERVIEW

1. Roles/ Responsibilities

2. Penelope Installed via Software as a Service (“Cloud”)

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Post Installation - Provide Agency Project Lead with software link and login credentials

Athena IT Personnel Install Penelope

Prior to commencing the deployment of Penelope, we will require the name and contact information for the security oﬃcer and signing authority at your organization. You can submit this

information via the Deployment Charter which will be sent to you by e-mail once your purchase of Penelope has been finalized. Even if you are hosting and installing Penelope software

independently, we require these contacts. This way, if you run into an urgent technical issue in the future for which you require our assistance, we will be able to quickly identify and contact the appropriate authorities at your organization who can allow us permission to access your database and assist in resolving the issue.

PENELOPE IN THE SECURE CLOUD / SaaS

Athena Software hosts your data with physical security, services redundancy, advanced server configuration, availability and disaster preparedness that is world class.

Once your license agreement has been signed, payment has been made, we will have your Penelope database running and accessible within one or two business days.

You will receive an e-mail from your Deployment Project Manager containing a link to your Penelope database and a system

administrator login. For security purposes, your system

administrator password will not be in the e-mail. Instead, you will be requested to either call the support line or create a support ticket to receive your password.

If you have purchased a minimum of 10 concurrent licenses, you are eligible to receive a Sandbox which will be available for 90 days from the installation at no additional charge.

For more information on Penelope in the secure cloud, click here.

PENELOPE ON YOUR OWN SERVER

Click here to see minimum hardware requirements and recommendations when you host Penelope on your own server.

If you provide us with remote access to your server, we will install Penelope for you at no cost as part of your Gold Support

Package. In order to do this, we require the following:

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Remote access via an administrator-level account such as Remote Desktop including the remote IP, Username and

Password - For security reasons, never submit the password and login information via the same type of communication.

Authorization to reboot the server once during the installation process

Server must be able to access the web site http:// penelopehelp.com to download required components

Someone on your staﬀ may need to perform some functions at the server terminal but we can guide you through this or provide instruction

You have identified for us one http/TCP port to run the application and, if required, an https/SSL port for remote access.

If you prefer, we can provide you with instructions so that you can do the installation yourself. Please let your Deployment Project Manager know if you are using a Windows or a Linux server so that we can forward you the appropriate instructions.

You can install as many Sandbox environments as you need on your server and keep them permanently. You will be responsible for the maintenance of these databases but can hire Athena staﬀ to assist you for an additional fee.

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Chapter 6

business

readiness

activities

This section describes recommended activities to

ensure your organization is ready to launch Penelope

and to use Penelope as e

ﬀ

ectively as possible. This

section will cover topics such as Business Analysis and

Process Mapping.

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BUSINESS READINESS

The first step in getting your organization ready to implement Penelope is to

identify and engage your implementation project team members. This team should consist of key stakeholders who have the responsibilities, competencies,

experience, and knowledge necessary to work towards a successful

implementation. Your project team should consist of various types of people - both big picture visionaries, and detail oriented individuals, people who can make high level decisions and who understand the organization wide targets and goals, and subject matter experts who will know which details are critical to success and understand why each step in a process occurs and what it impacts.

It often occurs that the team responsible for the decision to purchase Penelope is not on the project team responsible for implementing the software. It is important that the implementation project team understand the reasons for purchase and have clear goals in mind. Purchasing Penelope provides an opportunity to review and improve your internal business practices. It is also recommended that you use these goals to track your return on investment over time.

Section 1

business readiness activities

OVERVIEW

1. Business Analysis and Process Mapping 2. Identify Key Roles and Processes

3. Documentation and Requirements Gathering

4. Current State Process Mapping 5. Analysis and Future Planning 6. Future State Process Mapping

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BUSINESS ANALYSIS AND PROCESS MAPPING

In order to ensure a successful implementation, it is important to understand how your organization currently operates and have pre-defined goals on how it should operate in the future using Penelope. Below are recommended activities to ensure a

thorough business analysis has taken place in preparation for the changes to come. Conducting this analysis and documenting the outcomes will not only prepare you for launching Penelope, but can also give you resources which can be used for business continuity and training in the future.

