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      2024 Data Services Change Log and Known Issues

      2023 Change log is here.

      Data Analytics Maintenance

      Starting Sunday, December 18, 2022, and continuing each Sunday, Bitfocus engineers will perform maintenance on the Looker system from 6 AM - 7 AM PT (9 AM - 10 AM ET). To ensure the best performance possible for Looker, we are making necessary improvements to the infrastructure of the Clarity Looker configuration. The Looker application may be unavailable to customers during that period of time. Standalone, embedded, and API Looker functions may be unavailable for 1 hour. Looks and Dashboards scheduled for 6-7 AM PT on Sundays may not run and should be changed from this time. Please avoid scheduling any new looks or dashboards from 6 AM - 7 AM PT on Sundays. No action from customers is required.

      Known Issues

      We use Looker as our analytics tool. There are some issues that are vendor specific issues and require support from Looker engineers. Our Data Services engineers work with Looker engineers for investigation, troubleshooting and fixes. 

      Here is a list of the current known issues:  Known Looker Issues

      Change Log

      • 12/16/2024
        • Updates to address error "Aggregate Type Number" when downloading Dashboard as PDF.
        • Update Project Descriptor model to group "Denial Reason" and "Denial Extension" fields under "Denial Notification Extensions".
      • 12/9/2024
        • Updates were made to the backend logic of the fields "Last Activity Agency" and "Last Activity Date" in the Client model. 
        • Added the "Active?" field to the "Location" group of the "Current Living Situations" view in the HMIS Performance model.
      • 12/03/2024
        • The Project Descriptor model has been updated to prevent potential situations where the "Count" measure of the "Staff" view was not accurate.
        • The Inventory Model has been updated to exclude deleted Unit Occupancy records. This included removing the Unit Occupancy Deleted field from the Inventory Model.
      • 11/20/2024
        • The type of the "Deleted" dimension in "Programs" view has been updated to a `yesno` type as all the other "Deleted" dimensions. The "label" and "description" has been re-worded too to have the same style that other "Deleted" dimensions like the one on "Agencies" view.
      •  11/19/2024
        • The program universe was updated for the “A. Program Operation Comparisons” Look on the LSA Data Cleanup: Year to Year Comparisons LookML dashboard as it was flagging older programs as opening during the year prior to the analysis period.
        • Within the “Overlapping Enrollments” Look on the “LSA Data Cleanup: Overlapping Enrollments” LookML dashboard, the “Overlapping Enrollment Project Start Date” was reporting on the date the overlap began, which is the Household Move-in Date for PH and RRH programs. The field label was updated to “Overlapping Start Date,” and the Look note was updated to provide a definition for that field.
        • Updated how services are linked in the HMIS Performance model to prevent deleted services from creating null rows.
        • The following measures have been updated to round numeric values to up to two decimal points in the HMIS Performance, Client, Coordinated Entry, Services, Inventory, Outreach and Data Quality Models. 
          • Clients View:
            • "Average Age"
          • Enrollments View:
            • "Average Days in Project Inbound Recidivism"
            • "Average Days Since Last Exit"
            • "Average Days Since Last Exit in Same Program"
            • "Average Days Since Last Exit With Stable Housing"
            • "Average Days Since Last Exit With Stable Housing in Same Program"
          • Outbound Recidivism View:
            • "Average Days Until Next Entry
            • "Average Days Until Next Entry Without Stable Housing
          • System Performance Measures View
            • "Measure 1 - Current FY Average LOT Homeless"
            • "Measure 1a1 - Current FY Average LOT Homeless"
            • "Measure 1a2 - Current FY Average LOT Homeless"
            • "Measure 1b1 - Current FY Average LOT Homeless"
            • "Measure 1b2 - Current FY Average LOT Homeless"
      • 11/06/2024
        • Made changes to the Project Descriptor model to mitigate errors in explores.
      • 11/05/2024
        • The LSA Data Cleanup: Household and Enrollment Data was updated to include a new Look to aid in reviewing potentially invalid CoCs for clients within the LSA reporting universe (B. iv) Enrollments with an Invalid Enrollment CoC). 
        • A new LookML Dashboard is being added to the LSA Data Clean Up Package. The LSA Data Clean Up: Year to Year Comparisons dashboard has been designed to compare data from this reporting period and the year prior to assist with flag review, analysis, and responses for Federal Reporting initiatives. 
        • The DQ LookML dashboard had its conditional formatting updated so that 0s are white rather than red.
        • The fields "Last Activity Agency (Retired)" and "Last Activity Date (Retired)" have been added to the "Retired" group in the "Client Activity" view in the client model. These fields display historical information for Client Activity, but are not linked to the "Activity Type" and "Event Type" fields. These fields will be deprecated in the future. 
