HMIS Training: ShelterPoint
This page is specific to HMIS users who will only being using ServicePoint’s “ShelterPoint” module to manage clients and beds (or slots for a project like a day shelter or storage project). After reading this page entirely and trying your best to work through the process, you can easily ask for help or answers to your questions by contacting Will King at this email address: hmis@louhomeless.org.
What ShelterPoint does:
ShelterPoint expedites the process for getting clients into a bed/slot for your project. It is a bed management software module for ServicePoint. It is easy to use.
For the Louisville Continuum of Care, our Single Point of Entry office makes bed reservations for our high volume shelters at Salvation Army, Wayside and St. Vincent DePaul. So most ShelterPoint users at the agencies just mentioned simply “accept” a reservation for a client which places them in a bed at their shelter. The HMIS user will be able to review the client’s data (demographic, living situation, income, disabilities, health insurance, etc…) at that point and it is crucial that the data be evaluated so that erroneous data is corrected and any changes to the data be updated. Clients are enrolled into the beds to create a bed-list. The following morning, after clients have announced whether they will stay or leave, the “transmit checkout list” button is used to exit clients who will not be coming back. The HMIS user who is transmitting the checkout list will need to make sure that clients who have asked to stay do not have checkboxes by their names (which would remove them from the project and bed). That’s basically it.
So in short:
- Log into your HMIS ShelterPoint Project
- Accept the reservation made by Single Point of Entry
- Verify and update if need be the client’s data on the “CoC and ESG Entry Assessment” form.
- Continue compiling your clients into the bed-list for the day.
- The following day, use the “Transmit Checkout List” button to select the clients who will stay and who will go.
- Clients who have been allowed to stay will remain in their bed on your bed-list.
- Done.
This is the process for ShelterPoint licensing and access:
- Submit a request for training to hmis@louhomeless.org. Please use the subject line “ShelterPoint Training Requested”. Specify the names of the trainees, the agency and the projects they need access to.
- Download the 2018 KYHMIS External Policies and Procedures. Please print out the last page of this document. Initial the designated area followed by your signature, your printed name and the date. Scan/email/fax/mail the last page of the form. Email to: hmis@louhomeless.org. Fax to: 502-636-9950. Mail to:
Coalition for the Homeless
1300 South 4th Street
Suite: 250
Louisville, KY 40208
ATTN: HMIS Admin
This will need to be turned in to the system administrator before your live site license can be created. - User names and passwords for the training site will be created and emailed to you and/or your trainees. You can sign in after you watch the below video to practice or sign in and follow along as you watch the video.
- Watch the ShelterPoint video below.
- It is highly encouraged that you use the HMIS/ServicePoint training site to practice what you learned in the video.
- When you are comfortable with ShelterPoint, send an email to hmis@louhomeless.org, state that you have watched the video training and are ready for your live site license to be activated.
- If your license is being transferred from another employee, then no invoicing will need to occur. If you are requesting a new license, the invoice will need to be paid before the license is made active.
The URL for our training site is: https://sp5.servicept.com/kentucky_demo
This database mirrors our live site but only contains fake clients, so it is a great sandbox area for you to acclimate yourself to HMIS. You can’t hurt anything.
NOTE: After signing in for the first time with the password that the HMIS Administrator gave you, the system will prompt you to create your own password. Enter this in twice and be aware of the password requirements. Passwords expire every 60 days and HMIS will prompt you to change your own password. Most importantly, if you try to log in with the wrong password or user id, after 3 attempts you will permanently be locked out of the system until you ask the System Administrator to reset your password. It is highly likely that someone at your organization has rights to do this. So it’s worth asking fellow staff if they know now to do this. Towards the bottom of this page, under “HMIS Resource Documents” you will find the “HMIS Support/Help Contact Info” document and that will explain how to best contact your HMIS system administrator. And you can also email the address at hmis@louhomeless.org.
After watching the ShelterPoint Workflow Training Video, please watch the one on “Subassessments” so that you understand how to document changes that occur with income, non-cash benefits, Health Insurance and Disabilities.
Additional Video:
HMIS Resource Documents
ShelterPoint Workflow 2018 (Word)