For more on Process Mapping please click here

For more information on Athena’s Professional Services, click here

IDENTIFY KEY ROLES AND PROCESSES

Identify and document all of the roles and associated

responsibilities that exist in your organization which will be impacted by your move to Penelope and identify each of the processes that these roles perform. While trying to identify key roles and responsibilities, take a walk through common

procedures from various perspectives. For example, from a client perspective - who does the client interact with at your agency?

Why? What processes does this person follow? Who else does this staﬀ member interact with at your agency in relation to the clients? Will any of those individuals’ processes be impacted by Penelope also? From a management perspective, what

information do you need to view in Penelope? Who is responsible for collecting this information? Who is responsible for recording the information? How is the information captured today? All processes which will be transferred to Penelope should be identified and captured no matter how simple or small. Sometimes something that seems simple can have a large domino eﬀect if taken out or forgotten.

DOCUMENTS AND REQUIREMENTS GATHERING

As you start making decisions on how to move forward with Penelope, it is critical to identify your Reporting Requirements in advance as well as your needs with respect to Data Migration. It is important to have these needs clearly documented (including specific forms that are used to capture data for reporting and where this information could/ should be located within your business processes/ client lifecycle); we highly recommend that you share this information with your Deployment Project Manager. You should also start gathering key information which you will need to have on hand in order to configure your Penelope database.

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For a list of items to have prepared to assist with system configuration please click here.

CURRENT STATE PROCESS MAPPING

For each of the roles and processes identified above, create a process map which illustrates how these activities currently unfold at your organization. It is a good idea to interview subject matter experts from the roles you have identified to collect

information and also to have them review your process maps upon completion to ensure you have captured information

correctly. Be sure to capture who conducts the work, what action is taken, what triggers the action and detailed information on how the action is completed and how work is moved forward to create a trigger for the next action.

Please click here in order to see an instructional guide to process mapping.

ANALYSIS AND FUTURE PLANNING

In addition to planning for transitioning your processes into Penelope, this is an opportunity to improve quality and/or

eﬃciency of processes that may be outdated. Now that you have

mapped out your current processes, take a look at the visual display of your procedures - is the map easy to understand? If it is ‘messy’ that may be an indicator that you should use this transition to streamline procedures. Common things to consider include eliminating duplication of eﬀorts such as diﬀerent workers recording the same information and reducing the number of

handoﬀs between roles as work travels through a process. Other examples include process elements that, because of legacy issues (eg. using a paper based system), often require

communications, notifications and other back and forth elements that can be made redundant through functionality in Penelope. As you are looking at your procedures it is important to raise questions. Why does this process take place? What is the

purpose of this process? Is there another way to accomplish this that is more eﬃcient or has less room for error? What QA

procedures currently in place will need to be streamlined/

changed as part of the transition to Penelope. As you look to the future which processes should be changed and improved? Think about how all of these processes will live in the future and within your Penelope database and what adjustments will be needed.

FUTURE STATE PROCESS MAPPING

For each role and process identified above, create a process map which illustrates how these activities will unfold in the future using

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Penelope. Be sure to address all of the items that were captured in your current state map so that you will be prepared for a

smooth transition. If you don’t know Penelope well enough to map out the details of how each process will work then take this opportunity to start the map and identify the gaps that need to be filled in. As you go through your training, continue to come back to this map and fill in these gaps and engage your Deployment Project Manager to help if you have areas of concern. It is also a good idea to identify where and how key data elements will be recorded if you later need to collect the data for your Reporting Requirements. These maps form the critical structure that serves as the basis for the development of training materials, a form of User Acceptance Testing and ongoing compliance framework. This set of process diagrams forms the master documentation against which staﬀ and system performance will be evaluated).