        • Backend changes were made to improve performance for the "Client Length of Time Homeless" fields in the HMIS Performance Model.
      •  10/22/2024
        • The Project Descriptor model has been updated to ensure that no deleted geolocation records are included. 
        • A typo addressing the the field "Total Household Members" in the HMIS Performance Model has been fixed.
      • 10/15/2024
        • The logic for the "Area Median Income" (AMI) dimension in the Coordinated Entry and HMIS Performance models has changed. Some households that had information missing been labeled as "Extremely Low Income (<30% AMI)" are now more appropriately labeled as "Null".
        • On the "Client Status" LookML dashboard, a custom field in the "Enrollment Assigned Staff" tile has been converted to a custom filter. 
        • Updated the backend calculations for the "Individual/Geolocation" field in the Outreach model.
        • Updated the dashboard filter link to include a few dashboard filters that were not applied to all of the appropriate queries in the "Inventory Availability LookML" Dashboard
        • The default Reporting Date Filter on both System Performance Measure LookML dashboards was updated to the current reporting year (10/1/23-9/30/24).
      • 10/07/2024
        • Made back-end improvements to the "Geolocation History" View in the Outreach model. 
      •  9/30/2024
        • The logic for 'Is Last Assessment Per Kind' has been updated to determine most recent assessment per assessment type using the assessment date, or the date the assessment was added to the system if no assessment date is recorded. The data is set to persist for 10 minutes. This will impact the Client Model, Coordinated Entry Model, HMIS Performance Model, and the Services Model.
        • The field "Enrollment ID" In the "Client Care Team Members" view has been changed from a string type to a number type. This will impact the Client Model, Coordinated Entry Model, and HMIS Performance Model. 
      •  9/16/2024
        • Added persistence to the "DQ Annual Assessments" view in the Data Quality Model to protect against slow runtimes when "DQ Annual Assessments" is included in a dashboard.
        • Updated the Inventory Building Geolocations View in the Inventory model to ensure that counts sum correctly.
      •  9/09/2024
        • The Program Roster LookML Dashboard was updated to remove an unneeded filter and update assigned staff to prevent row fanout when there are multiple assigned staff members.
      •  8/26/2024
        • A change was made to the calculations underlying "Chronically Homeless at PIT/Current Date - Household" in the HMIS Performance, Coordinated Entry and Data Quality Models to prevent fanout in count measures.
      • 8/19/2024
        • Modified the Referrals- Days Since Referral Added to Queue field to consider Reassigned Date, End Date, Removed From Queue Date, or current date in calculating the number of days since the referral was added to the queue. 
        • In the "Clarity Usage and System Stats" LookML Dashboard, Updated the “Access Roles with Data Analysis Access” Look to analyze the “Manage Agency - Data Analysis” access role rather than the outdated “Data Analysis” Access role.
      •  8/12/2024
        • Corrected logic in the "Count Chronically Homeless Households" field to align with the 2024 Reporting Glossary definition. (Previously, this field did not account for households where the CH individual was not the HoH.)
      •  7/24/2024
        • The "Previous Exit in Same Program" and "Previous Exit With Stable Housing in Same Program" date dimension groups from the "Inbound Recidivism" view have been updated to pull the previous exit date from each previous enrollment into the same program even if there exists other program enrollments with different project type between the program enrollment progression. The "Inbound Recidivism" view is used on "HMIS Performance" and "Population Over Time" models.
        • Persistence added to improve performance of “Outbound Recidivism Reentry” fields that do not utilize the Project Type filter in the HMIS Performance model.
        • The dimension "Assigned Staff Home Agency" has been hidden from the "Project Descriptor Model". If this dimension was used in any user content, the content will continue to work. However, this dimension can no longer be used in the "Project Descriptor Model" in new content. In the "Project Descriptor Model", “Assigned Staff Home Agency’ contained the same information as the "Agency Name" field.
        • In the “Project Descriptor” model, updated the relationship for the Agency Site, Funding Source Services, Referral Community Queue, Referral Settings, Sharing Group Agency and Vendor views, to ensure the agency count measure produces accurate results.
        • Optimized the Filter Suggestion query for the Service Category field in the “Client”, “Coordinated Entry”, “Data Quality”, “HMIS Performance”, “Project Descriptor”, “Reservations”, and “Services” models.
        • Updated calculations for System Performance Measure 1b in the "HMIS Performance" Model so that all relevant dates are included in the calculation.
      •  7/17/2024
        • Optimized the Filter Suggestion query for the Service Category field.

