Data Analysis Release Notes
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      2025 Data Services Change Log and Known Issues

      2024 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

      • 03/11/2025
        • Occupied and Pending Occupancy Looks on the Inventory Occupancy LookML dashboard were converted away from being merged results. There were also minor dashboard filter and labeling updates.
      • 03/04/2025
        • In Measure 2 of the System Performance Measures, when a client has multiple exits on the same date, the specifications note that the report should use the exit data tied to the enrollment with the lowest ID. In some cases, this tiebreaker using the lowest ID was not correctly applied. This has been fixed.
        • The encampment status and encampment custom views have been reworked in the Project Descriptor model to allow the user to find the latest status record per encampment.
        • The "Deleted" field in the Enrollments view has been removed from the Data Quality model, as the model already filters out deleted enrollments. The "Programs" view has been updated so that records in other views are still included in the model even if the Program has been deleted. Programs that have been deleted are still excluded from the model. No deleted records are visible in the model due to this change.
      •  02/24/2025
        •  Links from Looker reports to Clarity Clients, Enrollments, Assessments, etc.. has been fixed for those instances that they were not working properly.
        • The "Total Days of Service" measure from "Services" view has been optimized for better accuracy on Client, Coordinate Entry, Data Quality, HMIS Performance and Services models.
        • Some internal data transformations for Spm has been optimized to support larger datasets of enrollments in Emergency Shelter - Entry/Exit projects.
        • The new Impact Analysis and Needs Assessment LookML dashboard* is inspired by guidance** released by the National Alliance to End Homelessness (NAEH) in January 2025. This tool provides users with high-level system information covering persons served, service delivery and expenses, inventory information, federally funded programs, and HMIS users.
          Links for dashboard documentation and NAEH guidance: 
          *https://help.bitfocus.com/impact-analysis-and-needs-assessment-dashboard
          **https://endhomelessness.org/blog/homeless-services-guidance-re-federal-grant-loan-pause/
      •  02/18/2025
        • The field 'ID' has been exposed in the "Service Time Tracking" view in the Client model, HMIS Performance model, and Services model.

        • The "Metric 7b.2: Successful Placements to/Retention in the Permanent Housing" Look had an erroneous reporting period filter that was skewing results in the System Performance Measures Dashboard. This filter was removed from the Look.

      •  01/21/2025
        • The description for the Filter-Only Field "Enrollments Link Filter" has been updated to replace the term "Clients" with "All Enrollments" to match the available options in the filter.  This change will impact the Outreach model.  No user action required.
        • On Data Quality model, the "Enrollments Count" measure has been reviewed to prevent some cases where the measure was not accurate.
        • The Potential Duplicate Profiles/Clients Look in the Data Quality LookML Dashboard has been updated to use Personal ID rather than General ID for identifying potential duplicate clients.
      • 01/13/2025
        • On Data Quality model,  the DQ Sys Admin view is having an Overlapping Residential Stays group label that was exposing the Overlapping Tracking Method dimension. This dimension has been moved to the "Retired" group label since it is no more a HMIS data element.
        • New fields have been created to pull the most up to date changes among the enrollment record updates, entry screen updates, status screen updates, program enrollment assessment updates, exit screen updates, and follow-up screen updates. These three new fields, based on the most recent update, are the "Last Updated" date field, the "Last Updated Enrollment Screen" field which list lists the screen that the updates were made on, and the "User Updating" field. These fields can be found under the "Enrollments" view.

          These new fields have been added to the Client Model, HMIS Performance Model, Data Quality Model, and Inventory Model. The previously existing fields "Last Updated" and "User Updating" under the "Enrollments" view have been removed from these models.
        • Typo fixed in the "LSA Data Cleanup: Project Descriptor Data Issues" dashboard.