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Chapter 7

data

migration

Athena Software can help migrate your legacy data into

Penelope. We often use the services of a 3rd party

organization, CIMEND. They have many years of

experience migrating legacy data from many di

ﬀ

erent

systems and database types into Penelope.

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DATA MIGRATION

How important is it to be able to migrate your current data into Penelope for continuity purposes? If it is critical, are you moving from another case

management software solution to Penelope? If so, can you extract your current data into Microsoft Excel or Access format for migration?

One thing to consider is that sometimes when you migrate data you also

potentially migrate “bad data”, errors, incompatible legacy concepts and other elements that you may want to be moving away from (rather than “to”) when

transitioning to a new system. For example, in Penelope we have the concept of a “case” file uniting aﬃliated individuals into a unified family file in which all service information is recorded. If your legacy system doesn’t have this concept, migrating your data will be problematic at minimum and even in some cases, impossible. Sometimes migrating data also makes it harder to break away from policies,

procedures and service concepts you want to move away from so thinking about how migration of legacy data fits into your organization’s strategic transformation is vital. You even may want to consider a “hybrid” model where basic individual data is migrated but the rest is printed out from your current systems and

uploaded as an attachment or entered manually by data entry staﬀ.

Section 1

data migration (if applicable)

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To provide you with a price quote and time estimate for

performing the migration, below are some questions that your deployment manager will ask to get the process started:

Can you get the data from your legacy system into separate CSV tables?

Do you understand the relationships of the tables in your legacy system to each other?

Is there reasonable degree of matching (correspondence) between the table structure of the current system and Penelope (so that things can be easily and logically mapped)?

Is the data clean? Were there suﬃcient data validation checks in place when entering data into the legacy system so that the data is consistent and doesn't require a lot of cleansing?

What is the scope of the data to be brought over? Is it all clients? Just open clients? Of the client records to be brought over, is it just their name / address / phone / demographics or extensive additional information? If so, what?

Can you provide some sample data? If so, when?

Before providing sample data for evaluation/assessment, please provide Athena Software with an NDA (Non-Disclosure

Agreement) to sign as we will be dealing with client data at this point. NEVER send any confidential client information to us unless we provide a specific method for you to do this securely. Once the sample data is provided, an estimate will be provided within 2–5 business days.

Approval for the estimate provided will be required from your agency stakeholders and management team before any work begins.

Upon work completion, the data will be converted to a sandbox site (test environment) for final approval/sign oﬀ from your agency stakeholders and management team.

Once sign off is received, the data will then be converted to your production Penelope database on the agreed/scheduled date. Sometimes, if you can budget it, it is more efficient to do a two stage conversion where the first one is done to ensure the data is mapped correctly and accurately (and can be used for training of staff) and then the final one can be done immediately prior to go live to ensure the most up to date and recent information from your legacy system.

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Chapter 8

reporting

requirements

During or prior to the system configuration process, it is

especially important to identify your reporting needs so

that the system is configured and processes are

designed to ensure that this information can be

generated and retrieved e

ﬀ

ectively by the appropriate

stakeholders.

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REPORTING REQUIREMENTS

During or prior to the system configuration process, it is especially important to identify your reporting needs so that the system is configured and processes are designed to ensure that this information can be generated and retrieved eﬀectively by the appropriate stakeholders.

When looking at reporting from Penelope it is important to consider that there are multiple levels/layers within Penelope from which you can extract reportable data and many diﬀerent types of data that you can collect - for example, are you

looking to track aggregate statistics and/or the performance of your agency and staﬀ?