        • Removed deleted enrollments from calculations underlying "Head Of Household Start Date" and "Targeted Annual Assessment" fields in the "DQ Annual Assessments" view of the Data Quality model.

      • 6/26/2024

        • The Utilization Looks on the “LSA Data Cleanup: Length of Stay and Utilization Overview” LookML dashboard had their program universe updated to include “Active, Expired” programs.

        • The client universe for the “Clients/Enrollments Active in Data Quality Reporting Universe” Look on the “HMIS Data Quality Supplemental Dashboard” was updated to reorganize the project type logic in the custom filter.

        • The Project Descriptor Model has been updated to fix an issue between the 'Agencies' view and the 'Staff' view, which caused duplicative counts in the 'Agency Count' measure. This change only impacts the Project Descriptor Model.

        • An update to System Performance Measure 1b Measures in the HMIS Performance Model in was made so that clients who had a Permanent Housing enrollment with a program start date prior to the reporting period start date, no housing move-in date, and a program end date after the reporting period end date are no longer included in the report calculations.

        • Corrected logic and error label which inaccurately returned a DQ error for the "Private Disability Insurance Errors" field when "Private Disability Insurance" was not selected and no PDI amount was claimed. Description now indicates "*No* Private Disability Insurance Income reported but Private Disability Insurance Income amount is greater than 0.

      •  6/12/2024

        • Updates were made to the "Enrollment Household" Filter only Field to improve query performance. This field is used in the Client Model, HMIS Performance Model, and Coordinated Entry Model

        • Some aliased dimensions caused issues for some users when their aliases are used in custom dimensions and measures. This has been detected in the Program Performance dashboard, specifically on the UDE Completion tile. To fix this unusual behavior, the `client_location_error` alias has been replaced by `enrollment_coc_error` measure for the "DQ UDE - None Enrollments Count" custom measure.

        • The “Enrollment Connected Assessments” filter-only field in the HMIS Performance model was updated so that when the filter is active, only assessments linked to the enrollment in the “Enrollments” view are included in the "Client Assessments" view. 

      •  6/5/2024
        • Changes were made to the "Error In Project Descriptor Count" measure in the "DQ Project Descriptor" view of the Data Quality model. The count for the "Project Description Contains Error" dimension incorrectly reported "No" as an error. The count measure now shows a 0 when the dimension's value is "No".
      •  5/22/2024

        • Changes to the Inventory dashboard to account for pending unit occupancy are now live. See release notes: https://help.bitfocus.com/data-analysis-release-notes-5/20/2024

        • The join strategy of the views that involve the relationships between assessments and enrollments has been refactored for the HMIS Performance model to match the Coordinated Entry model.

        • In the Outreach V2 Model, improvements have been made to the way "Geolocation History" and "Encampment Stay" information are brought in to avoid missing records.

        • The "Is Last Update Assessment per Enrollment (Filter Dependent)" dimension in the "Status Update Screen" view of the "HMIS Performance" model has been updated to appropriately determine the most recently updated assessment.

        • In the Data Quality Model, refactored the "Number of Data Collection Assessments" field in the Data Quality model so it reports the number of Assessments rather than Enrollments when Aggregate fields were also included in the query.

      •  5/8/2024

        • The Program Performance LookML dashboard was updated so that deleted bed inventories were excluded from the utilization Looks.

