Difference between revisions of "Quick Start Guide for System Administrators"

Revision as of 09:39, 6 May 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, our Support Advisor, 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. Depending on your needs and location, you might be working with one of our five trainers: Rob, Claire, David, Richard or Nigel.

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

Data Migration

You will need to fill in some Pre-Implementation Spreadsheets so that we can prepare your system for you. It is important that these are done early and thoroughly, as this will speed up implementation. If you need any help filling them in, please don't hesitate to give us a call on 01989 763 691 and we will be happy to help.

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

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

The best support you can give to your staff is to make the time available for them to take training. This might mean -

• Helping them to arrange work so that they have a full day free for training
• Lending them a laptop so that they can have a look at Charitylog at home
• Shutting the office for a day so that a large group of staff can receive training together

Another thing you can do is to let them know that they are not alone! Charitylog always works best when the staff team work together, so help and support them whenever you can, and direct them to our helpline whenever they need it.

Finally, it will really help the whole process if there is clear direction "from the top" that everyone is to use Charitylog, and timescales are clearly communicated. For this reason, we very strongly recommend that you email all staff after the first process mapping day, communicating the overall timescale for implementation. Your assigned trainer can discuss this with you on the first day.

We believe that using Charitylog should always result in less paperwork for an organisation. Therefore, if everyone uses the system, volunteers included, this will mean the organisation will benefit. Indeed, the more people in an organisation "take on" the system, the greater the organisation's chance of success. It is best not to pitch Charitylog as optional in any way. Rather, make it an organisation-wide change - "this is a new system which we are all going to move to". It sounds blunt, but having a definite decision like this will actually help staff get on board with the new system.

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?

• The training environment should be free from distractions. Training in the office/at desks is possible, but is likely to be less productive than working in a training room, because staff can be distracted by work. A meeting room is ideal.
• Ideally, everyone attending should have the use of a computer, so that they can practice.
• Sometimes your assigned trainer will require the use of a projector. They will discuss this with you beforehand.
• It is vital that the training venue has reliable, and reasonably fast, internet access.
• You will also need to make some lunch arrangements for the training. This doesn't need to be anything fancy, it can simply be a close sandwich shop for staff to go out to - but the arrival of lunch and cakes at the venue can be a great motivator for staff at lunch time!

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; an "Information & Advice" project 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.

What about end user training?

You may have noticed that there isn't very much "traditional" training listed above, where everyone sits at a computer and is taken through exercises with a trainer. There will be some of this - for example, it may well be appropriate to run a session like this near to the go-live date, to refresh everyone's memory about the basics like recording contacts, client searches and the Action List - but generally we try and keep this to a minimum. Your training time is precious and we find it is best spent getting the administrators up to speed and making sure that the service managers have plenty of input on how the system goes together.

End users should always be aware that the support line is there to help them, and of course this manual will help them to get around the system and refresh their knowledge whenever they need to.

Ongoing support

• You can call us in office hours on 01989 763 691 with any question, big or small. Please don't ever think that a question is too small to bother us with! We're here to help.
• You can also email us at support@charitylog.co.uk.
• You might like to consider booking a yearly training refresher with your assigned trainer.
• This manual is constantly updated, so do use it - each page on your Charitylog system has a button which will take users to related help content in the manual.

Data security and Data Protection issues

Charitylog is extremely secure. We firmly believe that because it is based online, Charitylog is more secure than any onsite solution, and is less open to mistakes/abuse.

• Data is transmitted through a secure connections (https) to a datacentre with very high levels of local security - there is no personnel access except for emergencies and maintenance.
• All backup is handled by this data centre, meaning you don't need to worry about making off-site backups.
• Access to your Charitylog system is always protected by two levels of username/password security. One is unique to your organisation, one is unique to each user.
• Administrators have full control over who has access to the system, including the ability to add or delete users, block IP addresses and block certain users at certain times.

In terms of the data protection issues around recording details of service users and contacts with them, you are probably already recording this data in many different forms, and Charitylog simply provides a way to centralise this data. However, implementing Charitylog often provides a natural time for an organisation to take stock of its data protection policies and to start taking formal consent from service users to store data, if it is not already doing so.

If your organisation has an umbrella body, they may have guidance on data protection which they can give you. For example, the PRTC has some excellent guidance for carer organisations.

If you have questions around data protection, please be aware that trying to address them in training days may not be the best use of training time. It is much more helpful if you can decide on your internal data protection policies and then discuss how to implement them on your system with your assigned trainer. Actually trying to assess and re-write data protection policies on a training day can take up a lot of time.

Escrow agreement and your own backup

Charitylog has a "backup" menu item, located in the Administration. This will allow you to download a complete copy of your data from the system. You do not need to use this in day-to-day activity, as all data is securely backed up by the data centre. This menu item is to be used in the event of your system becoming unsupported. We have a copy of our source code held by a solicitor. In the event of Charitylog becoming unsupported, you will be able to obtain a copy of our source code. By putting this together with a backup from your system, you will be able to restore your data and carry on working.

This backup item cannot be used without the source code. If you need to get figures and data out of your Charitylog system for reporting purposes, you can do so using the Reports menu item.