This month's release includes DIT updates, Personal ID fuzzy matching, and bulk management of Clarity Inbox messages.
Release Schedule:
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All Training Sites: Monday, May 6, 2024
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All Production Sites: Monday, May 20, 2024
Highlights of this month’s updates:
- Data Import Tool (DIT) updates
- Personal ID fuzzy matching
- Coordinated Entry Event "Note" icon
- Bulk management of Clarity Inbox messages
Note:
The updates described in this article will be deployed in the early morning hours on scheduled release days. During release, the Clarity Human Services application may experience performance delays. We recommend clearing your cache at the initial login if experiencing difficulty.
The Data Analysis update will follow the same feature release schedule dates. There may be a slight delay when accessing Looker after the release as the system updates are being applied. Data Analysis release notes will arrive in a separate communication.
Data Import Tool (DIT) Updates
Cross-Validation of Dates in the DIT
The DIT will now flag importable date values as validation errors if they do not meet the following criteria:
- InformationDate should always be equal to or after EntryDate if DataCollectionStage is 1.
- InformationDate should always be equal to or after ExitDate if DataCollectionStage=3.
- DateUpdated should always be equal to or after DateCreated. Note: this item has been temporarily paused due to potential implications for customers.
- ExitDate should always be equal to or after EntryDate.
- ExitDate should always be before or equal to the corresponding program’s operating end date.
- All Information Dates and metadata dates should not be after the current date.
The DIT will not allow records with these validation errors to be imported.
Required Action: None.
Ending Unit Occupancy When Using the DIT to Import a CSV/XML File with Enrollment Exit Data
This update concerns the use of the DIT to import a CSV/XML file containing exit data for an enrollment. If the enrollment is attached to a Unit, the Unit occupancy will end when the client gets exited from the enrollment.
The system will record the end of the occupancy in the Audit Log.
Required Action: None.
Updated: Fuzzy Matching for Automatic Deduplication
Our March 2024 Feature Updates article introduced a process for automatically identifying and deduplicating records whenever a client record is created, recovered, or updated. The system searches for any client records with Personal Identifying Information (PII) that exactly matches the PII in the new/recovered/updated record but have a different Personal ID. Prior to this month’s update, if no exact matches were found, the system would stop searching.
With this update, if no exact matches are found, the system will look for records that are likely a match, according to parameters established using the Levenshtein “fuzzy matching” algorithm. This method provides highly accurate identification of records that should be deduplicated because they are associated with the same client.
Required Action: None.
Updated: “Note” Icon in History Tab for Coordinated Entry Events
The icon that appears in the client’s HISTORY tab for any services or referrals that have notes associated with them will now also appear for Coordinated Entry events that have notes associated with them.
The icon will also appear in the Events tab of a Coordinated Entry program enrollment.
Users can hover over the icon to view the text of the note.
Required Action: None.
Updated: Bulk Management of Inbox Messages
The Clarity Inbox now includes the ability to select multiple messages so that more than one message at a time can be deleted, marked as “Read,” or marked as “Unread.”
As part of this update, the Unread Messages and Read Messages are now displayed on separate pages instead of on the same page. The new Message Status sidebar allows you to choose which list to view.
To select all messages in the list, check the box at the top of the list.
To select multiple messages in the list, check the box next to the individual messages.
To delete the selected messages, click the trash can icon. 
To mark the selected Unread Messages as “Read” and move them to the Read Messages section, click the open envelope icon at the top of the list. 
To mark the selected Read Messages as “Unread” and move them to the Unread Messages section, click the closed envelope icon at the top of the list. 
Required Action: None.
Outreach Updates
Updated: Outreach Encampment Program Ineligibility Details
This update applies to the process of enrolling a client in an Encampment program from within Outreach. When a user makes a selection from the Encampment Program menu on the client’s PROFILE INFO pop-up, the system displays household members in the Include Group Members section. Ineligible clients are identified by a grayed-out, read-only toggle. This update provides more information on those ineligible clients.
- Before this update, hovering over the name of a household member who was ineligible for the selected program would display a tooltip saying, “Ineligible for Program.”
Now, the tooltip will display the reason that the client is ineligible, such as “Ineligible for Program due to ‘Age’” or “Ineligible for Program due to 'Gender.’”
- If the Eligibility Override toggle is enabled:
- The tooltip next to an ineligible household member’s name will still be displayed, but the toggle will no longer be read-only.
- If a user enrolls a client in a program for which the client is not eligible, the system will display the following pop-up:
“The following client(s) are not eligible for <Program Name> due to eligibility requirements but will be enrolled through the ‘Eligibility Override’ function enabled.”
<Client Name: Reason>
<Client Name: Reason>
Required Action: None.
Updated: “Created By Agency” Added to Encampment Profile
Admin users with Full System Sharing Access who are viewing an Encampment Profile in Outreach will now be able to see a Created by Agency field that displays the name of the agency that created the Encampment.
Required Action: None.
Notes:
- FY24 HMIS data element V1.12 DischargeStatus values can now be omitted (nullable) in HMIS CSV and XML uploaded via the DIT, and an error will not be logged.
- Previously, when a gender or race_ethnicity field with Data Quality Check = “Soft Required” was left unanswered, an invalid blank response was stored in the database. To ensure accurate reporting, those blank responses have been updated to null values.
We Welcome Your Ideas
We encourage you to suggest improvements and new features for our products. You can create feature suggestions or vote, watch, and comment on existing suggestions at ideas.bitfocus.com. Refer to our Feature Suggestions article for additional details.
New and Updated Help Center Content
We’ve either updated or created the following articles in response to this Clarity Human Services update.
Published: 05/20/2024