Welcome to the November 2019 issue of CLASS News

CLASS will be down on Friday 8 November

In our June CLASS News we let you know what we that working behind the scenes to update CLASS to make it more efficient and easier to use. We've been working with our developers and internally and wanted to give you an update of where things were at:

We said that in June we were going to test Release 6 and work on our FAQs. This has now been completed! Release 6 was released in July and our updated Helpdesk FAQs can be found here.

In July we were beginning a review on the CLASS training program. We've used your feedback from our CLASS User Survey and you can read all about our updated training here!

In August the National Community Legal Centre's Conference meant we were able to deliver 6 training sessions as well as having an on-site helpdesk. We also worked with our developers to refine the process to merge Centre data. Our first merge is due to happen mid-November. We also continued work on our API project. We have heard that Centres are keen to get the CLASS API to speak to other databases that they might be using, so we're working hard to get this project moving.

September and October were set to test our Field Fix tool. This has been delayed, but we expect to have this completed by the end of this month. Stay tuned for our next CLASS News for more info!

In October (and November!) we are working on optimising Microsoft Azure, we have enacted some necessary updates to the infrastructure to work towards better efficiency and security. We are continuing to work on Microsoft Azure, especially in relation to speed, as such we will be notifying you of any times we may need to take CLASS offline to perform maintenance throughout the month.

What's Next?
We're continuing to work on the API roll-out, we're also ready to reach out to Centres to deliver face to face training over the next few months, as well as finalising the Field Fix tool testing.

There's a lot of exciting work to be done, so watch this space!

On 8 November 2019, the CLASS Team plan to implement a series of formula changes to a number of CLASS Reports. These changes will result in the reports more accurately reflecting the intentions of the National Legal Assistance Data Standards.
 
State and Territory Associations have already been advised of the changes, and State Program Managers are set to be notified on Wednesday 23 October.
 
We anticipate that the following reports will be affected:
 

CLIENT REPORTS	SERVICE REPORTS	NPA REPORTS
C01 Clients by Priority Group (all) C02 Clients by Priority Group (%) C03 Clients by Priority Group (custom) C04 Clients by Priority Group (single) C05 Clients by Geographical Area C06 Clients by Law Type C07 Clients by Parent Level Funding Category	S01 Services for Individuals Count (Custom) S04.1 Services by High Level Problem Type S05 Services by Funding Category S10.1 Service Types by Reporting Period S13 Services and Targets by Financial Year	N03.1 NPA – Services Law Type N05 Services to Priority Clients (Custom)
AFFECTED COUNTS
Total Clients New Clients Repeat Clients	Total Clients New Clients Repeat Clients Existing Clients Referrals Ongoing Non-Legal Support Services	Total Clients New Clients Repeat Clients

We anticipate that there will be a trend whereby the counts for Total Clients, New Clients, Repeat Clients and Ongoing non-legal support services will appear to go down. While counts for Existing Clients and Referrals will appear to go up.
 
All other counts of Discrete Assistance (except for Ongoing Non-Legal Support Services), Duty Lawyer and Representation Services will be unaffected.
 
There are a number of reasons why we are implementing these changes now:

• The need to update the formulas was only identified once DIY Reports were fully implemented. This allowed comparison of DIY reports with the Standard Reports. DIY Reports were first implemented in September 2018.
• We now have a deeper understanding of the Legal Assistance Data Standards Manual as a result of our Data Consistency work and conversations with the Data Standards Working Group, particularly in relation to service definitions
• The re-examination of the Standard Reports picked up some inconsistencies in the way our developer implemented our instructions with the original versions of the standard reports
• We did not want to disrupt the current reporting round, both for Centres reporting to State/ Territory Governments as well as for State/ Territory Governments reporting under the NPA

CLASS will be taken offline at 10pm AEDT on Friday 8 November to roll out these changes. CLASS will be offline for most of the weekend, and back online on for Monday 11 November at 8am AEDT. A message will also be placed on the CLASS dashboard this week advising that CLASS will be down for the weekend for maintenance and rollout.

This is intended to be a short and easy to understand summary of the changes. For a more detailed explanation please visit our website.

Training
 

The CLASS team has been hard at work reviewing and improving our training. We received some amazing feedback at the National Community Legal Centres Conference in August, as well as from our CLASS User Survey.
 
Close to 50% of CLASS users who responded to our survey hadn’t been to a training session.
 