REPORTING ON GENERAL STATISTICS

There are many statistics which can be pulled out of Penelope and which clients will use to provide information to funders, or for publishing quarterly reports either publicly or to their internal board of directors. These statistics can be pulled from many diﬀerent levels of Penelope depending on your needs. For example, at the case level you can collect information such as the number of families served, at the service file and event level you may be interested in tracking the number of

Section 1

reporting requirements

OVERVIEW

1. Reporting on General Statistics 2. Reporting on Client Outcomes 3. Reporting on Performance Metrics

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service files opened, and at the client level you may be interested in tracking stats on basic demographic information such as

gender and ethnicity. Penelope has customizable user defined fields, unlimited customizable tracking of data through

documents, and the ability to customize your own units of service to be as granular as needed and to be tracked within your own customized unit of measure. Any data which is captured in

Penelope can be reported on, however it is imperative that your specific needs are clearly identified. For example, if you are

interested in the number of clients enrolled into service - does this mean unique clients? Or if the same client is enrolled into three services should they be counted three times? How about if this client is returning to a service that they had been enrolled in two years ago? These types of questions need to be identified and answered in order to ensure that your reporting needs have been met and that you understand the information contained your reports.

REPORTING ON CLIENT OUTCOMES

Many agencies require reporting on client outcomes both to

provide evidence to funders of the value of their services and also to use for internal assessments and improvements. First you will need to clearly identify what defines and measures a client

outcome, and then determine how this will be tracked in Penelope in order to report on these important items. For

example, Penelope has a feature where you can record outcomes assessments over team throughout the client’s treatment and you can see a graph of their progress. Common information to include in these types of reports would be degree of family engagement, change in condition over time, service closure reason, and client satisfaction survey results.

REPORTING ON PERFORMANCE METRICS

Agencies often require reporting on both agency level and

individual staﬀ level reporting metrics. Performance metrics can be drawn from Penelope throughout your workflows and at varying levels in the system. For example, from an agency perspective you could report on wait times to get into service, time taken between an intake assessment to their first

appointment, reasons why potential clients do not enroll into service or unplanned discharges. From a staﬀ perspective you could report on items such as case load metrics (number of open files, number of sessions provided etc.), types of services

provided, service outcomes, and amount of direct time spent with clients. Please note that Penelope comes with a myriad of in built reports that can be used to suit your organization’s needs. Please review this reports guide [insert reports guide] for details on what is available. Talk to your Athena Deployment Manager for extra information.

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After reviewing the guide, if you have additional reporting needs, you can either write your own queries using tools such as MS Excel, SQL Writer, Crystal Reports, ,ACCESS etc or engage our staﬀ at Athena in writing queries for you that can pull your

required data into tools such as Excel (for example , in Pivot Tables or just tabular data sets). It is important to remember that anything that is entered into Penelope can be reported upon, but the complexity of pulling it in the format and criteria requested can have a significant impact on the eﬀort involved. One other helpful tip to remember is that reporting categorical aggregate data from open text fields or open memo fields is not really advisable (or in many cases possible) so try to use data field types appropriate to your reporting needs (eg. drop down values, check boxes etc.).

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Chapter 9

training

The training section provides a general overview of our

typical training model, highlights common training

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TRAINING

STAKEHOLDERS AND THEIR RESPONSIBILITIES

Agency Project Lead:

Prepare agency staﬀ for training

Verify that the correct roles are represented in the respective training sessions

Penelope End User(s):

Attend training session **Training sessions are role based Athena Deployment Manager

Setup the training session

Facilitate the training session (if not done by training resource) Athena Training Resource(s)

Facilitate the training

Section 1

training

OVERVIEW 1. Roles/ Responsibilities 2. System Configuration 3. Workflows 4. Document Building 5. Billing 6. Reports 7. Moodle

8. End User Training

9. SAMPLE TRAINING AGENDA i) System Config I

ii) System Config II iii)System Config III iv)Billing I

v) Billing II

vi)Document Building

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Penelope is a highly configurable software with many features and options. At Athena Software we help you to understand these options so you can configure Penelope in the best possible way for your organization. After your initial phone call your Athena Deployment Project Manager will construct a training agenda tailored to your needs, highlighting areas of Penelope which will be most relevant to you. The agenda will consist of multiple training sessions typically ranging from 60-90 minutes. The

majority of these sessions will center around showing you how to set up Penelope for use by your staﬀ. Click here to see a sample training agenda.

