Charitylog basics

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Charitylog is a software system for charities. There are two parts to the system:

  • The address book part
  • The case file part

The address book side is made up of fields which hold all the information about a person.

The case file side is all the information about the work done with/for that person.

Charitylog uses some terms that may be unfamiliar to you, or some terms that might be familiar but not quite mean the same thing. To get good data, it's important that everyone in AUKC is using the system in the right way. To get you started, here is a basic guide.

Glossary[edit | edit source]

Different Types of Organisations and People (the address book)[edit | edit source]

You might work with these on a day-to-day basis:

  • Client - someone who receives services from us.
  • Volunteer/Staff - someone who delivers services for us. If you're using the system, you're probably one of these.
  • Organisation - an organisation we work with. We might get Referrals from them, we might refer to them, or they might just be in our address book.
  • Professional - an individual we work with. They might be linked to an Organisation, or they might just be in the address book.

You'll see a couple more Types in the list too, which you probably won't need to work with directly:

  • Referrer - anyone who refers Clients to us. Some of the entries in the Referrers list are just categories - "Self Referral", "Family Member", "Friend" and so on. Some of the Referrers are Organisations. All of the categories will be added when the system is configured, and if an Organisation is also a Referrer, there's an option for this when you create the Organisation ("Is this Organisation also a Referrer?"). So you shouldn't ever need to add Referrers directly to the list.
  • Next of Kin - this is a person who has their own details on the system, but is only there because they are connected in some way to a Client. Emergency contacts, keyholders and so on might be listed as Next of Kins. You can create Next of Kins directly from Client pages, in the "NoK and Contacts" section, so you shouldn't need to add Next of Kins directly to the list either.
  • Donors - individuals will appear in this list when they have made a donation. There are some fields on Donor records to track donations and so on. Donor records will only be used by Brooke.

Different ways to record "work done" in Charitylog (the case file)[edit | edit source]

Contacts and Referrals (the main case file)[edit | edit source]

  • Contacts - these are one-off bits of work, i.e. a meeting with a client, a phone call on a client's behalf, etc. They are recorded thus:
    • by clicking one of the "Extra Info" buttons on someone's Contact History tab (most common way)
    • by clicking "New Referral" for a client (or for other Types of person too)
    • by clicking the "Update" button on the Action List or on someone's Contact History tab
  • Referrals - a Referral is the name Charitylog gives to "cases". Contacts sit under Referrals. A Referral can have one or many Contacts associated with it. Referrals are created by clicking the "New Referral" button for a client (or any other Type of person). This creates the Referral and also creates the first Contact for that Referral.

Referrals are linked to Projects. A Referral always sits under one (and only one) Project. A Referral cannot move from one Project to another.

  • Actions are "reminders". Users can create Actions for themselves or for other Users, and once created, they will appear in two places:
    • On the Action List
    • On the Contact History tab for the client that they relate to

Contacts and Referrals are the most important elements of Charitylog for producing reports. Actions are not usually reported on like Contacts are, because Contacts are work done, whereas Actions are just reminders.

Sometimes, recording Contacts doesn't quite suit the way a department works. Charitylog uses other "modules" to cater for this.


Clubs and Clinics[edit | edit source]

This module caters for the scenario where people attend something in a group, or attend in a series of timed appointment slots. In either case, recording a Contact for every person that's attended would be time consuming and inefficient, so the module lets you set up the club/clinic (the "group", the "trip" etc) and then record peoples' attendances in a batch.

Each club/clinic is linked to a Project.

  • The attendances are the main thing for reporting here. Reports can be produced about number of attendances over a time period, etc.
  • In order to attend, people need to be Members of the club/clinic. People are usually made into Members as part of the process of recording Contacts. On the "Record a Contact screen" there is an option to add the person to a club/clinic.

IMPORTANT: Attendances are not Contacts.


Roster jobs[edit | edit source]

This module caters for the scenario where workers are sent to do jobs for/with Clients. These are usually workers who don't log into Charitylog themselves, so it falls to a coordinator/manager to input data on their behalf about the work that they've done. Again, entering a Contact for every interaction between a worker and a Client would be too time consuming, so the Roster module works like this:

  • Each person who will receive services has a Roster Plan, which lists the services they will receive in any given week or month. For example, "befriending visit every Wednesday at 2.00 PM, to be delivered by Andrea".
  • The coordinator then creates Job Cards in batches. They choose a time period (say, next week) and the system looks at all the Roster Plans and creates Job Cards for everything that's relevant. So a Job Card is created that says "befriending visit, Wednesday 4th July, 2.00 PM, delivered by Andrea". The Job Cards sit on the system waiting to be updated. When they are created, their status is always "incomplete".
  • Individual Job Cards can be updated if jobs are cancelled etc...
  • ...then, any Job Cards where the job has proceeded as planned can be batch updated at the end of the chosen time period (the end of the week, etc) ti having been successfully "completed". Assuming that the majority of jobs go ahead as planned, this should save a lot of admin time.
  • The other option for completing Job Cards is that workers can use the Call-Round mobile app. This allows the worker to update their own Job Cards directly, changing them to "completed" (or "cancelled" etc) as they go. If workers are using Call-Round, the manager/coordinator will need to create the Job Cards as detailed above, but will not need to do the batch completion, because completion will already be done by the workers. At AUKC we're going to use the mobile app for At Home, but no other services.

IMPORTANT: Roster Jobs are not Contacts.