We’ve learned that different users want different things out of training. These are some of the things we’re working on:

• Customised online training for your Centre: We’re rolling out custom online training for Centres where we work with you to train your CLASS users on your specific workflow, teach you how to customise CLASS to better suit your individual Centre, help you set up DIY Reports, answer any questions you may have and much more. At the end of the training, we’ll even be able to send you a recording so you can use it as a training resource for staff and volunteers.
   
• Shorter training sessions on specific CLASS functions: We understand that it can be difficult to get all of your CLASS users to training sessions, so we’re rolling out a number of CLASS mini-sessions where we focus on one specific function of CLASS for a shorter amount of time – things like a 30 minute DIY Reports, Printable Templates or Customising CLASS. Our aim is to run more of these mini sessions to complement our full CLASS online user training. 

We are also very keen to come to your Centre and plan to visit different states over the next few months, if you would like to book a time for our CLASS experts to come out and train your staff and volunteers, please email alex.ariti@clcs.org.au

Remember CLASS is always evolving, so take the opportunity for a refresher course if it’s been a while!
 
DID YOU KNOW?
 
Need some time for us to train up a whole centre, but you might only need us for an hour?  Ask us to do it online! We can set up a webinar just for your centre and run everyone through intake, reporting, customising CLASS, DIY reports or anything else you might need. It is a great way to talk to us about the specific needs of your centre and get your whole centre more CLASS capable at once!

CLASS Languages and Country of Birth
 

Community Legal Centres and Family Violence Prevention Legal Services are on the front line of working with Australian Indigenous groups. We believe our sector is well placed to recognise when a new or improved language category is required.

Many Centres also work with new arrivals such as refugees and asylum seekers, many from disputed territories, and with clients who self-identify that they are from emerging or newly formed nations. Establishing accurate national and language options is very important all of us and especially clients. 

We know our sector needs to manage any changes together for accuracy and consistency. ​We also need the opportunity to discuss variances such as spelling.

This is why Community Legal Centres Australia are proposing to move to a new process for updating the Country of Birth (Countries) and Main Languages Spoken at Home (Languages) fields in CLASS with new and additional information:

• Centres can let us know any new Languages or Countries by calling or emailing the CLASS Helpdesk 
• CLCs Australia will notify the sector on proposed changes by email and on the CLASS Dashboard​
• A period of 2-3 weeks for discussion and feedback
• Once we have all reached an agreement, our Helpdesk can add the new options for all Centres on a national basis.

Please let us know if you have any feedback on our proposed process for including additional languages and countries. You can do this by emailing info@clcs.org.au.

Meet the new staff!

Reuben Johnson

Reuben has come to CLCs Australia with 7 years’ experience between the private practice and legal practice management software sectors, working across clerical work, software administration, data migration, and software development. Reuben’s pronouns are he/him or they/them.
 
In his spare time, Reuben writes and performs music and tends to his menagerie, which consists of 4 cats, 3 dogs, and 2 cockatiels.
 
Fun fact: Reuben won a cute baby photo competition and has been coasting on that achievement ever since.

 

Rhys Ambler

Rhys has joined the CLASS helpdesk for his first role in the legal sector after a career in IT system administration. Rhys only works Mondays and Wednesdays, spending the rest of the week as primary carer of his infant son, and when possible enjoying his yoga practice. Excited about pivoting his career direction, Rhys is bringing a similar but differentiated perspective to CLASS.  

 

Samuel Martin

Samuel previously spent nine years as a laboratory technician, before changing careers and is now happily working in the community legal industry as an I.T. guy. Samuel grew up in Sydney and has spent all of his life here. Samuel is constantly asking people if they have switched it off and back on again.

Data Consistency Guide

After extensive consultation with the sector, we have now uploaded a finalised Data Consistency Guide that provides much clearer descriptions of the different service types.  There are now also a range of resources including case studies, a Ready Reckoner - When you do more than legal advice, a Matrix of Services, and a Flowchart, all of which are designed to help Centres understand what service they are delivering.
 
With the help of CLCQ, we  prepared a presentation setting out the main areas of inconsistency and where we landed.
 
We recommend you have a look at the revised Data Consistency Guide and keep an eye out through CLASS news for information about upcoming training webinars based on the Data Consistency Guide.

As always, for CLASS advice, please contact CLASS Helpdesk 1300 484 498.

Data Informed Planning

We have developed the Data Informed Planning guide in consultation with Centres across Australia so that Centres can better use their data to inform their planning processes. It may be used by Centres of all sizes, metropolitan and regional/rural/remote centres, generalist and specialist centres.

Our guide will give you an in-depth look at how your Centre can use the Data-Informed Planning Toolkit.

We plan to run sessions for the Data Informed Planning Toolkit in the new year. Watch this space!