After each session you will have homework to complete where you apply what you have learned in training by configuring

Penelope for your business needs. (e.g. setting up workers in the system and setting their security/access permissions). We will also include a train-the-trainer session on Business Processes/ Workflows to ensure you have the knowledge and confidence to train your staﬀ and provide support.

Here is a brief description of some common training sessions:

SYSTEM CONFIGURATION

In these sessions we will log in to your Penelope system and

show you areas that are waiting to be configured and explain how

to make your business decisions and practices a reality in Penelope. Topics include security/access permissions for your staﬀ, how to customize user defined fields to track information, and setting up your services/programs in Penelope.

WORKFLOWS

We will make sure you understand the basic processes that your staﬀ will be conducting on a daily basis such as intake, booking appointments, tracking attendance, and recording clinical

information. This session will give you the resources you need in order to train your staﬀ on using Penelope.

DOCUMENT BUILDING

If you provide us with your blank forms/documents we will use them as practical examples to show you how you can make custom digital documents in Penelope. At the end of the session you should be able to make more custom documents on your own and will already have some conveniently started for you!

BILLING

Penelope oﬀers an advanced set of features to facilitate your billing and fund tracking needs. Topics may include setting up policies, third party payers, tracking services against grant/fund values, invoicing and EDI claims.

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REPORTS

Based on the reporting needs that you have flagged for us, we will walk you through how to run and read reports in Penelope that are most relevant for your needs.

MOODLE

Athena has created Moodle courses (online courseware) to provide additional support during the implementation process. These courses are step-by-step guides with screen shots and written instructions on setting up and using Penelope. Many clients like to use the Moodle course as a guide to begin setting up Penelope before training even begins!

In order to log in to the Moodle courses you will require a Username and Password. Just let your Athena Deployment Project Manager know who at your organization would like an account and we will be happy to set up as many accounts as you need.

In addition to the Moodle courses Athena has a comprehensive Penelope help site for use by you and your staﬀ. After each training session we will send you links to relevant tutorials and articles posted on our help site. Have a question that isn’t

covered in the links? No problem! Our help site has a user friendly search feature so that most of the time the answer is at your

finger tips. Simply type in a keyword relating to your question into

the search box and our help site will pull up relevant help articles and tutorials. You can also reach out to your Athena Deployment Project Manager for assistance of save your questions for the next training session.

If you on a page with a question mark symbol in the top right corner of the page, you can click that symbol and it will not only take you to our Penelope help site, but it will also pull up help articles relevant to the area of Penelope you are working in.

If you are stuck on something while you are logged in to Penelope you can access help right from the sys-tem. You can always click the help icon in the left side-bar and it will bring you to our Penelope help site.

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TRAINING APPROACH

Our typical approach is a train-the-trainer model. This means that after your project team has completed Penelope training, you will be responsible to provide training and resources to the rest of your staﬀ who will use the software. Based on everything you have learned during training, you will assess which staﬀ need to learn which functions and features in Penelope.

We highly recommend that you split up the end user training into multiple training groups based on roles and their use of Penelope. This way, you can target the material most relevant to your

audience and avoid confusion caused by learning items which are unrelated to their own jobs. For example, you may choose to hold a session for your intake and reception workers, one for your clinicians and direct service providers, and another for

management and supervisors.

We also recommend that you create custom learning resources for each of these groupings. These resources should walk them through their frequent processes and include screen shots from your own software so that the guide they are using looks exactly the same as what they should see on screen.

We would be happy to provide end user training directly to your staﬀ and/or to create custom learning resources for their use.

Please click here to see an example of custom

workflow learning resources we created for a client.

WE’RE HERE TO HELP!

At Athena Software we want to ensure that you have a

successful deployment and are working at your comfort level. For an additional fee you can hire an Athena professional to build your documents for you, assist with system configuration, provide end user training and more.

