HMIS Reporting Tool Transition Planning

Tools change. Technology changes. Some parts of HMIS may change soon. ICA will be there to guide the way.

ICA and the HMIS Governing Board would like to update our community on the latest with HMIS reporting tools, ART and Qlik:

ICA is preparing for the eventuality of an HMIS reporting tool transition. Today our current reporting tool, ART, is functional; however, there are signs of instability. While ART does not have a sunset date, WellSky, the software vendor who develops ServicePoint and its related products, has stopped ART development. WellSky’s replacement for ART, Qlik, has been under development for five years but is not yet a viable HMIS reporting tool option. As ICA prepares for a reporting tool transition, we want our users to know what will stay the same, what may change, and how ICA will communicate those changes.

It is critical to know that data entry will not change. ART is distinct from the HMIS interface.  HMIS reports are used, broadly, to prioritize individuals and families seeking housing and shelter; to monitor and assist data quality; to describe a client, program, or region’s characteristics; to meet funding requirements; and to understand system performance. Depending on the use case, programs would be affected differently by an outage or transition.  For example, HUD CoC-funded programs pull HMIS data through the APR, which is unaffected by ART, while all state program and Coordinated Entry priority list report templates are custom ART builds and would need to be recreated. ICA would triage report template recreation and delivery by the report’s impact on sheltering and housing clients.

By vetting alternatives now, ICA can better inform transition planning. To perform due diligence and proactively limit loss of reporting functionality, we will continue researching and prototyping alternative methods.  We will do so while asking the community and ourselves what we most need to see and understand from HMIS data.

We commit to informing our community on progress, findings, and risk to the CoCs, State partners, Tribal Collaborative, and end users; the HMIS Governing Board will be our primary communication venue.

The HMIS Governing Board will soon pursue strategic planning, imagining what the community wants its HMIS to be in the coming years. When this begins, we hope you will participate in this community discussion and share your concerns, must-haves, and ideas. You’ll hear more from the board in the coming weeks.

For more information and FAQs, please read on.