MN Dash to End Homelessness Bugfix Release and Roadmap
The newest version (v2022.1) of the Minnesota Dash to End Homelessness has been released. This new release includes two data quality bug fixes that we wanted to share with the community, along with an early roadmap of our upgrade and enhancement plans for the MN Dash in 2022.
Bugfixes in Release v2022.1
The first fix resolved an issue where, in some cases, clients missing information in the Race fields were not being included in the Not Available count on the Demographics Tab of the MN Dash. We updated these groupings and confirmed that those entries are now showing up as expected. Thanks to the hard work done to improve data quality and completeness within the Homeless Management Information System (HMIS), the overall impact of this fix is relatively small, but you will see some variation from previous versions of the MN Dash. For example, in the Race Demographics tab you will now see that Not Available entries are included and account for 3.73% of the total entries.
The second fix resolved an issue in which clients that had not been properly exited from closed providers were still showing up as active in the system well beyond our lookback date range. We have updated counts to no longer include clients within those providers. While this was an issue with only a few providers, most of whom were in Services Only projects, you will see evidence of this fix in several places on the MN Dash. We will look at the Front Page Total counts and on the System Movement Tab as two places where the update is very evident.
On the Front Page, Total Clients Served counts have decreased and counts for SSO projects have decreased significantly. This more accurately reflects the number of persons active in the system at this time.
Previous Dash (v2021.2)
Current Dash Release (v2022.1)
On the System Movement Tab, just as on the front page, total SSO client counts will see a decrease. Since these clients were never properly exited, they were appearing as “Stayed in the system” in the final section of the system movement tab. This has now been changed.
Previous Dash (v2021.2)
Current Dash Release (v2022.1)
This fix only removes clients with entries in closed providers outside our date lookup range. If these clients have received service elsewhere within the Homeless Response System (within the 4-year lookup range) and this was recorded in HMIS, they will continue to appear on the MN Dash in those projects.
Roadmap for the Future of the MN Dash
As some of you may have seen, we are currently working with our vendor on testing an upgrade to the Advanced Reporting Tool (ART) in Community Services. This tool provides the primary reports and data that MN Dash uses. As we work to test and update our data reports for use in this new tool, we are keeping MN Dash features and enhancements in mind. Once the ART upgrade is complete, we will begin work on the next MN Dash release with many of the feature enhancements that were suggested by the community last year.
Current Roadmap
2022 - Q1
MN Dash - Bugfix release v2022.1
Test and update the 030 Core and the 271 Returns to Homelessness reports as part of the ART upgrade process. These are the reports on which the MN Dash relies!
2022 - Q2
ART and base data updated and tested
MN Dash - Feature enhancement release
MN Dash Facilitation Guide updated to new release
2022 - Q3
Community feedback and planning for new feature enhancements
MN Dash - Ongoing bugfixes as needed
2022 - Q4
MN Dash – Feature enhancement release
As always, we value your collaboration, feedback and questions. Do you have an idea for a feature enhancement on the MN Dash? Do you think you have found a bug? We want to hear from you! You can fill out a feature enhancement request via our form (reference report MIN-01-DSH-286) or contact our helpdesk at mnhmis@icalliances.org with any questions.
Thank you!