Revision as of 08:44, 3 April 2013

So, you've decided to go for Charitylog...what happens next?

First of all, congratulations and thank you!

You are probably already in touch with our staff team, but here's who you are likely to be dealing with and when.

• For the sale of your Charitylog system, you've probably been dealing with Ian, our MD.
• For ongoing support through the process, when you telephone us, you are likely to speak to Emily or Nigel, our Support Advisors, or Matt, our Support Manager.
• For implementation and issues around getting up and running, this will be handled by Jane, our Implementation Manager.
• For Data Migration, you will probably deal with Fiona, who is one of our programming team and specialises in data migration of existing systems to Charitylog.
• For your on-site training, you will be assigned a trainer who will guide you through the whole process. These trainers work across regions. If you're located in the South-East or London, you'll be working with Claire; in the South-West, Richard; The Midlands, David; and if you're located in the North or North-East, Rob.

Timescales

There is no "correct" timescale for implementing Charitylog, and it will depend on the size and scope of your organisation. For small organisations with one or two services, it is perfectly possible to complete all training in two or three days, and have the system live by the end of the training. For an organisation of significant size, we recommend at least six training days, but this is a minimum.

If your staff are going to carry on working as normal around the implementation, your training days should not be taken all at once, as there is a lot to take in on each day. Of course two days involving different groups of people can be taken together and this is often convenient.

Your assigned trainer will discuss your overall implementation timescale with you on the initial training/process mapping day, but we recommend it should take no longer than two or three months between initial process mapping and going live.

Implementing the system

Choosing your in-house administrators

You will need some staff to be in-house administrators of Charitylog. They will be able to control access rights, and configure the system the way you want it. These will be the people who are most involved in the training and implementation, and are also likely to maintain the system as time goes on. We suggest you should have at least three administrators. You might like to consider the following when choosing administrators.

Should you be on the administrator team yourself?

The vision of Charitylog is that the whole organisation uses the system to maintain their contacts and record their work, so we recommend that chief executives use the system along with everybody else.

Some CEs like to be involved in the running of the system, whereas some take a more hands-off approach, but we advise that you should have administrator rights, and should take some training so that you know your way around the system. This will help you understand the ways that your staff are trained to use the system.

Reporting needs

To be able to create the reports that you need, the right information needs to be put in at the start of the implementation process. Therefore, it is very useful if a service manager from each service/project is on the administration team. They may not administer every part of the system - they may end up focusing on their own service/project - but it is vital that each service "has a voice" during implementation.

IT literacy

It's not essential that all members of the administration team are skilled with computers, but if someone in the organisation is particularly good with them, it will probably help if they are on the team.

How you can support your staff

Data Migration

You may need to have data migrated into your new Charitylog system from an existing database, or more likely, a series of spreadsheets. For full details on this, please see the Data Migration Guide.

Training

Training will be carried out at your venue, or you are welcome to book an external venue if you feel it would make training more effective.

What do we need to provide to make training effective?

One computer per person
Projector
Fast internet access
Lunch arrangements

First training day

The first day will mainly be spent process mapping with your service managers, and showing your administrators around the system. The aim by the end of the first day will be -

• For your assigned trainer to have a good idea of how your whole organisation works. From this they can plan which parts of the system will need to be used and by which service.
• For your administrators to have a good idea of how the system works. They will not need to know every last detail, but they will have a broad overview.

Subsequent training days

Subsequent training days will be spent doing more targeted training within each service, with the service managers. This will involve setting up each service with the relevant parts of the Charitylog system. For example, a befriending service will probably make use of the "Volunteers" functionality; a "Help at Home" project is likely to use the Support Worker module; I&A may only use the Charitylog core... etc. The aim of each of these days will be to show the relevant staff around the parts of the system they need, and to make progress on setting up the live system. The aim will be that by the end of each day, the service manager and/or the adminstrators will be at least part way through the setup of their part of the system, and armed with all the relevant knowledge to complete it.

Going live

When you take the system live is entirely up to you, but the most important thing is that there needs to be a definite date when the whole organisation goes live. This will give all staff and administrators something to work towards. You might like to consider the following when setting a date to go live;

• Most organisations start their accounts and reporting on the 1st April. Therefore, some organisations choose to go live on a reporting quarter - i.e. April 1st, July 1st, October 1st or January 1st. This means there is a definite and immediate crossover from an older reporting system to your Charitylog system.
• It's best not to pick a date to go live when there are a lot of other things going on in the organisation, for example...
  • Summer holidays are a difficult time to go live, as staff tend to be away.
  • Christmas can also be difficult, for the same reason.

Having your assigned trainer present when going live

If at all possible, it is a great idea to have one of your training days dedicated to the day when you go live. This is because no matter how much training and practice staff do, there is no substitute for working with actual live data. The chances are that on the go-live day, everything will fall into place (even more so than it has by then) and staff will suddenly have a lot of further questions. Of course it is perfectly possible to just use the support line to answer these questions, but having your trainer on site is very beneficial if at all possible.

Ongoing support

Data Protection Issues

Software License Agreement