I founded Cloud for Good over 10 years ago and have witnessed firsthand a number of high-impact releases within the Salesforce ecosystem. Today, Salesforce.org announced its latest in a long line of revolutionary releases with the new Case Management and Program Management packages. Coupled with Cloud for Good’s brand new Human Services Accelerator, Salesforce.org’s new products will ensure Human Services organizations are in a great position to succeed and deliver on their missions.
I was fortunate to take part in the pilot groups for both of these new applications, actively providing feedback to help the product teams make improvements in each iteration. I truly believe that the final products released today will bring forth positive change within the nonprofit sector and the Salesforce ecosystem at large. Let’s dive into the details…
Case & Program Management Solutions
Salesforce’s Program Management Module helps to provide a unified framework for program managers who need to track, report, and observe their programs at a glance. These programs represent specific initiatives carried forth by various Human Services organizations, whether they be a food distribution program at a local food bank or a job training program at a homeless shelter. It should go without saying that the missions and operations of these Human Services organizations are more important now than ever before as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Our nation’s job market has plummeted, and millions of Americans have lost their jobs due to circumstances outside their control. As the world beings to heal and recover from this crisis, Human Services organizations will need the ability to manage the increased widespread need. I believe that these organizations will be turning to technology to help bolster their reporting effectiveness and increase their ability to serve our most vulnerable populations. There is much to get excited about within this release, here are my top 5 favorite features encompassing both program and case management.
1. Personalized Home Screen
Human Services case managers need to constantly track, measure, and evaluate the challenges their clients are facing. With the personalized case management home screen, these managers will now have access to all the information necessary to bettering their organization and accommodating the needs of their clients, all within one centralized, and most importantly, customizable location. The home screen includes clear metrics displaying the clients you helped this week, your tasks for the day, as well as your overall caseload. You can also add messages and announcements from your organization for fellow case managers to easily view and interact with. Events for the day, recently-logged incidents, a Utility Bar for Case Notes, and Client Search, as well as intuitive navigation buttons for contacts and notes, are all included within the new view.
2. Contacts Are Clients
Next up is the idea that Case Managers’ contacts are clients, as well. Rather than a standard contact screen, the top of each contact record is customized to provide quick access to vital client information. Not only is the most-needed information now readily available, it even comes equipped with the ability to create custom client IDs. This heightened control of interactions with client information will be hugely beneficial for the user experience and will save your organization both time and resources.
3. Case Plans
This is perhaps the most important new feature of the Case Management release: an easy and intuitive wizard allowing you to create Case Plans for clients with just a few clicks. These new Case Plans are akin to roadmaps used to track and achieve your goals. Developed by case managers and their clients, these plans grant access to both Goal and Action Item Templates set up for specific programs. One important facet of this new solution to note is that the Case Management solution does NOT use the standard Cases object. Instead, the new solution leaves the case object for Incident Management and more traditional Service Cloud cases. With these new Case Plans, you’ll see a clear, all-encompassing picture of your clients featuring several intuitive facets, such as Client Goals, Goal Progress, Advanced Notes, Topic Tagging, Topic Filtering, and more.
4. Program Management Tracked Visually
With this latest release, your Program Management tracking at the Program, Program Cohort, Service, and Service Delivery levels are clearly broken down through illuminating visuals. These visuals are available at the program level with built-in reports freely accessible for anyone looking for the details of services provided. Who received the service, how much they received, when it was delivered, and from whom it was provided by are now visualized succinctly and through a pleasing aesthetic. This new feature will be especially beneficial to Program Managers, for they are now able to track services, teams, and deliverables with increased transparency and a quickened measurement of success.
5. Service Deliveries
Lastly, we have the bulk Program Delivery feature tying the two components of Program Management and Case Management together. Through this new tool, Program Managers can set up the available programs and availability schedules for their programs, then the Case Managers can easily enroll clients into those clearly-defined services. From there, not only can clients be enrolled directly within the Programs Record and Client Record, but they can also now be enrolled in multiple programs simultaneously.
Combined with the Cloud for Good Human Services Accelerator, the possibilities opened up by this new release will have profound effects on Human Service organizations and the nonprofit sector as a whole. Here are just a few examples for how you can extend the product with our solutions:
Intake Process
The current release does not include the “beginning of the process” or the intake. That’s why Cloud for Good developed a powerful solution that would allow you to manage the initial intake of your clients directly from the Case Management product.
Target Matching
Salesforce’s system of truth compiles date from marketing, volunteering, programs, and much more. Through Cloud for Good’s Target Matching, organizations are able to use that curated data to create strong relationships founded on ranked matches based on your specific criteria.
Workshop Management Asset
Cloud for Good’s customizable workshop management solution is designed to work seamlessly with your nonprofit organization and the current release. Detailed program and workshop information can be tracked and then incorporated into the collection of online enrollment info, process fees, meeting management, attendance, and more.
Efforts to Outcomes Data Migration Accelerator
The ability to connect, integrate, and merge your many programs into one single source of truth is one of Salesforce’s greatest strengths. For those moving from Effort to Outcomes over to the Salesforce platform, Cloud for Good has created a to specifically extract, transfer, and load your data into your new Salesforce system without missing a beat.
I would like to thank Salesforce.org for their investment in the tools allowing these profound effects to take hold and for listening to the feedback of their pilot program. This feedback was not always aligned with the original plans for the packages, and they did a commendable job listening, evaluating, and making the necessary modifications. These solutions are adaptable to each nonprofits’ business processes and can accommodate even the most complex aspects of their programs, all while creating a standard, unified data model for their verticals. I can’t wait to see how our Cloud for Good clients do more good with these new tools.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
