Transition of the State System Administrator

This article is to let you know of big changes taking place with the administration of Minnesota's HMIS. Similar messaging may have been communicated to you by your CoC Coordinator or others in the HMIS community.Background: Since 2003, we at Wilder Research have served as your State System Administrator for Minnesota's Homeless Management Information System (HMIS). We have worked on HMIS with many organizations, including the State of Minnesota, tribal representatives, other community members, and 200+ service providing agencies throughout the state. Our role in helping to launch and develop this system has been a proud accomplishment for Wilder Research.Change: Decision-makers for Minnesota's HMIS have notified us that they intend to transition to a new provider for HMIS administration. Over the next several weeks (exact timeline is pending), Wilder Research will cease providing these services. A new organization, yet to be named, will provide the system administration.Staff Update: All 10 of the staff assigned to HMIS at Wilder Research will eventually move on to other positions. As of Wednesday, 4/26, we have 5 staff remaining: Andrew Richter, Colleen O'Brien, Laura Birdsong, Nina Eagin, and Sharon Arch. Changes will continue to occur to this staffing in the upcoming weeks. Teresa Howard will continue to provide support to the HMIS project on an as-needed basis. Dol Hassan, Teresa Comer, Sarah Rogers-Tanner, and Grace Lee have left the HMIS project. We recognize many of you have come to know those who've left. We are happy to forward any messages to a specific team member. You can send messages to hmis@wilder.org.Our Staff Reduction - Impact on You: Rest Assured! Wilder is committed to making the transition as efficient and seamless as possible, and we will do our best to keep you informed about any changes that impact you. Wilder will continue to help users get the most out of our HMIS system.At the same time, the reduction in staff require us to discontinue some services and modify others. Here are some key things to know:Training

• We are offering Basic/New User Training - Online. Learn more here. This is the same content provided around Minnesota at our in-person New User Training. The online format, however, is divided into different video training allowing your path to be customized to your data entry at your agency.
• We are offering one more in-person New User Training (training is full), all other in-person New User Trainings have been cancelled for the time being. If we add any additional New User Trainings, we will post those trainings on our calendar at hmismn.org.
• All Refresher Trainings have been cancelled. We are no longer offering in-person Refresher Training. See our Videos to refresh your skills on certain topics!

User Support

• We will continue to operate the Helpdesk on Monday - Friday, 8:30am - 4:30pm. We will implement a new "triage" system that allows a team of 2 to respond to your emails based on a priority scale. More information to come in upcoming days!
• At your direction, we will setup new agencies, new provides, and close existing providers.

Communication

• We will communicate any staffing updates or user impacts of the transition to you as soon as possible.
• Your CoC Coordinators will also likely connect with you regarding the new State System Administrator (SSA) decision.

RestructureWe are working to finish up a number of pieces that remain for the database restructure. You probably haven't heard much about this, but we've been working hard behind the scenes as this restructure will allow for community-wide reporting! We look forward to seeing this long-held dream come to fruition either through our team or through your next State System Administrator!