      •  5/1/2024
        • In the "DQ Project Descriptor" view of the Data Quality model, the "Residential Affiliation Error" field has been updated to reflect the appropriate logic for valid and invalid Residential Affiliation values.
        • Some fields in the Data Quality model that were meant to apply to only HOPWA Homelessness prevention projects had been counted for all Homelessness Prevention Projects. They now count the errors for only HOPWA Homelessness Prevention projects. The fields impacted are:
          • Housing Assessment at Exit: Subsidy information Error
          • Housing Assessment at Exit: Ongoing Subsidy information Error
          • Housing Assessment at Exit: Able to Maintain Housing at Project Entry Error
          • Housing Assessment at Exit: Entry Error Count
          • Housing Assessment at Exit: Entry Subsidy Information Error Count
          • Housing Assessment at Exit: Entry Subsidy Information Ongoing Error Count
        • The fields 'Housing Assessment at Exit: Subsidy information Error' and 'Housing Assessment at Exit Entry Subsidy Information Error Count' have been updated to ensure the error only applies if 'Housing Assessment at Exit' is equal to 'Able to maintain the housing they had at project entry'.
        • The fields 'Housing Assessment at Exit: Ongoing Subsidy information Error' and 'Housing Assessment at Exit Entry Subsidy Information Ongoing Error Count' have been updated to ensure the error only applies if 'Housing Assessment at Exit' is equal to 'Moved to new housing unit'.
        • In the "DQ Project Descriptor" view of the Data Quality model, the "Residential Affiliation Error" field has been updated to reflect the appropriate logic for valid and invalid Residential Affiliation values.
      •  4/3/2024
        • In the Inventory model, the fields 'Current Status End' in the 'Unit Availability Status' view, as well as 'Status Start' and 'Status End' in the 'Unit Status' view have been updated to remove a 'datatype' setting which limited to object type to a 'date', and removed the timestamp value. With this setting removed, these fields will now properly include the date and timestamp as recorded in the database.
        • In the Data Quality model, Refactored "DQ Client Program Specific" > "Income Errors" fields to ignore the status of "Income from Any Source" as this was failing to return valid errors when "Income from Any Source" and to address unresolvable conditions. Corrected language in the "DQ Client Program Specific" > "Income Errors" fields values. (Ex: "TANF Income reported but TANF Income amount is greater than 0." to "No TANF Income reported...") Corrected the "Income from Any Source Error" description.
      • 03/21/2024
        • The field 'Is Current Unit Status' in the 'Unit Status' view has been updated to compare the units 'Status Start Date' and 'Status End Date', as recorded in Clarity to the current date and time as of the Looker report run time. Previously the field only compared the status start and end dates to the current date, without using a timestamp. This change will impact the Inventory and Project Descriptor models. This will not require any updates to content.
        • Refactored the table behind the  "Age of Youngest/Oldest HH Member", "Count Adults", and "Count Children" fields to exclude deleted clients in the "Profile Household" view. Affected models: Client Model, Coordinated Entry, HMIS Performance, Services.
      • 03/12/2024 - Fixed a bug in the import_logs view in the Import Model
      • 03/10/2024 - Looker A and B have been upgraded to 24.0.
      •  03/06/2024
        • The "Annual Enrollment Counts" Look on Program Performance LookML dashboard was not accurately calculating the prior year's enrollment totals due to how the custom logic was configured. The Look was updated for accuracy.
        • In the Inventory and Project Descriptor Models, the "Is Current Unit Status" field was refactored to account for future-dated Status Start Dates (Current Status = "No"),  and the description has been updated.
        • Custom Fields in Looker
          • Custom multiselect fields are now available in custom field views in looker. Each selected option is returned, separated by a semicolon. If a user selects "Dog" and "Cat" in a multiselect field with each of those options, the field will return "Dog; Cat". 
          • Updates were made to the Encampment Custom view to account for changes in the database schema. 
        • Updated settings to disable In-App guides.
      •  02/26/2024
        • Updated the Static Demographic Custom view label to Clients Custom View for consistency across models.
        • Updated the client_assessment_custom join in the services model to fix a bug.
      •  02/06/2024
        • The count near the bottom of the Data Quality LookML dashboard for "Deceased and Active Count" was updated to fix an issue.
      •  01/24/2024
        • Fixed a bug where the "Last Assigned to the Queue", "Last Denied", "Last in Process", "Last Program Referral", and"Last Reassigned"  dimensions in the Referral History view in the CE model were returning the incorrect dates.
        • "LSA Data Cleanup: Funding Source and Configuration Issues" dashboard was updated to resolve a bug. Both the "C vii) Changes in Bed Inventories Over the Analysis Year" and "C viii) Bed Inventories with Beds but No Units" Looks were updated so that deleted bed inventories were no longer included.
        • "LSA Data Cleanup: Overlapping Enrollment LookML dashboard was updated.
          • On the Entry/Exit Look, swapped out assigned staff dimensions for aggregate list measures to eliminate fanout for enrollments with multiple assigned staff.
          • Also made the Overlapping Enrollment CoC an aggregate list to eliminate additional fanout and added an overlapping Enrollment CoC dashboard filter.
          • Updated the list of program names column name on the NBN Look to “Programs with a Bed Night.” 
      •  01/10/2024
        • Updated the client service notes field to use a Regular expression instead of a function, to be more performant.