For more information on Professional Services please click here.

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SAMPLE TRAINING AGENDA

Session One: System Admin Configuration I

Date/Time: TBD Length: 90 minutes

Prerequisites: Penelope installed and able to log in as system administrator, blank copy of forms/documents and reporting requirements identified and sent to Deployment Project Manager

Outcomes: Attendees will be able to populate agency and site information and add staﬀ/workers into Penelope database with their corresponding security permissions. Attendees will be able to set up user defined fields for the individual and the case (such as demographics) and populate a list of presenting issues.

Who should attend: Individuals who will set up/change system configuration stakeholders who will decide on system

configuration (e.g. what Penelope should look like for end users and how it should function).

Topics:

‣ Agency Defaults/Settings

‣ Sites

‣ Adding locations where services take place ‣ Add User and User Setup

‣ User accounts

‣ User categories

‣ User profiles ‣ Security

‣ Custom security classes for diﬀerent workers

‣ Custom report security classes

‣ Reset passwords and set delete passwords ‣ Individual Setup & User Defined Fields

‣ Setting defaults & configuring individual demographics

‣ Overview of system fields which are already being tracked

‣ Case Setup

‣ Case user-defined fields/configure relationship fields ‣ Presenting Issues

‣ Presenting problems/diagnosis codes

Session Two: System Admin Configuration II

Prerequisites: System Admin Configuration I and related homework

Outcomes: Attendees will be able to configure event setup, Intake Wizard, the pre-enrollment feature, and the blue book and

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referral features. Attendees will be able to populate their blue book directory.

Who should attend: Individuals who will set up/change system configuration, stakeholders who will decide on system

configuration (e.g. what Penelope should look like for end users and how it should function).

Topics:

‣ Questions from homework:

‣ Event Setup

‣ Configuration defaults for events

‣ Setting up color coded worker availability types

‣ Setting worker availability ‣ Intake Wizard

‣ Set up and configuration of the intake wizard ‣ Pre-Enrollment

‣ Pre-enrollment and cancellation reasons ‣ Blue Book/Referral Tracking

‣ Configuration of the Blue Book and the Referral feature in the System Admin account

‣ Add a Blue Book entry and search the Blue Book in the User account

‣ Intake Wizard - User End

‣ Walk through using the intake wizard on the user end of Penelope

Session Three: System Admin Configuration III

Prerequisites: System Admin Configuration II and related homework

Outcomes: Attendees will be able to set up programs/services in Penelope. Attendees will be able to create groups, enroll clients into service, assign clients to workers, and book resources.

Who should attend: Individuals who will set up/change system configuration, stakeholders involved in system configuration decisions.

Topics:

‣ Questions from homework

‣ Case Services/Service Units

‣ Programs

‣ Units of service that will be tracked and connected to appointments

‣ Customize units of measure for service units

‣ Add workers to a service/program ‣ Groups

‣ Create groups

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‣ Enroll clients into groups

‣ Book recurring events ‣ Resource List

‣ Putting a Client in Service

‣ Add a service file

‣ Assign a client to a worker/add additional workers

Session Four: Billing I

Prerequisites: System Admin Configuration and related homework

Outcomes: Attendees will be able to configure billing options, create funders and policies, attache policies to clients, and create batch invoices. Attendees will be able to book appointments with billable services and resolve appointments so that items are ready for billing.

Who should attend: Individuals who will bill items through Penelope or who will provide training on billing in Penelope.

Topics:

‣ Billing Setup

‣ Configure billing defaults in Penelope

‣ How to add a Funder (i.e. insurance company) and create a policy:

‣ Create Funder

‣ Add policies to funder account

‣ How to attach policy to client in Penelope:

‣ Associate client with relevant policies

‣ Adjust billing sequence for clients with multiple

funders (if applicable) so that Penelope knows who is being billed for a given service

‣ Show how billing works via ‘cart’ system in Penelope:

‣ Book appointment for client and add services to cart, then verify who the payor is/should be

‣ Resolve appointment so that it is ready for billing ‣ How to batch invoice funders:

‣ Create batch invoice for funder

Session Five: Billing II

Prerequisites: Billing I and related homework

Outcomes: Attendees will be able to bill and record payments from funders and clients as well as override fees for special circumstances. Attendees will be able to create CMS-1500 and EDI files in Penelope and correct errors. Attendees will be able to

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view billing information, and reauthorize information to indicate continued coverage.

Who should attend: Individuals who will bill items through Penelope or who will provide training on billing in Penelope.

Topics:

‣ Questions from homework:

‣ How to record payments from Funders:

‣ Record payments from funders using the EOB feature in Penelope or via the funder’s account

‣ Check funder’s account to see balance

‣ How to bill and record payment from self-pay clients:

‣ Invoice clients for self-pay or co-pay items

‣ Record payment in client account and apply against invoices or use Quick Pay feature for clients paying the full amount for their service

‣ How to set unique or ‘discount’ fee for clients:

‣ Use Service Unit Fee Override feature to set a discount fee for an individual self-pay client

‣ How to create CMS-1500 / EDI files in Penelope:

‣ Create CMS-1500 form from Penelope

‣ Create EDI 837 file

‣ Spot and correct errors, recreate EDI files with corrections

‣ How to view various billing information in Penelope:

‣ Run account statement reports for individuals and funders

‣ View the Coverage Expiry List screen to see

insurance coverages which might be expiring soon

‣ ‘Roll over’ or reauthorize insurance coverage for client

Session Six: Document Building

Prerequisites: System Configuration homework completed and some test cases in Penelope

Outcomes: Attendees will be able to build custom documents in Penelope.

Who should attend: Individuals who will build custom documents into Penelope.

Topics:

‣ Questions from homework

‣ Document Types

‣ Forms

‣ Outcomes Assessments

‣ Letters

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‣ Surveys ‣ Question Types

‣ Practical examples/walkthrough using documents from sample agency

Session Seven: Workflows/Basic Processes

Prerequisites: System Configuration homework completed, some documents built in Penelope

Outcomes: Attendees will understand basic workflows and processes in Penelope. Attendees will have the knowledge required to provide training to additional staﬀ.

Who should attend: Individuals who will support/train End Users

Topics:

‣ Overview of Home Screen

‣ User Preferences

‣ Searching for Clients

‣ Intake

‣ Intake Wizard and Pre-Enrollment

‣ Booking Appointments

‣ Individual

‣ Group

‣ Logging past/unscheduled sessions ‣ Tracking Phone Calls and Attendance

‣ Notes, Documents, and Attachments

‣ Logging Referrals

Session Eight: Reports

Prerequisites: System Configuration homework completed, some reportable data exists in the system, report requirements have been sent to Deployment Project Manager

Outcomes: Attendees will be able to run reports and interpret results in Penelope.

Who should attend: Individuals who will access and run reports in Penelope

Topics:

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‣ Detail Reports (e.g. client file details, schedule details)

‣ Statistical Reports (e.g. worker productivity, client demographics)

‣ Financial Reports

‣ Target Reports

‣ Documents/Outcomes Reports

‣ Walkthrough accessing, running, and reading reports based on needs identified by agency

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Chapter 10

go live /

launch

The training section helps you know what to expect

when you go live as well as also providing important

information on how to access support services.

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GO LIVE

STAKEHOLDERS AND THEIR RESPONSIBILITIES

Agency Project Lead:

Provide agency feedback on Penelope use to the Athena Deployment Manager

Penelope End User(s): Start using Penelope Provide user feedback Athena Deployment Manager

Make contact a day before Go-Live Date - Make contact a week after Go-Live Date

Section 1

go live / launch

54 OVERVIEW 1. Roles/ Responsibilities 2. Go Live 3. Ongoing Support 4. Priority Cl